This month, Gozo’s Il-Ħaġar – Heart of Gozo museum presents Piranesi-Klinger: On the Threshold of the Avantgarde, in which the etchings of two intriguing artists are presented together in a select exhibition, organised and curated by GBK Malta.

Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) and Max Klinger (1857-1920) were both printmakers known for their intricate and imaginative etchings. Although working over a century apart, they shared a fascination with the fantastical, depicting rich, textured scenes in elaborate detail.

Piranesi was an Italian artist and architect with a grandiose imagination, and he was one of the greatest printmakers of the 18th century. The intricate Vedute di Roma etchings on show depict compelling views of Rome’s grand architecture with meticulous attention to detail.

Posthumous portrait of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) by Pietro Labruzzi, housed at the Museo di Roma (Palazzo Braschi). Photo: Wikimedia Commons

His vistas inspired by ancient landmarks were highly influential in shaping today’s perception of classical antiquity and of the city of Rome, the city in which he spent most of his adult life. These imagined visions show, for example, Rome’s archaeological sites in a state of decay or disrepair, and are steeped in dramatic light and shadow.

Piranesi is also renowned for the surreal Carceri d’invenzione, usually translated as Imaginary Prisons, and it is the first time these have been on show in the Maltese islands.

These visually arresting and emotionally evocative etchings are characterised by vast labyrinthine spaces filled with heavy stone arches, old-school machinery and bridges, and overhead walkways create a sense of ambiguity and disorientation: think imagery of Dante’s Inferno crossed with the bizarre eccentricity of modern-day MC Escher, for whom these works were a key influence.

Veduta del Sepolcro di Cajo Cestio, 1755, by Giovanni Battista Piranesi

In the four dark pieces on show, faint silhouettes of doomed human figures emphasise the scale and complexity of these eerie scenes which, in crisp bright mounts, draw you in as if you’re peering through a window from the airy white space of Il-Ħaġar into a sinister underground world.

“The incredible detail that went into his plates is almost hallucinatory!” says art historian Mark Sagona from University of Malta, adding that it has even been suggested Piranesi was under the influence of opium.

The Grand Piazza, from the series Imaginary Prisons (Carceri d’Invenzione), 1761, by Giovanni Battista Piranesi

A selection from both these series, and a stunning large-scale map shows Rome, oriented with south at the top, within its ancient walls.

In addition to showcasing Piranesi’s talent, the exhibition information invites the viewer to consider the artist’s legacy in the realm of design and the decorative arts, and his indispensable role in the metamorphosis of artistic thought and cultural taste in the 18th century, when his conceptual freedom was cutting-edge: the imagination and emotion Piranesi expresses paved the way for the forthcoming Romantic Period.

The incredible detail that went into his plates is almost hallucinatory!

Piranesi continues to exert a posthumous influence on art and culture today, as evidenced by the 2021 winner of the Women’s Prize for fiction, Piranesi by Susanna Clark.

While Piranesi focused primarily on spatial, architectural and archaeological themes, the German artist Klinger is best known for serial works into which he incorporated fantasy, symbolism, and feeling. His often-provocative etchings, often showing dreamlike and surreal landscapes, explored themes of human relationships and psychological states.

Max Klinger (1857-1920). Photo: Nicola Perscheid/Wikimedia Commons

In a separate and more intimate art space alongside Piranesi’s works, discover A Glove (Ein Handschuh) – Opus VI, a series of 10 smaller etchings, and Klinger’s most fascinating and mysterious work.

These etchings (1881) were based on Klinger’s earlier ink drawings Fantasie on a Found Glove, Dedicated to the Lady Who Lost It, and were inspired by an encounter with a beautiful unknown on a skating rink. In this fantasy fairytale, overwhelmed with desire, a young man picks up her lost glove and follows her.

Handlung (Action) by Max Klinger

After three ‘scenes’, Klinger departs from a description of real events and tells an intriguing allegorical tale, in which the glove tosses in a crashing wave alongside a yacht, rides in a chariot on a sunlit shore, and is kidnapped by a bird-like beast. The ambiguous finale shows the large glove lying – or perhaps waking – by a diminutive Cupid among the roses, leaving the viewer to ponder the glove’s significance.

Like Piranesi, Klinger’s art was strikingly innovative in its day, and this dream sequence predates by several years Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams and his theories of psychoanalysis.

Entführung (Kidnapping) by Max Klinger

Exploring themes of love, desire and ephemeral emotions, The Glove reflects the complex and contradictory narrative of romantic entanglement and Klinger’s fascination with the intricacies of human emotion and relationships. The lost glove itself, the subject of this man’s obsession, is considered the forerunner of the modern fetish object.

Piranesi-Klinger: On the Threshold of the Avantgarde runs at Il-Ħaġar – Heart of Gozo Museum until January 7. Entry is free. The accompanying Il-Ħaġar Gem publication, which includes fascinating background information and commentary on both artists, their work and their legacies by Mark Sagona and International art expert and curator Patrizia Foglia, is available for €20.