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Although Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, born in Venice, has gone down in art history as one of the most important painters of northern Italy - at a time when the Baroque and Rococo eras were just recovering from their heyday - he already achieved a high reputation for his work outside his home country during his lifetime.
His splendid illustrations, epic sceneries and sophisticated ornamental motifs earned him commissions from influential personalities of the 18th century, including the bishop of Undine. The "work of his life", however, he realized in Germany: within only one year (1752-1753) he created an Deckenfresko in the Würzburg Residenz, which had a capacity of around 580 square meters and was thus the largest coherent work in the world.
When, some two decades later, classicism steadily gained in popularity, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo had to come to terms with an immense decline in his fame. Not only did more and more commissions fail to materialize, recently completed works of art were not even exhibited at all. As a result of this precipitation and his advanced age, he finally died in Madrid, Spain, as his state of health made a return to Italy impossible in 1770. In 2003, an asteroid (43775 Tiepolo) was named in his honour after the artist.
Although Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, born in Venice, has gone down in art history as one of the most important painters of northern Italy - at a time when the Baroque and Rococo eras were just recovering from their heyday - he already achieved a high reputation for his work outside his home country during his lifetime.
His splendid illustrations, epic sceneries and sophisticated ornamental motifs earned him commissions from influential personalities of the 18th century, including the bishop of Undine. The "work of his life", however, he realized in Germany: within only one year (1752-1753) he created an Deckenfresko in the Würzburg Residenz, which had a capacity of around 580 square meters and was thus the largest coherent work in the world.
When, some two decades later, classicism steadily gained in popularity, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo had to come to terms with an immense decline in his fame. Not only did more and more commissions fail to materialize, recently completed works of art were not even exhibited at all. As a result of this precipitation and his advanced age, he finally died in Madrid, Spain, as his state of health made a return to Italy impossible in 1770. In 2003, an asteroid (43775 Tiepolo) was named in his honour after the artist.