Venetian Urgency and Grace

(The Morgan Library & Museum) 

by Robert Edward Bullock, Special to the Sun

Venice catches our attention with a strange, opulent theatricality, like brightly colored banners fluttering in the afternoon sun. In Tiepolo, Guardi, and Their World: Eighteenth-Century Venetian Drawings, which opened on Friday September 27, The Morgan Library and Museum looks at the role of drawing in the city which became an epicenter of international arts patronage as its political power attenuated and died. 

Over 100 works from The Morgan's vast collection provide a sweeping assessment of the achievements of this period with names that are practically synonymous with Venice --- Giambattista and Domenico Tiepolo, Canaletto, the Guardis, along with Piranessi, Gaspar Diziani, Francesco Tironi, and others. 

The exhibit opens with Sebastiano Ricci's "Two Angels", a modest-size drawing in ink and wash over charcoal, strangely beautiful for the sculptural form the figures possess, intensely present yet otherworldly. From Pietro Longhi's poetic "Pastoral Landscape" to the bucolic nostalgia of Marco Ricci's "A Roman Capriccio", the exhibit spans scenes of daily life and fanciful compositions, preparatory studies for commissioned works and independent finished pieces.

Of the nine works by Giovanni Battista Piazetta (1682-1754), "Portrait of a Girl with a Pear" and "Young Woman with a Tambourine" stand out for their meticulous description .....

(read the full review at The New York Sun)

                                   ^ Marco Ricci, 1676-1729, "A Roman Capriccio" (The Morgan Library & Museum)

^ Giovanni Battista Piazetta, 1682-1754, "Young Woman with a Tambourine" (The Morgan Library & Museum)

                             ^ Francesco Guardi, 1712-1793, "View of Levico in the Valsugana" (The Morgan Library)

                                     ^ Canaletto, 1697-1786, "Architectural Capriccio" (The Morgan Library & Museum)

       ^ Giovanni Battista (Giambattista) Tiepolo, 1696-1770, "Psyche Transported to Olympus" (The Morgan Library & Museum)

^ Giovanni Battista (Giambattista) Tiepolo, 1696-1770, "Virgin and Child Seated on a Globe"

                                                           (The Morgan Library & Museum)

^ Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, 1726?-1804, "The Holy Family Arrives at the Robber's Farm"

                                                          (The Morgan Library & Museum)

                                 ^ Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, 1726?-1804, "The Last Illness of Punchinello"

                                                                  (The Morgan Library & Museum)