1727 -1804 · Venice, Zianigo and satirical look at the 18th century

Religious stories, Venetian life and adventures of Polichinelle give Giandomenico Tiepolo a more intimate, narrative and ironic voice than that of his father.

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, known as Giandomenico, was born in Venice in 1727. Eldest son of Giambattista Tiepolo, he learned in the family workshop and became an essential collaborator at a very young age. He accompanied his father to Würzburg from 1750 to 1753 then to Madrid from 1762, participating in large fresco decorations while developing an independent career as a painter, designer and engraver. His first works remained close to aerial light and the monumental compositions of Giambattista. However, Giandomenico looked more closely at ordinary figures, secondary gestures and narrative episodes. In his religious paintings, such as Jesus healing the Bethesda paralytic or Christ and the adulterous woman, the crowds, the reactions and the diversity of the characters give the miracle a concrete human presence. After the death of his father in 1770, he returned to Venice and worked mainly in his villa in Zianigo. The frescoes of this house, today kept in Ca' Rezzonico, combine social scenes, walks, dance and figures of commedia dell'arte. Punchinelle becomes his most personal motif. In the 104 large drawings of the Divertimento per li regazzi, the masked character is born, travels, marries, celebrates, dies and is reborn: popular comedy and meditation on the human condition merge. His lively line, his brown washes and his groups observed with humor clearly distinguish his late work. Died in Venice in 1804, Giandomenico transforms the family heritage into an ironic chronicle of the world which disappeared with the Ancien Régime. The "Giandomenico Tiepolo" selection notably compares Jesus healing the paralytic of Bethesda and Christ and the adulterous woman. His reading favors color.

Giandomenico brings the great Tiepolo theater back to human height: the miracle, the dance and Polichinelle become episodes of the same comedy of the world.