Tiepolo Pink

If you are wondering why Roberto Calasso chose to write a book-length appreciation of Giambattista Tiepolo you need only remember Callaso’s perennial themes: myth and its pervasive influence on modernity, sacrifice as the basis of civilization and the polyphony of different versions of myths as somehow embodying the truth that underlies material existence.Calasso finds this all in Tiepolo. According to this interpretation, Tiepolo used a stock number of characters because he saw all religions/mythologies as so many embodiments of the same truths. He painted Iphigenia and Isaac because he saw that civilization is undergirded by the primitive rites of sacrifice. And his paintings all appear as if they’re on a stage because this best expresses the ephemerality of what we recognize as ordinary reality.It seems that for Calasso, European civilization reached its apex in the High Renaissance era when the Greek and Roman gods were in the same paintings as the leading figures of Christianity. Caravaggio, who depicted the Christian saints in the guise of everyday people, began the slow march towards decadence when the power of myth went unrecognized.I do not necessarily agree with Calasso but I’d be hard pressed to argue with him. Like a Foucault of the arts, he has seemingly read everything that is to be said on mythology, art and literature. It’s a difficult book, to be sure, but I had trouble putting it down. For those who want to deepen their understanding of European art, or simply want a reappreciation of Tiepolo, the insights are well worth the fact that you may need to read each sentence two or three times to understand it.

Roberto Calasso is not light reading, but he does have a consistent dry wit and does not pull punches in social critique.I've read several of his books in English and always feel like Hermes is guiding me on obscure and mystical journeys, showing all sorts of undreamed-of wonders which I totally apprehend while in his company but which afterward often feel as though they are a fleeting dream. This isn't meant in any sort of derogatory way. I love those journeys, but any attempt on my part to analyze or literally describe would be a gross injustice. I just save his books, among the few, for rereading more than once.Hope that gives someone a sense of his writing. He is focused on the deep and unnameable behind the visible, yet I sense he is well-grounded. Tiepolo Pink is overtly more focused or specific than Ka, Cadmus & Harmony, Literature, but somehow only in a holographic sense. Enough inarticulation. . .

Easily the best written and most incisive writing on Tiepolo's life and work I have encountered (and I've read most of them!). I particularly appreciated the section on the scherzi prints. It's an effortless read, too, as the prose is smooth and flows in an easy to understand manner (despite the high number of complicated ideas Calasso is presenting). If you're researching Tiepolo this book is a must read.

Tiepolo Pink??? I never even noticed it before. This book is an eye opener. I have dealt in paintings for the past 40 years and thought I was observant and astute. Calasso takes the reader for a trip through the mind of Tiepolo like you can't even imagine.A wonderful book. I plan on reading it again.

Up to the author's best. He manages to put meat on any plate he serves. For spice we get a very chal-lenging take on deep seated and ancient spirituality. If you wait it out the layer upon layer is just so rewarding.This is cultural history as it should be written.

I love Tiepolo. To some of my art-fancying friends, as well as to many a critic of painting, this is a sign of frivolity, if not moral degeneration; but to others, just the mention of Tiepolo's name provokes a smile, even a grin, of shared delight. Whose colors are like Tiepolo's, with their cool, almost pastel surfaces, their outré tonal combinations, the sudden intrusions of dark and of bursting light? Above all, whose compositions are like his, with cherubs flying and falling, as if gravity had snapped to after a moment of inattention? The kind of painter Tiepolo is means that an arid, academic or tedious book about him would be a special offense; in TIEPOLO PINK (Knopf, 2009) the Italian writer Roberto Calasso approaches the eighteenth-century Venetian painter as the final European master of sprezzatura--he calls him "the last breath of happiness in Europe"--and explores his work with affection, insight and a marvelous congruence of temper. Sprezzatura Castiglione characterizes as "a certain nonchalance that may conceal art and demonstrate that what ones does and says one does without effort and almost without thought." For him it was the "complete contrast" to affectation; I've seen it translated as "effortless mastery". In Tiepolo's exuberant and airborne scenes there is often a drama afoot just a bit beyond easy explanation, and Calasso approaches this mystery--Tiepolo's "particular way of meeting the challenge of form"--not just via the ceilings and canvases but by the lesser known etchings, the Capricci and Scherzi. Throughout he defends Tiepolo against the dispraises of Longhi and other critics with just the right gravity of manner--the courtesy of erudition and the joy of complete involvement. TIEPOLO PINK is a handsome book, a grave delight, and no poor example of sprezzatura itself. Castiglione's last word on the topic: "From this, I believe, does much grace arrive." Brava.Glenn Shea, from Glenn's Book Notes at www.bookbarnniantic.com

This is a terrific book, I love Calasso's writing, his warm insights and effusiveness, BUT: the "pictures" (I call them that deliberately, these are not plates of "figures" or illustrations, even) are disgraceful, and that on several counts: They are so small (the largest maybe 9 cm across, many much smaller) that sometimes it is not even possible to see characters in the pictures he is discribing (cf. for instance the child Moses painting); there are no captions under the paintings and the pictures are not numbered (e.g. fig. 1 etc.), so obviously there is no picture reference (or page number) in the text: one has to turn to the back to a list which gives the name of the pictures and their page number. Even if that is a help, a very awkward one; often picture is perhaps five or six pages after the text is is supposed to accompany, with in between other pictures that seem to have at most passing relevance. And then is no further information on the works (date, materials, size, etc.). The slapdash (not even slapdash - completely unthought out) approach ruins what is otherwise a wondreful book. Shame on the layouter, the publisher and anyone else who contributed to this long string of extremely bad decisions. Essentially on needs a second book with decent pictures to accompany this one.

Great condition as new