A painting to ponder

Chris Gillibrand of Cathcon sent me a link to this picture which is currently housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City since he thought it might be "useful."

The masterpiece was painted about 1725-1729 by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, a Venetian rococo artist, as part of a cycle of large canvases (this one is 411.5 x 376.9 cm) used to decorate a reception room in the Ca' Dolfin at Venice; it depicts the capture of Cathage by Scipio Aemilianus who razed the city to the ground, answering the constant demands of Cato the Elder.

The Oxford Companion to Western Art says that in his work,
Tiepolo consciously revives the artistic language of Veronese, not out of nostalgia but as a source of strength and renewal.

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