Book review: Piranesi

Luigi Ficacci:
Piranesi's fantastic worlds
The great 18th century architectural artist and master engraver

Publisher: TASCHEN
Year: 2011
Content: 792 pages
Language: English, French, German

One of the greatest architectural artists of all time, and certainly the most famous copper engraver of the 18th century, Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) is best known for his terrifyingly original series of etchings of labyrinthine and megalomaniac prisons, Carceri d'Invenzione. In his own day, he was most celebrated for his Vedute, 137 etchings of ancient and modern Rome; so renowned were these startling and dramatic chiaroscuro images, imbued with Piranesi's romantic feeling for archaeological ruins, that they formed the mental picture of Rome for generations after. Indeed, Piranesi could be said to have shaped a whole strain of contemporary architecture, as well as the wider visualization of antiquity itself. In our time, he has had a direct influence on writers such as Borges and Kafka and on filmmakers such as Terry Gilliam and Peter Greenaway.

"An artistic homage to a genius."
- Frankfurter Rundschau, Frankfurt


Image and text source: www.taschen.com