Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo was an Italian painter and the last great master of the grand Venetian tradition. Born in Venice in 1696, he became famous for enormous, airy ceiling frescoes filled with figures floating in bright, sunlit skies. His light, luminous color and dazzling sense of space made him the most sought-after decorative painter in Europe.

He worked not only in Venice but also in Germany and Spain, covering palace and church ceilings with gods, saints, and allegories that seem to open the roof to the heavens. His work marks the glorious high point of the Rococo style. Tiepolo's soaring, joyful ceilings remain among the most spectacular achievements of eighteenth century painting.