Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

In 1777 Giovanni Battista Piranesi and his son, Francesco, traveled to the coast south of Naples to draw the famous Greek temples at Paestum. These three buildings, ranked along a marshy plain facing the sea, represented an austere classical tradition that predated the richness and variety of the Roman buildings that the elder Piranesi had studied so deeply. Years earlier, he had disparaged the importance of the Greek tradition in Roman architecture, but his encounter with these “grave” and “wise” buildings transformed his opinion.

In an impressive suite of twenty-one prints completed by Francesco shortly before his father’s death, Piranesi shaped the taste of the next generation of the classical revival, which would turn with respect to the more sober grandeur of the Greeks.

The two-storied colonnade in the interior of the Temple of Neptune made for many picturesque opportunities for composition and lighting. Piranesi’s exploration of unusual viewpoints gave richness to his images, without confusing the archaeological record. Further vitality came from the insertion of figures and animals, probably by his son Francesco. These figures represent multiple viewpoints: the nonchalant occupation of the ruins by local peasants and the contemplative inspection of the site by tourists.

The Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art has thirteen plates from this series(Eskenazi Museum of Art 98.278.1-.13) and the frontispiece (Eskenazi Museum of Art 98.277).