Irrational architecture in Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s Carceri d’Invenzione

Abstract

Since the series of etchings known as the Carceri d’Invenzione created by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1788) there has been extensive debate as to their meanings. Taking advantage of drawing and the print medium, Piranesi manipulated perspective to create dislocated and irrational architecture that challenges the viewer and creates a deep sense of unease. This thesis analyses the compositional issues the Carceri provoke and explores the ambiguous relationship they forge between architecture and pictoriality. Piranesi was creating a rupture within the conventions of architectural representation; the Carceri serve as a denunciation of contemporary architectural practices he perceived as stagnant. The prints are projections that raise questions about the very nature of architectural representation that are still relevant to modern practices. Chapter 1 is a Literature Review that includes various theories and interpretations of the Carceri from the eighteenth-century to the present time. Chapter 2 examines the architectural theories and ideas being developed during the eighteenth-century and the intellectual context for the prints. Chapter 3 is a close analysis of the prints, paying attention to the instances of illogical spaces created, with a particular focus on those prints that contain examples of discontinuous space and distorted perspectives that have not been identified or discussed in detail in the previous literature. Chapter 4 examines the way Piranesi uses the temporal to explore architectural representation; the importance of history and the past to his work; and how printmaking and etching in particular enable Piranesi to encompass two critical elements, enlightenment rationality in the form of engineering, architectural analysis and description, and the expressive powers of the imagination.