Artwork Page for A Spring Shower

Details / Information for A Spring Shower

Series Title: Divertimento per li Regazzi (Entertainment for Children)

A Spring Shower

1797–1804

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo

(Italian, 1727–1804)
Culture
Italy, Venice
Medium
pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash over black chalk; framing lines in brown ink over graphite on antique laid paper
Support
Cream(1) laid paper
Measurements
Image: 29.6 x 41.5 cm (11 5/8 x 16 5/16 in.); Sheet: 35.5 x 47.1 cm (14 x 18 9/16 in.)
Credit Line
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1937.573
Public Domain
You can copy, modify, and distribute this work, all without asking permission. Learn more about CMA's Open Access Initiative.
Location
Not on view
Print
?

Did You Know?

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, who often depicted multiple Punchinellos (a clown figure) in his drawings, added two in this scene—the figure on the left with a cloak comically draped over his head, and another on the right holding an umbrella.

Description

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, an important Venetian fresco painter of the 18th century, is best known today for his highly finished historical drawings that ingeniously incorporate details from daily life. In his series of 104 drawings known as Divertimento per li Regazzi (Entertainment for Children), he featured the Punchinello character from the Italian tradition of popular theater, a picaresque clown figure with a hooked nose, hunched back, and bloated belly. The character appears repeatedly in Tiepolo's sprawling narrative that rehearses the social mores of late 18th-century Venice through genre scenes of daily life, comic misadventures, and pathetic tragedies. In this enigmatic scene, one of nine sheets from the Divertimento at the CMA, the artist depicted a group of seven figures from the back as they wander aimlessly amid a shower that literally drips down the white paper. Domenico's characteristically tremulous lines and broad, simple washes of brown ink, laid down over an initial sketch in black chalk, capture a fresh and misty atmospheric effect that magnifies the pensive quality of the scene. The artist made this and other drawings from the series as finished works without correlations in other media.
A horizontally oriented brown ink drawing on ribbed beige paper depicts seven figures strolling across a landscape. On our left, a draped figure stands beside a small dog. In the center, a couple walks beneath a broad umbrella, preceded by a small figure and another holding a parasol. To our right, a figure with an umbrella is followed by a man in a long coat. Fluid washes define forms beneath a bird-filled sky.

A Spring Shower

1797–1804

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo

(Italian, 1727–1804)
Italy, Venice

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