The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (477 page)

(1768 or 1770–1844).
Danish sculptor, next to
Canova
the most celebrated sculptor of the
Neoclassical
movement. After five years at the Academy in his native Copenhagen, he reached Rome in 1797 on 3 March, a day which he henceforth considered as his birthday. He made his name with the statue
Jason
(Thorvaldsens Mus., Copenhagen, 1802–3), which was based on the
Doryphoros
of
Polyclitus
, and his growing reputation resulted in so many commissions that by 1820 he had forty assistants in his Roman workshop. In that year, when visiting Copenhagen, he began planning the decoration of the newly built church of Our Lady with marble statues and
reliefs
, a scheme which was to be his principal task for several years. His other major works include the tomb of Pius VII at St Peter's in Rome (1824–31) and a monument to Lord Byron (Trinity College, Cambridge, 1829). He returned finally to Denmark in 1838, a celebrity whose authority in the arts was sovereign. In Copenhagen a museum was built in his honour (1839–48), itself a remarkable piece of neo-antique architecture, the courtyard of which contains his tomb. Thorvaldsen aimed at reviving the sublimity of Greek sculpture, but he never went to Greece and (in common with other artists of his time) bestowed his admiration mainly on late
Hellenistic
or Roman copies. He did, however, gain close knowledge of Greek sculpture from the restorations he made to the recently excavated sculptures from the Temple of Aphaia in Aegina, which in 1816 passed through Rome on their way to Munich (they are now in the Glyptothek there); Thorvaldsen's restorations have only recently been removed. Compared with Canova he is cool and calculating; his sculptures are more logically worked out and have great precision and clarity, but they lack Canova's sensitive surfaces. Thorvaldsen was one of the outstanding collectors of his day, buying works by contemporary painters (notably the
Nazarenes
) as well as ancient works (now in the Thorvaldsens Museum).

 
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(1606–69).
Flemish painter, engraver and designer of tapestries, a pupil and collaborator of
Rubens
. Although like most contemporary painters of historical and religious themes he was strongly influenced by Rubens , he did succeed in working out a personal idiom. His appealingly sweet style won him numerous commissions both inside and outside Flanders, and he worked in The Hague and Paris, as well as Antwerp, where he was mainly based.

 
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(1527–96)
. Italian
Mannerist
painter, sculptor, and architect. He was in Rome in the late 1540s and early 1550s, and his style in painting, distinguished by grand, if sometimes rather ponderous, figures, was based mainly on the work of
Michelangelo
, for whom he had a lifelong admiration. His finest paintings are frescos illustrating the story of Ulysses (
c.
1555) in the Palazzo Poggi (now University), Bologna. From the mid 1560s Tibaldi worked mainly as an architect, chiefly in and around Milan, where he was much employed by the Archbishop, Charles Borromeo , and was appointed chief architect to the cathedral in 1567. In 1587 he went to Madrid in order to superintend building operations at the
Escorial
and did sculpture and a vast amount of paintings for its decoration. His work there was influential in the development of Spanish Mannerism. He returned to Milan, ennobled by Philip II, in the year of his death.

 
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(1696–1770)
. The greatest Italian (and arguably the greatest European) painter of the 18th cent. His work sums up the splendours of Italian decorative painting, and with him the monumental fresco tradition which had begun with
Giotto
is brought to an end. He revived the glories of the Venetian School, especially of
Veronese
, and enriched them with the experience of the Roman and Neapolitan
Baroque
and the new
perspective
techniques of theatre decoration. His deep pictorial culture was drawn from a wide variety of sources, including
Rubens
,
Rembrandt
, and
Dürer
. Tiepolo trained with the history painter Gregorio Lazzarini (1655–1730), but according to his earliest biographer, Vincenzo da Canal, he soon departed from his master's ‘diligent manner, and, being all fire and spirit, adopted one which was rapid and free’. After making his name in Venice with some works in the ‘dark’ manner of
Piazzetta
, he carried out his first important fresco cycle in the Archbishop's Palace in Udine (
c.
1727–8) and with the change from oil to fresco he broke away from the dark tonality of his earliest work and established the clear, sunny palette which became one of his foremost characteristics. In the 1730s much of his work was done outside his native city, and by 1736 his fame was such that he was invited to Stockholm to decorate the Royal Palace—an invitation he declined because the fee offered was too small. Between 1741 and 1750 Tiepolo was active mainly in Venice, where his chief work was the decoration of the
Palazzo Labia
(1745), in which he was assisted by his expert in
quadratura
, Gerolamo Mengozzi Colonna (
c.
1688–1766).
The next decade represents the peak of Tiepolo's career. In 1750–3 he was in Würzburg to decorate the Kaisersaal and the grand staircase of the Prince Archbishop's palace, and this work is the masterpiece of his maturity. Like Rubens, Tiepolo could make even the most ponderous allegory come alive, and here the unpromising task of paying tribute to the lack-lustre Prince Archbishop brought forth his most glorious work—full of light and colour and perfectly attuned to the superb architectural setting. In 1757 Tiepolo decorated a series of rooms in the Villa Valmarana near Vicenza, with scenes from Homer, Virgil, Ariosto, and Tasso, and this work gives perhaps the most immediate experience of his qualities: grandeur, rich and glowing colour, and fancifulness warmed by humanity in the narrative. His last large-scale work in Italy was the ceiling of the ballroom in the Villa Pisani at Strà. While there he was called by Charles III to Madrid, where he spent the last eight years of his life. The
Apotheosis of Spain
(1764) on the ceiling of the throne room in the royal palace was his principal commission. Intrigue and jealousy embittered these last years in Madrid, and the final blow was dealt posthumously when his seven altarpieces for the church of S. Pascal Baylon at Aranjuez were displaced by seven canvases done by
Mengs
, the champion of
Neoclassicism
(Mengs is said to have fallen from a tree whilst lying in wait to attack the aged Tiepolo, but Tiepolo—with characteristic nobility—saw to it that his rival was treated in hospital). Tiepolo's altarpieces are now divided between the Prado and the Royal Palace in Madrid, and the surviving oil-sketches for them are mainly in the Courtauld Institute Galleries, London. They display a pathos and psychological intensity that was new to his art. He had painted easel pictures as well as frescos throughout his career, and a work such as the ravishing
Young Woman with a Macaw
(Ashmolean Mus., Oxford,
c.
1760) shows the masterly fluency of his brushwork. Tiepolo was as prolific a draughtsman as he was a painter (an outstanding collection of his drawings is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London) and was one of the finest etchers of his period;
Goya
was especially indebted to his graphic work.
Tiepolo was married to Cecilia Guardi , the sister of the
Guardi
brothers. They had two painter sons.
Giandomenico Tiepolo
(1727–1804) began to assist his father
c.
1745 and accompanied him to Madrid. He was so faithful to his father's work that it is sometimes impossible to say exactly where he has collaborated. In his independent work he has a clearly defined style with a marked bias towards
genre
and
caricature
, e.g. at the Villa Valmarana. He is noteworthy also for his etchings, especially the twenty-two variations on the theme of the
Flight into Egypt
(1753).
Lorenzo Tiepolo
(1736–before 1776) also assisted his father, but unlike his brother Giandomenico he has no individual substance as an artist.