As if the people who built these prisons, who made all these instruments of torture to extract some truth even with the use of violence, who concocted all these colossal constructions - they ultimately relinquished every kind of pursuit. The legend tried to explain the inexplicable (…).” Thus, here we have a probable answer. There remained the inexplicable mass of rock. The gods grew weary, the eagles grew weary, the wound closed wearily. According to the fourth everyone grew weary of the meaningless affair. According to the third his treachery was forgotten in the course of thousands of years, forgotten by the gods, the eagles, forgotten by himself. According to the second Prometheus, goaded by the pain of the tearing beaks, pressed himself deeper and deeper into the rock until he became one with it. Here Kafka tells us: “ There are four legends concerning Prometheus: According to the first he was clamped to a rock in the Caucasus for betraying the secrets of the gods to men, and the gods sent eagles to feed on his liver, which was perpetually renewed. Just as here, in my opinion, we can find a possible explanation for all that idleness and desuetude into which sinks everything in Piranesi’s prisons in the following terse parable by Kafka from the same collection of short stories. As long as you don’t stop climbing, the stairs won’t end, under your climbing feet they will go on growing upwards.” The architect of this space seems familiar…

More specifically, there is a description of the labyrinth in the short story “The Burrow.” Also in “Advocates,” a very succinct story, we come across the following paragraph: “ So if you find nothing in the corridors open the doors, if you find nothing behind these doors there are more floors, and if you find nothing up there, don’t worry, just leap up another flight of stairs. The similarities between the oeuvre of Piranesi and Kafka’s are manifest and run through the latter’s work in its entirety. Likewise, the wheels have remained motionless and the staircases lead nowhere.Įtching X: Prisoners on a Projecting Platform Viewing the “Prisons” one quickly discerns the striking fact that all those giant constructions serve no purpose, just as the chains never restrained an inmate (with the exception of Etchings II and X). Anyone who is a fan of black and white film will readily ascertain the affinities, as much with light as with the intricate arrangement of the space.

Of course, the comparison with cinema is automatic. Moreover, it is known that the first “Prison” that Piranesi engraved “Carcere oscura,” which does not belong to this series, is occasionally referred to as “Prison of Dardanus” because it was later used as a maquette for the stage set of Dardanus by Jean Philippe Rameau (1739). These works by Piranesi with their intensely dramatic character recall opera stage sets. According to Marguerite Yourcenar it is “ an artificial world that is nevertheless real in a sinister way, claustrophobic, megalomaniacal that brings to mind modern man who shuts himself away more each day.” With the pronounced shadows and sharp lighting these places give you the impression that you’re in a labyrinth, trapped in a mechanism that overruns you. Series of vaults in succession and meandering stairs with countless vanishing points that extend the space infinitely in every direction.

Giant columns, tackling and pulleys with chains suspended threateningly, engines of torture, toothed wheels like those familiar from the iconography associated with Saint Catherine. They are fictitious spaces that recall the inner parts of medieval towers where everything has assumed gargantuan proportions. In the definitive version, the Carceri formed a series of 16 engravings that were printed in 1761. Just as the sequence known as the Carceri d’invenzione was highly acclaimed. He became famous for his engravings of subjects of archaeological interest entitled Views of Rome. Yet as an engraver, in the tradition of Rembrandt, Dürer, Goya, Roualt and Picasso, he was among those to whom this art owes its title of nobility. The unique project he completed was the church of Santa Maria del Priorato in Rome (1764-1766). Practically speaking his professional activity as an architect was limited.

Giovani Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) was born near Venice and died in Rome where he spent a considerable part of his life.

Eisenstein piranesi prison