Gianantonio Guardi Biography
Gianantonio Guardi, or Giovanni Antonio (Vienna, 27 May 1699 – Venice, 23 January 1760), was an Italian painter. Educated in painting by his father Domenico Guardi, originally from Trentino, and married to Maria Claudia Pichler, originally from Egna but who moved to Vienna for work, he was orphaned by this father at just seventeen, inheriting the studio which he shared with his two brothers Francesco and Niccolò, of whom he was also the master, and with whom they specialized in the creation of works of a sacred nature and copies of famous masters of painting. From 1741 to 1743 he was commissioned small paintings called the turcherie. Most of his works are the result of collaboration with his brothers, so it is difficult to attribute which part derives from his talent. The first work that is completely attributed to him is the altarpiece of the Marcolla family in the church of Vigo Anaunia depicting the Madonna with all saints. Upon Schulenburg's death he came back into contact with the Giovanelli family through Francesco Savorgnan, husband of a niece, who was responsible for the creation of the altarpiece in the church of Sant'Antonio a Belvedere dedicated to the Madonna del Rosario with the ss. Domenico, Giovanni Nepomuceno, Antonio Abate, Sebastiano and Marco now preserved in the Attems-Petzenstein palace (Gorizia). From 1749 to 1750 he created the cycle of the stories of Tobias on the parapet of the organ for the Church of the Angelo Raffaele in Venice, and here his technique of large brushstrokes which erodes the contours of the figures with strong variations in color is visible, and here the technique of dematerialization of the drawing and the overall reduction in the rendering of the surfaces. Various commissions followed for other churches in the Veneto. It is perhaps due to his brother-in-law Giambattista Tiepolo, who had in fact married his sister Cecilia, the 1754 commission for the Ferri Altarpiece in the church of San Vincenzo martyr in Cerete Basso, thanks to his presence in the Bergamo area, precisely for the creation of the Paradise altarpiece in Rovetta thanks to which he is counted among the most important painters of the Venetian Rococo.
