Piranesi's Grandest Tour: From Europe to Australia

by Colin Holden

The 18th-century Italian printmaker Giovanni Battista Piranesi achieved fame for his etchings of real and imaginary buildings: Roman ruins, baroque cityscapes, and fantastical prisons. This retrospective reassesses his life and his art, as well as the complex world of his son, Francesco, whose promotion of his father’s work was overshadowed by allegations of espionage. The book also reveals the story of Australian collectors of Piranesi’s work and his influence on Australian artists, from Russell Drysdale to Rick Amor and Marco Luccio.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2014

Reviews

[Esther · Rating 4 out of 5]

Context: I had only discovered Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s influential work recently from an exhibition at Melbourne University ‘Gothic Imagining’. Observing Piranesi’s work close-up is something to truly marvel at! So upon further investigation, I discovered:
I) his imaginary prisons was a frightening ideal of hell. Dante would approve
II) impossible perspective and horizon lines function as a way to agitate a sense of psychosis/vertigo. MC Escher’s later work may have Piranesi’s influences (a likely rhetorical - not fact)
III) to follow up, State Library Victoria and Melbourne University Baillieu Library have in its rare books and special collections a significant number of Piranesi original works.