Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (Venice, August 30, 1727 - Venice, March 3, 1804) was an Italian painter and printmaker in etching.

Giandomenico was the son of Giambattista Tiepolo, brother of younger Lorenzo, grandson of Francesco Guardi and Gianantonio Guardi, being the mother of Giandomenico, Maria Cecilia Guardi, sister of the two vedutisti. His famous father, a well-known painter, descended from a modest family with nothing to do with the rich noble Venetian Tiepolo.

At the age of 13 he became a part of his father's shop and at the age of 19 he was received by then pastor of the Church of San Polo, Bartolomeo Carminati, the task of painting in the oratory of the Crucifix of that church the series of Stations of the Via Crucis, reproduced Subsequently in fourteen sheets engraved with watercolors between 1748 and 1749.

In 1748 he also painted the Healing of Oxen at the church of San Francesco di Paola.

From the end of 1750 to the spring of 1753 he was with his father, in Bavaria, in Würzburg, to deal with the decorations of the "residence" by Karl Philipp von Greiffenklau, bishop of the Holy Roman Empire. On this occasion he was granted the autonomy in the execution of the superpowers ("Righteous Legislator", "Constantine Defender of the Faith", "St. Ambrose rejects the Emperor Theodosius"). The prince bishop dedicated in 1753 the twenty-four engravings of the album of "Pittorical ideas over the escape into Egypt of Jesus, Mary and Joseph ...".

When he returned to Venice he approached the shop of Pietro Longhi and his uncle Francesco Guardi. Between 1753 and 1754 he executed the minuet.

Between 1754 and 1755 he painted the Apotheosis of Saints Faustino, Giovita, Benedetto and Scolastica for the presbytery of the church of Saints Faustino and Giovita in Brescia, probably on his father's plan. The great fresco was completed by the two side panels, also frescoes, with the Martyrdom of Saints Faustino and Giovita and the intervention of the patron saints in Brescia defended by Nicolò Piccinino. Certainly contemporary in the scenes of the presbytery is the decorative cycle of the studio of the Abbot, always in the monastery of Saints Faustino and Giovita.

In 1757 he worked in the Villa Valmarana "Ai Nani" in Vicenza, where he made all the frescoes together with his father. This is considered to be Giandomenico's most famous work. [No source] In particular, he dedicated himself to the forestry, where he departed from the more classical fatherly style to assume a more modern, inspired by enlightenment. Some of the scenes painted here were definitely precarious for the tastes of the time (the Farmer's Hall, painted during their hard day's work, the Cineserie Room, which followed the fashion of the times).

In 1759 he began the decoration of the family villa in Zianigo di Mirano, which interrupted to go to Udine where he performed a biblical subject at the Oratorio della Purità.

In 1761 he frescoed with his father the rooms of Villa Pisani of Stra.

In 1762, he was again called with his father in Madrid by Charles III Bourbon, King of Spain, to paint the Glory of Spain at the Royal Palace, and the Stations of the Via Crucis for the church of San Filippo Neri. At the death of his father (1770), Giandomenico will return to Venice leaving his brother Lorenzo in Madrid.

In 1772 he was appointed master of the Academy of Venice, the current Gallerie dell'Accademia and in 1783 he became President.

In 1789 he painted Palazzo Contarini of Venice with themes and style acquired by his father.

In 1791 he returned to Zianigo where he frescoed the family villa; The frescoes, after being ripped out in 1906, are now preserved in the Ca 'Rezzonico palace in Venice. In these years he produced a series of drawings devoted to the "Fun for Kids Cards n.104", recapturing the Pulcinella character, already present in the sketches of the father, and making the parody of the Venetian society.

Giandomenico Tiepolo died in Venice on March 3, 1804.

Style:
His painting style developed after the death of his father in 1770, at which time he returned to Venice, and worked there as well as in Genoa and Padua. His painting, though keeping the decorative influence of his father, moved from its spatial fancy and began to take a more realistic depiction. His portraits and scenes of life in Venice are characterised by movement, colour, and deliberate composition.

After a lapse of 15 years, his work developed from the religious and mythological subjects of his father to a more secular style. He produced 104 sketches of Punchinello, the standard character of the commedia dell'arte (which would later become Punch in Punch and Judy), a physically deformed clown. These were created as 'Entertainments for the Children', and attempted to poke fun at the pretensions and behaviour of the viewer.

The same protagonist featured in frescos (1759-1797) in his villa di Zianigo near Mirano. These frescoes were detached and nearly sold to be sold in France, but the then Minister of Public Education, blocked the export and acquired them for the city of Venice. Since 1936, they have been on display, in a near replica of the original arrangement, in the Ca Rezzonico Museum on the Grand Canal. The frescoes have undergone recent restoration. The scenes depict often cryptic events, part genre and part epic-farce, of crowds of Pulcinellos at play and work, as well as a carnival scene. The genre thematic and humor are strikingly different from the grand epic apotheoses painted his father.

Many of Domenico's works are drawings with ink wash, and he was a fine draftsman, although weaker than his father. His St. Ambrose Addressing the Young St. Augustine sketch is typical of the commissions he would receive. St. Ambrose, with the crozier and mitre, addresses and gives religious instruction to the beardless Saint Augustine. The composition has the pomp and grandiosity of his father's work, set out as if part of a theatrical display. He, however, takes 18th-century Venice as the setting for this 4th-century act, drawing on his experience of the city and his many works depicting life in it.

Domenico was also a significant printmaker in etching, often reproducing his own or his father's paintings. Nevertheless, he produced an original series of twenty illustrations of the Flight into Egypt, and one of the fourteen Stations of the Cross.
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