Reading Pictures: Piranesi and Carceral Landscapes

Abstract

s disturbing images of fantasy prisons set out in his Carceri d'Invenzione, published in the middle decades of the eighteenth century, have had a profound impact on cultural sensibilities. In his own day, Piranesi had achieved acclaim for his images of the decaying architecture of ancient Rome and it was the scale of this 'melancholy dilapidation' (Scott, 1975:20) that also informed the awesome imagery contained in the Carceri. The chapter explores Piranesi's distinctive visual language and situates it in an eighteenth century penchant for ruins and what they might signify. The macabre fantasy structures bear little relation to actual, existing prison buildings, but they do herald a new aesthetic combining both terror and beauty to sublime effect. This chapter is the latest step in my ongoing effort to indicate how punishment has an art history and the project is one tracing forms of representation from the 1500s up to the present day (Carrabine, 2016(Carrabine, , 2018a(Carrabine, , 2018b. In this regard Piranesi's art is pivotal and his disturbing compositions demand detailed analysis, as they offer insight into the rich complexity of the relation between past and present.