Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo is a Venetian Rococo painter and engraver, last great figure of Italian decorative painting whose vast luminous frescoes celebrate the glory of monarchies and the Church with unequaled theatrical virtuosity. Heir to the Venetian colorist tradition of Veronese, he develops an aerial style characterized by vertiginous ascending compositions, luminous and pearly colors and absolute mastery of illusionistic perspective that opens ceilings onto infinite skies populated with divinities. His frescoes for palaces and princely residences of Italy, Germany and Spain, notably the Würzburg Residence and Madrid Royal Palace, create dazzling visual spectacles where architecture, painting and sculpture merge in a celebration of aristocratic power and mythological imagination. Last great Baroque decorator before the Neoclassical revolution, his luminous and optimistic art embodies the apogee of European Rococo and closes with splendor the tradition of great Italian decorative painting initiated in the Renaissance.