Artemisia Gentileschi is one of the most fascinating artists in history. Apprenticed at an early age to her father, the seventeenth-century painter Orazio Gentileschi, she rapidly became more famous than he was, for her rich, dramatic canvases. But her fame was tarnished by scandal. At the age of seventeen, she was violently raped by Agostino Tassi, an artist friend of Orazio's. On discovering Tassi's betrayal, Orazio took the case to court and there followed, in 1612, eight months of humiliation for Artemisia as the inhabitants of Rome's colourful artist's quarter came to give evidence. Their testimony - frank, partial, often cruel - in this first rape trial ever to be fully documented, made Artemisia and her father notorious.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) was always a name to be reckoned with. Notorious bad boy of the Italian Baroque, the artist was at once celebrated and controversial, violent in temper, precise in technique, a creative master, and a man on the run. Though famed for his dramatic use of color, light, and shadow, it was above all Caravaggio's boundary-breaking naturalism which scorched his name into the annals of art history. From the dirtied soles of feet to the sexualized languor of bare flesh, the artist allowed even sacred and biblical scenes to unfold with a startling, often visceral humanity. This vivid pictorial world was accompanied by an equally intense personal biography, scored by gambling, debts, drunken brawls, and even a murder charge. This book brings together more than 50 of Caravaggio's most famous and revolutionary works to explore how and why this artist is now considered the most important painter of the early Baroque period and one of the defining influences of art history, without whom Ribera, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Delacroix, Courbet, and Manet could never have painted the way they did. About the series Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best-selling art book collection ever published. Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art series features: a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

A unique seventeenth-century account of painting as it was practiced, taught, and discussed during a period of extraordinary artistic and intellectual ferment in the Netherlands. The only comprehensive work on painting written by a Dutch artist in the later seventeenth century, Samuel van Hoogstraten's Inleyding tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst, anders de zichtbaere werelt (Introduction to the Academy of Painting; or, The Visible World, 1678) has long served as a source of valuable insights on a range of topics, from firsthand reports of training in Rembrandt's studio to contemporary engagements with perspective, optics, experimental philosophy, the economics of art, and more. Van Hoogstraten's magnum opus--here available in an English print edition for the first time--brings textual sources into dialogue with the author's own experience garnered during a multifaceted career. Presenting novel twists on traditional topics, he makes a distinctive case for the status of painting as a universal discipline basic to all the liberal arts. Van Hoogstraten's arguments for the authority of what painters know about nature and art speak to contemporary notions of expertise and to the unsettled relations between theory and practice, making this book a valuable document of the intertwined histories of art and knowledge in the seventeenth century.

A brand-new perspective on early modern art and its relationship with nature as reflected in this moving account of overlooked artistic genius Adam Elsheimer, by an outstanding writer and critic. Seventeenth-century Europe swirled with conjectures and debates over what was real and what constituted 'nature', currents that would soon gather force to form modern science. Natural Light deliberates on the era’s uncertainties, as distilled in the work of painter Adam Elsheimer – a short-lived, tragic German artist who has always been something of a cult secret. Elsheimer’s diminutive, intense and mysterious narrative compositions related figures to landscape in new ways, projecting unfamiliar visions of space at a time when Caravaggio was polarizing audiences with his radical altarpieces and circles of ‘natural philosophers’ – early modern scientists – were starting to turn to the new ‘world system’ of Galileo. Julian Bell transports us to the spirited Rome of the 1600s, where Elsheimer and other young Northern immigrants – notably his friend Peter Paul Rubens – swapped pictorial and poetic reference points. Focusing on some of Elsheimer's most haunting compositions, Bell drives at the anxieties that underlie them – a puzzling over existential questions that still have relevance today. Traditional themes for imagery are expressed with fresh urgency, most of all in Elsheimer's final painting, a vision of the night sky of unprecedented poetic power that was completed at a time of ferment in astronomy. Circulated through prints, Elsheimer’s pictorial inventions affected imaginations as disparate as Rembrandt, Lorrain and Poussin. They even reached artists in Mughal India, whose equally impassioned miniatures expand our sense of what 'nature' might be. As we home in on artworks of microscopic finesse, the whole of the 17th-century globe and its perplexities starts to open out around us.

This is a nonchronological introduction to Baroque, one of the great periods of European art. John Martin's descriptions of the essential characteristics of the Baroque help one to gain an understanding of the style. His illustrations are informative and he has clearly looked with a fresh eye at the works of art themselves. In addition to the more than 200 illustrations, the volume contains an appendix of translated documents.

Contents: J. Bos, Between Physiognomy and Pathognomy. Theoretical Perspectives on the Representation of Characters and Emotions in the Seventeenth Century - U. Heinen, Velum est timantis imago. The Portraits of Stoics and the Stoicism of Portrait - B. Watteeuw, Oppervlakkig of onderhuids? Over het psychologisch portret en de psychologie van het portretteren (1600-1650) - J. Dequeker, A Physician's View Beyond the Curtains of Seventeenth-Century Flemish and Dutch Baroque Portraits - H. Roodenburg, Netherlandish Baroque Portraits and Civil Conversation - R. Van Leeuwen, The Portrait Historie in Religious Context and its Condemnation - D. Meuwissen, A Change in Tradition. The Seventeenth-Century Portraits in the Series with the Land Commanders of the Utrecht Bailiwick of the Teutonic Order - K. De Clippel, Naked or Not Naked? Some Thoughts on Nudity and Portraiture in Seventeenth-Century Flemish Paintin - R. Ekkart, Het portret van de schilder en zijn familie. De familie van Mierevelt geschilderd door Pieter van Mierevelt - B. Timmermans, Het (familie-)portret als visuele stamboom en maatschappelijk gezicht bij de zeventiende-eeuwse Antwerpse elites - A. Jensen Adams, The Family Portrait Historie and the Viewer in Narrative Time- J. De Landtsheer, Justus Lipsius (1547-1606). A Scholar and His European Network - J. Muller, Eucharist and Eternal Life. The Wardens of the Sacrament Chapel in the St. Jacob's Church Antwerp, Immortalised in their Group Portrait by Pieter Thys - Z. Zaremba Filipczak, Portraits of Women who Do Not Love to be Lead by the Nose - K. Hearn, Pregnancy Portraits in Sixteenth- and Early Seventeenth-Century England - K. Van der Stighelen, Portretten en hun perceptie. De barokke blik op het portret. English and Dutch Text.

Baroque between the Wars is a fascinating account of the arts in the twenties and thirties. We often think of this time as being dominated by modernism, yet the period saw a dialogue between modern baroque - eclectic, playful, camp, open to influence from popular culture but connected with the past, and unafraid of the grotesque or surreal - and modernism, which was theory-driven, didactic, exclusive, and essentially neo-classical. Jane Stevenson argues that both baroque and classical forms were equally valid responses to the challenge of modernity. Setting painting and literature in the context of 'minor arts' such as interior design, photography, fashion, ballet, and flower arranging, and by highlighting the social context and sexual politics of creative production, Stevenson offers a new and exciting interpretation of one of the most renowned artistic movements of the 20th century. Accessibly written and generously illustrated, the volume focuses on artists, artefacts, clients, places, and publicists to demonstrate how baroque offered a whole new way of being modern. The modern baroque was an active subversion of the tenets of modernism, practised by the people that modernism habitually excluded. Stevenson brings those excluded groups into the centrefold of the modern baroque movement in a rich history of the alternative style which has influenced much of the art, architecture, performance and literature of today.

Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), one of the great masters of the Dutch Golden Age, is among the world's best-loved artists. The poetry of Vermeer's painting, with its brilliant colors, exquisite textures, and pearly light effects, is as vivid to us today as it must have been to people of the artist's own time. This beautiful book illustrates every known work by Vermeer in full color. Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., Curator of Northern Baroque Painting at the National Gallery of Art has written an illuminating essay on the artist and commentaries on the paintings.

Truly a distinguished achievement, this book is required reading for general readers as well as specialists in the history of art (Charles Dempsey, The Johns Hopkins University)A very important part of Caravaggio's production consists of pictorial narratives, mostly religious. Thus, according to early modern aesthetics, Caravaggio practiced the artistic genre of the istoria: the most discussed and thoroughly defined pictorial institution of his time. Unanimously, seventeenth-century artists and art theorists censored and condemned Caravaggio's art for its numerous deficiencies and faults in regard to the principles of the istoria. In spite of all these testimonies, Caravaggio's innovations in and misuses of the techniques specific to early modern pictorial narrative have never been systematically studied, debated, and put into historical perspective. In this volume, Lorenzo Pericolo argues that Caravaggio's multiple experimentations with the traditional devices of the istoria not only represent the core of an unprecedented poetics of dislocation, but also unsettled, dismantled, and expanded the scope of pictorial narrative in ways that would have redefined and deeply transformed the concept of painting and artistic creation, had Caravaggio's enterprise not have been ferociously criticized and stigmatized as both aberrant and defective. To solidly establish the importance and groundbreaking charge of Caravaggio's work, Pericolo examines the notion of Leon Battista Alberti's istoria as interpreted and developed by early modern artists and theorists-from Leonardo to Vasari, from Lomazzo to Poussin, and from Michelangelo to Bellori-in vast surveys in which the concepts of diachrony, duration, eurythmy, propriety, verisimilitude, and pictorial truth- among others-are carefully examined on a theoretical and practical level. By analyzing the paintings of Caravaggio's followers such as Cecco del Caravaggio, Battistello Caracciolo, Valentin de Boulogne and, not least, Diego Velazquez, Pericolo explores how Caravaggio's innovations in the domain of pictorial narrative were variously construed, elaborated upon, and brought to fruition in the aftermath of the master's death in 1610, thereby offering a critical explanation of the implosion and extinction of the Caravaggesque movement in the 1630s.

An original and breathtakingly beautiful perspective on how art developed through the ages, this book reveals how new materials and techniques inspired artists to create their greatest works. The Story of Painting will completely transform your understanding and enjoyment of art. Covering a comprehensive array of topics, from the first pigments and frescos to linear perspective in Renaissance paintings, the influence of photography, Impressionism, and the birth of modern art, it follows each step in the evolution of painting over the last 25,000 years, from the first cave paintings to the abstract works of the last 100 years. Packed with lavish colour reproductions of paintings and photographs of artists at work and the materials they used, it delves into the key paintings from each period to analyse the techniques and secrets of the great masters in detail. Immerse yourself in the pages of this stunning book and find yourself dazzled by new colours; marvel at the magic of perspective; wonder at glowing depictions of fabric and flesh; understand cubism; and embrace abstraction. You will look at paintings in a whole new light.

What a shock it must have been for the Utrecht painters Hendrick ter Brugghen, Gerard van Honthorst and Dirck van Baburen when they first encountered the breathtaking and unconventional paintings of Caravaggio in Rome. This volume shows impressively how the young artists individually explored this role model and thereby developed their own individual style. In around 1600 Rome was the centre of the world. Attracted by Caravaggio's spectacular success, young artists from all over Europe converged on the bus tling metropolis. The up-and-coming painters studied the same works, discussed matters with each other and used Caravaggio's style to develop their own individual pictorial language. Tracing the careers of the three most important Utrecht Caravaggists, the authors describe the atmosphere of this artistic mood of renewal. Only in a comparison with their European fellow artists does it become evident how strongly the Dutch tradition, with its love of merciless realism, influenced the creative work of the Utrecht painters.

The English-language edition of Nathalie Ferlut and Tamia Baudouin's stunning biography of Artemisia Gentileschi, the trailblazing Italian baroque painter, originally published in French. This full-color graphic novel recounts the remarkable story of Artemisia, whose life story is told through the lens of Artemisia's daughter as she questions her mother about their family history. The ensuing tale spans most of Gentileschi's life, beginning with her childhood in Rome in her father's painting studio, to the sexual abuse she experienced at the hands of a tutor and the arduous trial that followed, as well as the highlights of her prolific career in which she received commissions from clients as powerful as the Medici and the English royal family and became the first woman admitted to the prestigious Academy of Arts in Florence.

Johannes Vermeer's luminous paintings are loved and admired around the world, yet we do not understand how they were made. We see sunlit spaces; the glimmer of satin, silver, and linen; we see the softness of a hand on a lute string or letter. We recognise the distilled impression of a moment of time; and we feel it to be real. We might hope for some answers from the experts, but they are confounded too. Even with the modern technology available, they do not know why there is no evidence of any preliminary drawing; why there are shifts in focus; and why his pictures are unusually blurred. Some wonder if he might possibly have used a camera obscura to capture what he saw before him. The few traces Vermeer has left behind tell us little: there are no letters or diaries; and no reports of him at work. Jane Jelley has taken a new path in this detective story. A painter herself, she has worked with the materials of his time: the cochineal insect and lapis lazuli; the sheep bones, soot, earth, and rust. She shows us how painters made their pictures layer by layer; she investigates old secrets; and hears travellers' tales. She explores how Vermeer could have used a lens in the creation of his masterpieces. The clues were there all along. After all this time, now we can unlock the studio door, and catch a glimpse of Vermeer inside, painting light.

This anthology presents classic and recent scholarship on Italian art from 1600-1750, highlighting the key debates with which art historians continue to grapple.
Explores themes including: style or the visuality of art; artistic practices and production; artistic communication as projected and experienced; and artists' interactions with the ancient world and with the new sciences
Examines the work of key painters, architects and sculptors from this period, including Caravaggio, Bernini, Guarini and Poussin
Published in the expanding "Blackwell Anthologies in Art History" series

The first study devoted to classical art's vital creative impact on the work of the Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens. For the great Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), the classical past afforded lifelong creative stimulus and the camaraderie of humanist friends. A formidable scholar, Rubens ingeniously transmitted the physical ideals of ancient sculptors, visualized the spectacle of imperial occasions, rendered the intricacies of mythological tales, and delineated the character of gods and heroes in his drawings, paintings, and designs for tapestries. His passion for antiquity profoundly informed every aspect of his art and life. Including more than 150 color illustrations, this volume addresses the creative impact of Rubens's remarkable knowledge of the art and literature of antiquity through the consideration of key themes. The book's lively interpretive essays explore the formal and thematic relationships between ancient sources and Baroque expressions: the significance of neo-Stoic philosophy, the compositional and iconographic inspiration provided by exquisite carved gems, Rubens's study of Roman marble sculpture, and his inventive translation of ancient sources into new subjects made vivid by his dynamic painting style. This volume is published to accompany an exhibition on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa October 21, 2020, to January 11, 2021.

The essays in this volume show that Versailles was not the static creation of one man, but a hugely complex cultural space; a centre of power, but also of life, love, anxiety, creation, and an enduring palimpsest of aspirations, desires, and ruptures. The splendour of the Château and the masterpieces of art and design that it contains mask a more complex and sometimes more sordid history of human struggle and achievement. The case studies presented by the contributors to this book cannot provide a comprehensive account of the Palace of Versailles and its domains, the life within its walls, its visitors, and the art and architecture that it has inspired from the seventeenth century to the present day: from the palace of the Sun King to the Penthouse of Donald Trump. However, this innovative collection will reshape—or even radically redefine—our understanding of the palace of Versailles and its posterity.

Leo Steinberg was one of the most original art historians of the twentieth century, known for taking interpretive risks that challenged the profession by overturning reigning orthodoxies. In essays and lectures ranging from old masters to contemporary art, he combined scholarly erudition with an eloquent prose that illuminated his subject and a credo that privileged the visual evidence of the image over the literature written about it. His writings, sometimes provocative and controversial, remain vital and influential reading. Steinberg's perceptions evolved from long, hard looking at his objects of study. Almost everything he wrote included passages of formal analysis, but always put into the service of interpretation. This volume begins and ends with thematic essays on two fundamental precepts of Steinberg's art history: how dependence on textual authority mutes the visual truths of images and why artists routinely copy or adapt earlier artworks. In between are fourteen chapters on masterpieces of Renaissance and Baroque art, with bold and enlightening interpretations of works by Mantegna, Filippo Lippi, Pontormo, El Greco, Caravaggio, Steen and, finally, Velazquez. Four chapters are devoted to some of Velazquez's best-known paintings, ending with the famously enigmatic Las Meninas. Renaissance and Baroque Art is the third volume in a series that presents Steinberg's writings, selected and edited by his longtime associate Sheila Schwartz.

In the seventeenth century many young artists from the north and south of the Netherlands gained experience in Rome. However, that Flemish artists in Genoa contributed to lively artistic exchange and trade is less known. In this book the author Alison Johnston Stoesser throws new light on their activities during that day and age, particularly on those of the brothers Lucas and Cornelis de Wael. As artists and dealers, the brothers had connections with many key figures in the Flemish and Genoese art world, including the painter Anthony Van Dyck. For forty years Cornelis, the youngest brother, enjoyed great successes with his painting of everyday scene, fairs and field and naval battles. In addition, the brothers sold the works of other artists as well as many other objects of devotion.

'The nation-state is the enemy of the baroque.' This is the point of departure of this radical, even revolutionary, re-examination of the cultural history of the early-modern world. Drawing on sources in six languages, many of them hitherto unavailable to the English-speaking reader, and touching on the visual arts, architecture, music and literature, this study frees the word 'baroque' from being a term of periodisation into being the descriptor for a network of circulation of ideas, words, plants, arts and energies which encompassed the totality of the early-modern world. This challenging book also forces a reconsideration of many of the prejudices of the Anglophone perception of cultural history and in doing so opens to the reader a world of wonders: the allegorical dramas of Ireland and Belgrade; the arquebusier angels of Cuzco painting; the operas and festival music of Bolivia; the vertiginous architectural fantasies of the Jacobite exiles. -- .

Johannes Vermeer's luminous paintings are loved and admired around the world, yet we do not understand how they were made. We see sunlit spaces; the glimmer of satin, silver, and linen; we see the softness of a hand on a lute string or letter. We recognise the distilled impression of a moment of time; and we feel it to be real. We might hope for some answers from the experts, but they are confounded too. Even with the modern technology available, they do not know why there is an absence of any preliminary drawing; why there are shifts in focus; and why his pictures are unusually blurred. Some wonder if he might possibly have used a camera obscura to capture what he saw before him. The few traces Vermeer has left behind tell us little: there are no letters or diaries; and no reports of him at work. Jane Jelley has taken a new path in this detective story. A painter herself, she has worked with the materials of his time: the cochineal insect and lapis lazuli; the sheep bones, soot, earth and rust. She shows us how painters made their pictures layer by layer; she investigates old secrets; and hears travellers' tales. She explores how Vermeer could have used a lens in the creation of his masterpieces. The clues were there all along. After all this time, now we can unlock the studio door, and catch a glimpse of Vermeer inside, painting light.

These rare 17th-century views of celebrated Roman fountains and gardens constitute some of the finest and most accurate landscape drawings of the Italian Baroque period. The only edition in print, this compilation of outstanding engravings will be of immense interest to architectural historians as well as travelers to Rome and lovers of art and architecture.