Hybride Figuren und proteische Bedeutungen. Das Divertimento per li Regazzi von Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo im Lichte zeitgenössischer Bildsatiren

Towards the end of his life, the Venetian painter Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (1727–1804) created the Divertimento per li Regazzi, a cycle of 104 larger-Format pen and ink drawings. This series is generally regarded as his magnum opus and is usually interpreted by scholars as a nostalgic, ironic look back on the Venetian state, which was dissolved by Napoleon in 1797. Individual Sheets from it are also regarded as an attack on the occupying troops and as a parody of the ideals of the French Revolution. This assumption of a critical Impetus for the drawings has been largely considered self-evident in previous studies. In this paper, however, this interpretation is tested by a comparative study of contemporary satirical prints and a new thesis is developed: Tiepolo's drawings are neither explicitly political nor apolitical, but rather conceived in a way that is open to interpretation and allows for different, divergent readings.