Piranesi: Complete Etchings
by Luigi Ficacci
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Description
The most famous 18th-century copper engraver, Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) made his name with etchings of ancient Rome. His startling, chiaroscuro images imbued the city's archaeological ruins with drama and romance and became favorite souvenirs for the Grand Tourists who traveled Italy in pursuit of classical culture and education. Today, Piranesi is renowned not just for shaping the European imagination of Rome, but also for his elaborate series of fanciful prisons, Carceri, show more which have influenced generations of creatives since, from the Surrealists to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Edgar Allan Poe, Jorge Luis Borges, and Franz Kafka. Loosely based on contemporary stage sets rather than the actual dingy dungeons of Piranesi's day, these intricate images defy architectural reality to play instead with perspective, lighting, and scale. Staircases exist on two planes simultaneously; vast, vaulted ceilings seem to soar up to the heavens; interior and exterior distinctions collapse. With a low viewpoint and small, fragile figures, the prison scenes become monstrous megacities of incarceration, celebrated to this day as masterworks of existentialist drama. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Beautiful engravings from a complete lunatic; easy to see why Coleridge loved him.
A nice collection of all of Piranesi’s prints in publication order with some minor information about each collections printing. Images need to be larger to understand a lot of the detail. I particularly like the Carceri series. Fortunately for ya’ll the St. Louis Public Library has all of the plates scanned with zoom function on its website.
Italy - art, Etching, artists
Dec 16, 2007Tagalog
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15 Works 933 Members
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Piranesi: Complete Etchings
- People/Characters
- Giovanni Battista Piranesi
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- Members
- 375
- Popularity
- 83,232
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (4.08)
- Languages
- 5 — English, German, Italian, Multiple languages, Spanish
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 9
- ASINs
- 3
