Elaborate Wall Decorations with Venus and Adonis
1800
gouache
parchment
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
About the artist
1800
gouache
parchment
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
Dominant colour
Elaborate Wall Decorations with Venus and Adonis is a 1800 gouache by Tommaso Bigatti, a Romanticism work, held at National Gallery of Art.
This wall looks like a fancy, painted storybook. Three big scenes sit in gold-framed boxes: on the left, a woman in armor holds a spear; in the middle, a naked couple lounges under a tree with a dog; on the right, a floating woman in a sheer dress lifts her arms. Around them, tiny cherubs, vases, and swirls fill the edges like decorations on a birthday cake. The middle scene is soft and dreamy, with pale pinks and blues. The artist used a mix of light and shadow to make the figures look almost real, even though the background is flat and stylized. Next, check out gouache—it’s the paint used here, and it lets colors blend smoothly like watercolors but stays flat like poster paint.
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