Book Review: "Tiepolo Pink" by Roberto Calasso

"What happened with Tiepolo was the same thing that was to happen with certain imposing and mysterious ancient objects like the Shang bronzes: those aspects that resisted interpretation were considered decorative, while those too charged with meaning were labeled ornamental.”

The opening sentence to Roberto Calasso’s “Tiepolo Pink” is one of the most intriguing writings about art ever penned. The book itself is not just about an artist but also about how this artist seemed to embody the last of his kind, the movement of art from one place to another and the way the artist had an identity of his own and no identity but his art at the same time.

I will say that I have read a number of Calasso’s books and they are always written with beauty, precision and delicacy - as if Calasso himself is creating an amazing piece of art and gifting it to us with a narrative where things are shady and often dark.

Through Calasso’s book, it is seen that Tiepolo has an incredible knowledge of not only art, but of ancient cultures, religions and mythologies. Tiepolo seems to push his knowledge into his art, demonstrating his genius of depicting historical accounts, stories and belief systems all within one, smaller space. It goes through not only his art, but esoterically talks about his incredible and increasing thirst for historical knowledge, the knowledge of the ancient empires and the wisdom of what his time has taught him and beyond. Just check this out on the detail of his paintings:

“And what do the characters in Tiepolo’s Scherzi see? What are they pointing at? Not just what appears: the ashes, the snakes, the bones. But something else, which is not admitted, which has no name. In them there already resounds the baritone voice that Joseph de Maistre was to give to the senator of St. Petersburg as he says: “I have read millions of witticisms about the ignorance of the ancients who saw spirits everywhere: it seems to me that we who see them nowhere are much more foolish.”

The attention to detail, the way in which we see the paintings without really seeing them, the way in which we are taught about these paintings that seem to depict a higher knowledge and power of some kind - it is all written beautifully and it is all combined with the identity of the individual. It is both open and shrouded in mystery, at the same time it is incredibly famous and yet clothed and concealed from view. There is always something new to be discovered within and we keep digging throughout the book so that hopefully, we may be slightly closer to the artist by getting deeper and deeper into the art itself.

I love the way this book talks about identity. It is one of the biggest and most important themes for the fact that the book itself makes it entirely unimportant not just by saying that it is unimportant, but stating that no matter how far we look and dig into the book, the paintings and the wisdom, we will never actually really know what Tiepolo is all about. We will never know the true Tiepolo and yet, it is never described as a useless endeavour. Instead, it is unimportant but we must continue looking. Again, this is not because of the mystery itself, but because of the way the paintings and the wisdom depicted in them seem to stir the soul. Immediately, the unimportant becomes the most important thing in the mind and only Tiepolo can do that properly.

Check this quotation on identity out and see what you make of it and the artist, Tiepolo:

“The individual’s name is unimportant. Because he is the West, the only entity curious and foolhardy enough to get into trouble in such a faraway place—and always convinced that there are good business deals to be done. No one else saw this with Tiepolo’s prophetic irony. So prophetic indeed that it went unnoticed.”

Those last two sentences in the quotation are amazing. It represents that Tiepolo, through all of his prophetic irony, may have succeeded in identifying himself without even stating his name. His paintings make you look, his perspective makes you think and the way he conducts his knowledge within his paintings means that for the longest time, you will not be able to move your eyes away. It is both philosophy and art all at once. It is a book of ancient knowledge which we will never, ever be able to read. We just don't speak that language anymore.