Piranesi’s Prisons of the Mind

Let your mind wander and lose yourself in Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s extraordinary 18th-century prints from his series Carceri d’invenzione (Imaginary Prisons). These labyrinthian, fantastic spaces offer a mind-bending visual experience.  

An architect, engineer, and stage designer by training, Piranesi is known for his views in and around Rome that emphasized the monumentality of ancient ruins. His representation of antiquities used novel compositional devices, such as a low viewpoint and multiple vanishing points to exaggerate scale. Piranesi’s vertiginous Prisons went even further in their compositional trickery and architectural fantasy. The series was originally issued as a collection of fourteen prints around 1749–50. The artist reworked and reissued the series in 1761 as a set of sixteen prints. HoMA presents examples from this final series, in which Piranesi enhances the menacing character of the works by altering them, adding substantial detail and stronger tonal contrasts.  

The paradoxical spaces in Prisons have inspired artists for centuries, including writers like Thomas De Quincey and Jorge Luis Borges, as well as artists such as M.C. Escher and many Surrealists. The influence these works have had on film is unmistakable, from Bladerunner’s cityscapes to Hogwarts’ moving staircases in the Harry Potter movies. 
 
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Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Italian, 1720–1778), Frontispiece from Carceri d'invenzione, 1745/1761. Etching. Purchase, 1950 (12862)