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This publication is issued in conjunction with the exhibition Giambattista Tiepolo, 1696–1770, presented on the three-hundredth anniversary of the artist's birth. It is organized by the Soprintenza ai Beni Artistici e Storia di Venezia, The Assessorato all Cultura del Comune di Venezia, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, not as a chronological survey but as a demonstration of Tiepolo's achievement and the enormous variety within his oeuvre. Following a section devoted to his formation and early career, the contours of which have assumed greater clarity through research accumulated during the last two decades, there are sections treating various aspects of his production. For those who know Tiepolo only as a decorative artist—genial magician who casts an enchanted and enchanting spell with his poetic tales culled from Ariosto and Tasso—the seriousness of his religious painting will come as a revelation. Not since Titian and Tintoretto had Venice seen a talent for transforming the laconic stories of the Bible and of the saints into a dramatic narrative. The richness and diversity of Tiepolo's imagination have long seemed to many the most modern aspect of his genius, and the last section of this exhibition has been conceived as a celebration of these traits. [This book was originally published in 1996 and has gone out of print. This edition is a print-on-demand version of the original book.]
