Perspective as an artistic tool of composition in the  engravings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi

Elena Chernaya

Abstract


This study is devoted to the recreation of Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s compositional thinking. The study is based on analyses of the composition of his engravings depicting architecture and space. Here Piranesi’s compositional solutions for his graphic works are compared to his predecessors and contemporaries’ beautiful paintings carrying the same motif. In order to show that the perspective was one of the artistic tools for him, the article presents the comparative analysis of one of Piranesi’s engravings (“View of Basilica di San Paolo Fuori le Mura” from the series of “Views of Rome”) with a perspective model made with the help of a SketchUp software, pictures of layouts and perspective views made with the help of an architect method (the method of the descriptive geometry).
The author builds his point of view on the fact that the plane comprises only such structural elements of the existing composition, which clearly reveal its space-dimensional features when compared with each other. To confirm this, the author proposes an approach implying that all the information fixed at the plane is considered to be a professional communicative means necessary for formation of space-dimensional representations in a human mind about a composition in the overall system of the drawing or the image.
In order to confirm this hypothesis, the author carried out an analysis of the Pantheon drawings made by Andrea Palladio di Pietro and Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Due to the fact that the composition information on the object is broken into pieces and is represented by the system of interrelated orthographic views on the architectural design (on the drawing), in the article we tried to find out the implied logic and the pattern of information disclosure by Giovanni Battista Piranesi with the help of projection views.


Keywords


compositional thinking, engraving, perspective, model, drawing, orthographic view, computer model, image

Full Text:

PDF

References


Aitken RJ (1995). “Piranesi-Vico: “Il Campo Marzio”. Foundations and the Eternal City (Giambattista Piranesi, Italy). M. Arch. Thesis, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

Bunin A (1935) Arkhitektura gorodskikh ansambley “Renessans” [Architecture of urban ensembles “Renaissance”]. Akad. kommun. khoz-va Izd-vo Vses. akad. arkhitektury; Moscow, USSR (in Russian).

Zimin A (2012) Rim: Puteshestvie v Vechnyj gorod [Rome: The journey to the Eternal City]. NP-Print, Saint Petersburg, RF (in Russian).

Kim Jung-Rak (2013) A Study on the archaeological landscape-painting of the 18th century: Focusing on the Capriccio of Giovanni Paolo Pannini. The Journal of Art Theory & Practice, 16: 175–199.

Loktev V (2004) Barokko ot Mikelandzhelo do Gvarini (problema stilja) [Baroque from Michelangelo to Guarini (the issue of style)] Tutorials for specialties “Architecture” and “Renovation and Restoration”. Arkhitektura-S, Moscow, RF (in Russian).

Marchesano L (2010) Invenzioni capric di carceri: The Prisons of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778). Getty research journal, iss. 2: 151–160.

Marcos CL (2014) Imaginary Prisons or space as a topic. Disegnare idee immagini — ideas images, vol. 25, iss. 48: 44–55.

T. Stoppani (2014) Material lines: apocalypse, capricci, war and other disasters. Journal of Arcitecture, 19: 511–535

Matochkin Ye (2006) Obraz Prepodobnogo Sergija Radonezhskogo v russkom iskusstve [The image of St. Sergius of Radonezh in the Russian art]. Publishing House Agni, Samara, RF (in Russian).

Mel’nikov V (2007) Myslit’ risunkom [Thinking by Image]. Oil and gas engineering, Ufa, RF (in Russian).

Mil’chik M (2008) Kargopol’. Derevjannaja krepost’ i ostrogi po reke Onege [Kargopol. The wooden fortress and forts on the Onega River]. Views of Russia, Saint Petersburg, RF (in Russian).

Minor HH (2010) Designing Piranesi. Eighteenth-century life, vol. 34, iss. 3: 36–40.

Neyfakh L (2009) Nevidimye linii. Opyt graficheskogo analiza proizvedenij vizual’nogo iskusstva [Invisible lines. Graphical analysis of visual art]. Publishing House of SPbPU, Saint Petersburg, RF (in Russian).

Palladio A (1936) Chetyre knigi ob arhitekture Andrea Palladio, v koih posle kratkogo traktata o pjati orderah i nastavlenij naibolee neobhodimyh dlja stroitel’stva traktuetsja o chastnyh domah, dorogah, mostah, ploshhadjah, ksistah i hramah [Four Books on Architecture by Andrea Palladio, in which after a brief treatise on five orders and the most important instructions on construction it is rendered on private homes, roads, bridges, squares, xysti and temples]. Publishing house of the All-Russia Architecture Academy, Moscow, USSR (in Russian).

Pizzo A (2011) “The gallows are scaffolding”. Giovanni Battista Piranesi and building techniques in Roman times. Archivo espanol de Arqueologia, 84: 267–283.

Revzin G (2013) Russkaja arhitektura rubezha XX-XXI v.v. [Russian Architecture at the turn of XXth and XXIth centuries]. Novoe izdatelstvo, Moscow, RF (in Russian).

Rozin V (2009) Vizual’naja kul’tura i vosprijatie. Kak chelovek vidit i ponimaet mir [Visual culture and perception: How one sees and understands the world]. 4th edition, suppl.. Publishing House LIBROCOM, Moscow, RF (in Russian).

Rynin N (1918) Perspektiva [The perspective]. Georgievsky Committee Printshop, Petrograd, RSFSR (in Russian).

Sonyak VM (1985) Metodicheskie razrabotki po plenernoy praktike [Tutorials on the plein-air practice]. Sverdlovsk Architectural Institute, Sverdlovsk, USSR (in Russian).

Sorokina N (2013) Dzhovanni Battista Piranezi [Giovanni Battista Piranesi]. BuksMArt Ltd., Moscow, RF (in Russian).

Sorokina NI (2007a) Tvorchestvo Dzh.-B. Piranezi v kontekste epokhi Prosvyashcheniya [Oeuvre of G.B.Piranesi in the light of the Renaissance]. Izvestiya Rossiiskogo gosudarstvennogo pedagogicheskogo universiteta imeni A.I. Gertsena [News of the Russian State pedagogical university named after A.I. Gertzen], vol. 13, n. 36: 127–139 (in Russian).

Sorokina NI (2007b) Tvorchestvo Dzh.-B. Piranezi v kontekste epokhi Prosvyashcheniya [Oeuvre of G.B. Piranesi in the light of the Renaissance]. Ph.D. thesis, Moscow, RF (in Russian).

Stoppani T (2009) Piranesi. The print collection of Ghent University. Journal of architecture, 14: 646–654.

Toropov SA (1939) Dzhovanni Battista Piranezi: Izbrannye oforty [Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Selected etchings]. Vsesoyuznaya akademiya arkhitektury, Moscow, RF (in Russian).

Uspensky VM (2012) Venetsianskie vliyaniya v vidakh Rima Dzh. B. Piranezi [Venetian influences in the Roman views by G.B. Pianesi] Dom Burganova. Prostranstvo kultury [Burganov House. Cultural space], 1: 9–13. (in Russian).

Zhegin L (1970) Yazyk zhivopisnogo proizvedeniya: Uslovnost’ drevnego iskusstva [The language of the piece of art: Conditionality of the ancient art]. Iskusstvo, Moscow, USSR (in Russian).




DOI: https://doi.org/10.23968/2500-0055-2016-1-2-3-18

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.




     

ISSN: 2500-0055