TIEPOLO, Giovanni Domenico
(b. 1727, Venezia, d. 1804, Venezia)

The Promenade

1791
Detached fresco, 200 x 170 cm
Museo del Settecento Veneziano, Ca' Rezzonico, Venice

This fresco comes from the Tiepolo family house (villa) at Zianigo, between Padua and Venice. Gian Domenico's fresco cycle has been detached and is now preserved in the Ca' Rezzonico. This scene decorated the portego or gallery-salon of the family villa.

Here Gian Domenico reverts to the treatment of composition which his father brought to a similar scene in the Villa Valmarana near Monteberico (dated to 1737 or 1757). But here he amplifies the original conception into a wider view in keeping with his own enlarged horizon, shifting things on to a new plane of visual perspective. Broad expanses of hazy brown set off the vivid figures from the cold hues of the surroundings. Gian Domenico moves these images into close contact with their setting, lodging them, like other 'paternal archetypes' of his, in an empirical space.

The scenes from life represented appear under a new and novel aspect of landscape and environment.

The elegant lady promenading on the arms of her husband and beau is also accompanied by her favourite lap dog held by a man servant. It is the artist's clear intention to achieve verisimilitude in the portrayal of people and things.




© Web Gallery of Art, created by Emil Krén and Daniel Marx.