Giandomenico Tiepolo at the Ca' Rezzonico

 Giandomenico Tiepolo is the son of his more-famous father, Giambattista, perhaps the most famous decorative painter ever. He has adorned many a Rococo ceiling. And, as much as I've marveled at the father's ceilings, it is this simple fresco cycle that has enamored me the most. Painted for his family's estates, these charming paintings are personal and lovely.

The first one is called the New World, and has been referred to as an anti-portrait portrait. It depicts middle-class people gawking at a fair exhibit. You see most of the people from behind, but you still get a sense of the crass conviviality of the crowd. Giandomenico had a sarcastic take on life, and this odd painting glories in showing a more faded, realistic world than the gods and goddesses his father painted.

(The only two characters you see in profile are the painter and his father.)

The following cycle shows a profusion of Punchinellos, a stock buffoonish character from the Italian traveling theater tradition known as commedia dell'arte.

And a similar set of paintings, these in stark black and white, showing satyrs at play. There is definitely a darker undertone in the subject of these half-humans, including an abduction by a centaur that seems to have deadly urgency.