The Pyramid of Gaius Cestius, from Views of Rome, 1750/59, published 1800–07.The Lion Bas-Reliefs, plate 5 from Imaginary Prisons, 1761.The Pier with a Lamp, plate 15 from Imaginary Prisons, 1761.The Giant Wheel, plate 9 from Imaginary Prisons, 1761.Pancrazio, from Views of Rome, 1776, published 1800–07 View of Ponte Lugano on the Anio, from Views of Rome, 1763, published 1800–07.The Art Institute’s drawings Palatial Courtyard with a Fountain and Six Figures are examples of his energetic penmanship that showcase his talent for depicting complex architectural spaces and animated human figures. Produced with the tourist market in mind, these iconic images of exaggeratedly scaled buildings remain important documents of the mid-18th-century Roman urban landscape.Īlthough mainly known as a printmaker,with over a thousand print designs produced during his 40-year career, Piranesi was also an original draftsman. The Art Institute has complete sets of both editions.įirst appearing in the 1740s, Piranesi’s Vedute di Roma ( Views of Rome), a series of 135 prints published over the course of more than 30 years, revolutionized the way in which both ancient monuments and the modern cityscape of Rome were depicted. After printing a first edition around 1749–50, Piranesi thoroughly reworked the plates for a second edition in 1761, making all the designs more ominous and adding two new compositions. In this series of 14 large etchings Piranesi used his knowledge of Roman architecture and stage design to create cavernous vaulted interiors populated by diminutive figures, labyrinthine staircases and balustrades, and eerie machinery. ![]() After a few visits to Venice in the 1740s,during which he probably met the influential painter and etcher Giambattista Tiepolo, he permanently settled in Rome, where he published his most well-known work: the Carceri ( Imaginary Prisons). Trained in Venice in architecture and engineering, Piranesi was a pioneer in archaeology, and through the wide dissemination of his prints, he became one of the most influential architects, designers, and printmakers of the 18th century.Īfter moving to Rome at the age of 20, Piranesi established professional links with the artist Giovanni Paolo Panini and the architect and surveyor Giambattista Nolli. The exhibition comprises the complete sets of the first and second edition of Piranesi’s Carceri from the National Gallery of Victoria collection, and Vik Muniz’s series of eight photographs after Piranesi’s Prisons on loan from Sikkema Jenkins Gallery, New York.The Italian artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi is best known for his numerous etchings depicting the monuments of ancient and modern Rome. His large photographs invite the viewer to look anew at Piranesi’s iconic images, and simultaneously, to explore Muniz’s artful constructions. A photograph of these constructions is the end product of Muniz’s work. ![]() ![]() In his Prisons, after Piranesi series Muniz replicates the etched lines of the Prison images with thread, which is wound around hundreds of pins on a cardboard surface. Muniz works between drawing and photography, recreating iconic images from the work of past masters including Rembrandt, Goya and Piranesi in a range of unusual but significant media, such as chocolate, sugar, dust, wire and string. ![]() This exhibition brings together the first and second edition of Piranesi’s Prison series with eight photographs made in 2002 by the Brazilian-born, New York based artist Vik Muniz. Returning to the series a decade later Piranesi substantially reworked the images, transforming the loose, lightly etched prints of the first edition into darker images full of shadows, torture instruments and prisoners. Piranesi’s innovative approach to the medium of etching is matched by his formal investigations into the representation of pictorial space, resulting in compositions that revel in ambiguity. As the title of the series suggests, the prints represent views of imaginary prisons, depicted as vast yet claustrophobic environments populated by tiny figures. The breathtaking originality of Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s dramatic series of etchings, the Imaginary Prisons (Carceri d’invenzione), has remained a source of inspiration and fascination for artists, writers and architects since they were first published in Rome in the mid-eighteenth century.
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