From Titian to Tiepolo at the Städel Museum

Frankfurt, Germany - The exhibition “From Titian to Tiepolo.  Venetian Drawings in the Städel Museum” is the result of a two-year research into the Städel’s collection of 300 Venetian drawings.  With a representative selection of 90 of the most important sheets from these holdings, which are now presented to the public for the first time, the show offers a survey of the Venetian art of drawing from the 15th to the 18th century.  The exhibition encompasses drawings with a variety of functions such as figure studies, drafts for altar and ceiling paintings, independent pictorial compositions, portraits, landscapes, and vedute.  Focusing on works of the 16th and 18th centuries accords with the two flowerings of Venetian art: the presentation includes works by Titian and Tintoretto as representatives of the 16th century as well as works by the great masters of the 18th century like Giambattista and Giandomenico Tiepolo, Piazzetta, Canaletto, and Francesco Guardi.  The body of drawings by Gaspare Diziani, a once famous, then forgotten, and recently rediscovered historical painter and contemporary of Tiepolo, will certainly be regarded as one of the revelations of the exhibition.

The research into the Städel’s collection of Venetian drawings has been made possible by the generous support of the Frankfurt Gabriele Busch-Hauck Foundation.  Curator Dr. Julia Schewski-Bock.

Unlike previous presentations of works from the Department of Prints and Drawings which were comprehensive surveys centering on a certain country – this exhibition offers a kind of longitudinal section of a specific cultural and art region.  It is an outstanding characteristic of the Städel that its collection of drawings from that region conveys a truly comprehensive picture of its unique achievements.  On exhibition 3 November 2006 – 28 January 2007.

Venice has always been an independent center of art, and the special nature of the city on the lagoon and its art clearly distinguish it from other Italian cities such as Florence and Rome.  Its art saw two impressive heights: the 16th century with masters like Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese and the 18th century, the glorious Settecento veneziano, when painters such as Canaletto, Piazzetta, and Tiepolo earned worldwide renown. 

Since the 15th century, Venice had increasingly given up its isolation within the lagoon and turned into a dominant land power.  The Serenissima (short for its erstwhile official name “Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia” – The Most Serene Republic of Venice) spread from Bergamo in the west to Dalmatia in the east and from Belluno in the north to the Romagna in the south.  Which is to say that the term Venetian does not only refer to the city on the lagoon itself but also includes the mainland, the terraferma.  This is where many artists received their first education before moving to Venice – as did Paolo Veronese (1528–1588) and Gaspare Diziani (1689–1767); others worked rather outside of Venice than in the city itself.  Thus, Venetian artists represent a high-rate cross-section of the feasible social possibilities of the time – from court to vagrant artist, from locally successful “kingpin” to internationally active star or genius dominating the province but unrecognized in the city.

The art of drawing comprises an even wider range of functions than the realm of painting.  In the beginning, drawings often served to prepare a painting. An example of this is Titian’s (1485/90(?)–1576) singular pen-and-ink study of Saint Sebastian.  Yet, we also come upon painterly drawings and independent studies like the sheet used by Tintoretto to demonstrate his pupils how to convey the mass and impact of a sculpture by Michelangelo with black and white chalk.  In many cases though, Venetian Renaissance painters did without detailed drawings when preparing a picture and painted directly on a canvas.  This is why drawings by these artists are quite rare and valuable today.

The early drawings from the 15th and 16th centuries in the possession of the Städelsche Kunstinstitut include one of the extremely rare works in this medium by Titian himself: a small, yet masterly pen-and-ink study of Saint Sebastian in preparation of the master’s monumental altar painting in Brescia.  Together with works by Andrea Mantegna, members of the Bellinis’ circle, Jacopo Bassano, Jacopo Tintoretto, and Paolo Veronese, the study reveals the essence of the Venetian High Renaissance.  Studies of antiquities and nature led to new monumental solutions characteristic of the era presenting a self-conscious man in the center of their compositions.

The second focus of the exhibition embracing the majority of works will be dedicated to drawings from the 18th century.  The Städel’s holdings include works by almost everybody who was anybody, as it were. Special mention should be made of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696–1770), Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (1682–1754), and Gaspare Diziani (1689–1767).  While Giambattista Tiepolo already earned high acclaim in Germany on account of his major work in Würzburg, the staircase fresco in the Residenz palace, in the early 20th century, the body of drawings by Diziani will definitely provide one of the discoveries of this exhibition.

The most recent acquisition of the Städel’s Department of Print and Drawings will round off the exhibition as one of its highlights. The work has been purchased only in 2006 by the Städelsche Museums-Verein: it is one of the spectacular drawings from the “Pulcinella Cycle” by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (1727–1804), Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s son. With this supposedly fairytale-like circle and its protagonist from the world of the commedia dell’arte, G. D. Tiepolo offered a witty comment on the upheavals around 1800.  The Städel is the only German museum that possesses a Pulcinella drawing.  The artistic significance of this series can only be compared to Francisco Goya’s “Caprichos,” a series dating from about the same time.

Visit the Städel Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings, Schaumainkai 63, 60596 Frankfurt at : www.staedelmuseum.de