View of a Villa

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo probably created his few landscape drawings for their own sake, purely for enjoyment during summer visits to the countryside. Long admired as an exceptional draftsman, Tiepolo used rapid strokes of ink and dark, fluid washes to evoke the flat terrain and bright sunlight of the Veneto, the region of Italy around Venice.

Instead of architectural accuracy or detail, Tiepolo explored light, tone, and texture. Clouds cast shadows on the sunlit building, and even the golden brown shadows on the stone outer wall are suffused with light, but the exact building cannot be identified. To render the quickly sketched large tree, which acts as a foil for the great mass of this typically Venetian villa, Tiepolo adopted Guercino's dynamic chiaroscuro effects.