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New Work by Giambattista Piranesi (1720–1778) by Adam Lowe

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New Work by Giambattista Piranesi (1720–1778) by Adam Lowe Art in Print May – June 2011 Messing About with Masterpieces: New Work by Giambattista Piranesi (1720–1778) By Adam Lowe Fig 3c. Detail of cast marble Chimneypiece, after Piranesi, 2010, cast white marble scagliola. ‘I have need of great ideas, and at Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice high candelabra, massive vases, Graeco- I believe that if I were commanded to argued for a new view of the artist as a Roman altars—whose designs had ap- design a new universe, I should have multi-tasking globalist in tune with 21st peared in Piranesi’s publications of the the folly to undertake such a thing.’ century technological adventurism. Con- 1760s and 1770s, but which had only now — Giambattista Piranesi ceived by architect and designer Michele been given three-dimensional form. de Lucchi, the exhibition offered a variety Piranesi’s achievements as a designer he 18th century printmaker Giam- of avenues that bring Piranesi into our and architect are less generally known T battista Piranesi is best known for time: a full-scale facsimile of the Caffe than his other work, but it was here that his views of Rome (Vedute di Roma), those degli Inglesi, the Roman coffee shop deco- the antiquarian romance of the Views beautifully observed, deeply Romantic rated by Piranesi, and a digital anima- and the free improvisation of the Prisons evocations of decrepit grandeur, and for tion that allows the viewer to slide (virtu- joined forces. In two publications1 chock- his loose and labyrinthine invented pris- ally) through the dense and contradictory a-block with original creations and clas- ons, the Carceri. Both have been hall- spaces of the Carceri. The most provoca- sical reinterpretations of chimneypieces, marks of refined, if slightly dusty, interiors tive items on display, however, were the chairs, candlesticks and coffee pots, Pira- for two centuries, but a recent exhibition elaborate decorative objects—two-meter nesi set forth a design philosophy based 13 Art in Print May – June 2011 antiquarian activist slogan: “Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the pres- ervation of fire,” and is intrigued by the potential of contemporary technologies to restore to cultural artefacts their ‘sense’ “(both the ‘meaning’ and the ‘sensuous experience.’)” Factum Arte supplied the technological sophistication and material connoisseurship to effect the transforma- tion of 200 year-old etched lines on paper into stone, silver and gold-plated bronze. Below, Factum Arte Director Adam Lowe describes the thinking and the pro- cesses that went into the production of these objects, and their implications for the way we treat the gifts of past and of the present. –ST ORIGINALITY AS A PROCESS The Piranesi Collection Fig 3d. Detail of stereolithographic resin model of a Chimneypiece, after Piranesi, 2010. reating new objects from Pira- C nesi’s designs means treating our on eclecticism and the fecundity of both everyone knows the facsimile is not the cultural heritage as a living and dynam- man and nature, a position in direct op- ‘real thing,’ it is visually indistinguishable ic sourcebook. The objects discussed position to the trend of neo-classical re- from the real thing and, unlike the real here are not copies of existing artifacts straint then overtaking the continent. In thing, it is hung in the location for which but interpretations of Piranesi’s designs the years after Piranesi’s death the fas- it was designed. It can be argued that the ‘performed’ for the first time. The start- tidious “Greek” rigor advocated by Johann facsimile provides an experience closer to ing point was Piranesi’s own approach Joachim Winckelmann and given form Veronese’s vision than that currently of- to antiquity and to design, especially by Antonio Canova and John Flaxman fered by the heavily restored canvas in the his emphasis on a speculative and un- carried the day, while Piranesi’s eccentric Louvre that he actually painted. fettered imagination operating in de- concoctions fell from view. The Piranesi pieces, however, are not fiance of what he felt to be a growing Piranesi was a native Venetian, and facsimiles of objects that exist elsewhere: tyranny of theory. The end result is a while Venice may seem a city primarily they are new three-dimensional realiza- group of objects that merge new tech- intent on pickling its past in ever prettier tions of Piranesi etchings. The objects nology and ancient craft skills. jars, the Cini Foundation has been at- portrayed in the etchings were rendered in This ‘tyranny of theory’ refers to a tempting something more interesting and three dimensions through a combination particular conception of the Graeco- more difficult: from its picture-perfect of 3D scanning and 3D modelling tools Roman debate, which used Platonic perch on the island of San Giorgio Mag- such as Zbrush; the data was then used to ideas to support the supremacy of giore, it has been working to bring the create three-dimensional models through Greek sculpture and architecture as an past into productive proximity with the routing or stereolithographic printing; embodiment of a single, pure, abstract- present. This has entailed some uncon- these models were used to create molds for ed truth. (I believe our current under- ventional thinking about authenticity bronze, silver, or cast stone before being standing of originality suffers from the and cultural heritage. In 2003, the Foun- assembled and finished in ways that have same theoretical shortcomings.) For dation collaborated with the Louvre and not much changed since Piranesi’s time. Piranesi this reductive approach was Madrid-based fabricators Factum Arte The idea to produce objects based on the anathema, and he vigorously asserted on a hyper-accurate 1:1 facsimile of Paolo prints came from Pasquale Gagliardi, the that its over-simplification misrepre- Veronese’s Wedding at Cana, which they secretary general of the Cini Foundation, sented the achievements of the Ro- installed in place of the one looted from which holds a substantial Piranesi col- mans and, by extension, the creative San Giorgio by Napoleon in 1797. Though lection. Gagliardi likes to quote Mahler’s urge itself. Piranesi’s famous phrase, 14 Art in Print May – June 2011 “Col sporcar si trova” can be translated what he saw as the creative fertility of hand and plaster casts of well-known as ‘by messing about, one discovers.’ Roman antiquity by freely combining Roman, Greek and Etruscan statues. ‘Messing about’ suggests excess and un- motifs from the past to produce works These elements were integrated and directed play, as well as an acceptance of striking originality, advocating con- reworked to create a coherent digital of the tolerance required for any sys- noisseurship and ‘improvement’ over matrix, from which three-dimensional tem to work. Dirt, disorder, serendipity slavish imitation of an original. objects were printed in resin using the and noise are all intrinsic to the process To make the Isis Tripod, a team of process of stereolithography.2 At one of imaginative interpretation. These el- digital modellers worked to breathe life moment things existed in a virtual ements are inherent in physical touch into Piranesi’s complex and contradic- realm, mathematically pure and theo- and in the act of making tory designs with a range of 3D mod- retically perfect—at the next they had The selection of objects to produce elling software. Their work was then been mediated, transformed and re- was made by Michele De Lucchi, the elaborated with forms that had been turned to the physical and messy world Piranesi specialist John Wilton-Ely scanned from existing objects, includ- of material objects. The resin object and myself, working from De Lucchi’s ing details of Piranesi’s design made by was not an end in itself, but part of a conviction that Piranesi should have been born 300 years later, when he would have been capable of exploiting all the technological potential that we have. Most were selected from Diverse maniere, Piranesi’s catalogue of new designs for fireplaces, furniture and decorative objects; three were selected from Vasi, candelabri..., a collection of antique object portraits by Piranesi. The Isis Tripod from Vasi, candelabri… (Wilton-Ely 929) iranesi’s etching is based on a tri- P pod from the 1st or 2nd century AD said to have been discovered in the temple of Isis in Pompeii in the 1760s. His model, however, was not the tripod itself (now in the Museo Nazionale in Naples), but rather a drawing from Vin- cenzo Brenna’s 1770 survey of Roman relics. Brenna’s conception of antiquity was a theatrical one, and this tripod is a clear example of the Roman aesthetic of appropriating influences. Piranesi’s design differs in subtle but significant ways from the Pompeii tripod: his pro- portions are more vertical, the position of the sphinx/harpy is altered, the three legs are not joined by a central bar, the pedestal is composed of two intersect- ing arcs, the frieze of skulls and gar- lands has been ‘improved.’ His approach to antiquity was more imaginative than the restrained recording and ‘objec- tive’ restoration that is common prac- tice today. In Diverse maniere, Piranesi urged the modern designer to emulate Fig. 1c. Detail of bronze “Isis” tripod with silver patination and alabaster. 2010, after Piranesi. 15 Art in Print May – June 2011 in terms both of theory and practice. Written in English, French and Italian to reach an international audience, it provided a clear statement of his radi- cal aesthetic and an impressive collec- tion of designs articulating his taste and interests. Chimneypieces domi- nate the first part, followed by com- modes, clocks, vases, side tables, small candelabra, coffee pots, chairs and a surprisingly large number of doors for sedan chairs and coaches.
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