Ms. Ward wallpaper.
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Temple at Paestum, c. 1770-78
From the Rijksmuseum:
The eighteenth-century artist Piranesi has depicted the Temple of Juno in Paestum, once a Greek colony in south-western Italy. This drawing is part of a series of views of Paestum. Piranesi was fascinated by classical architecture. He was especially renowned for his fantastic views of Roman ruins. With this drawing Piranesi perpetuated a long-standing tradition of ‘pastoral’ landscapes in which the everyday life of simple peasants and shepherds was romanticised. For centuries, ruins with shepherds and cattle remained a popular artistic theme.
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, View of the Colosseum, 1776
From the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History:
Piranesi’s thorough familiarity with the Colosseum—he had already produced three views of this most famous of Roman ruins—and his skill at perspective rendering allowed him to produce this magnificent view of the ancient amphitheater seen as if from the air. By allowing the monument to fill the entire sheet of paper and by placing tiny figures in the center of the image, Piranesi effectively conveys the vastness of the ruin, while the bird’s-eye view reveals the plan and exposes the structure. Piranesi’s labels are indicative of his antiquarian research; they inform us of the location in which each rank of Roman society would have been seated, from the emperor and his court to the noble youth with their teachers. The overall darkness of the image, while characteristic of Piranesi’s lateVedute, gives the impression that the Colosseum is lit by the moon—we know that Piranesi studied ruins under such conditions. Only the center of the theater is illuminated, where tiny figures gather around the monumental cross.
