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.

The Haukohl Family stands in the wake of a lasting tradition of European and American collecting practices for the benefit of future generations. Published to accompany an exhibition at the Luxembourg National Museum of Art, October 2018 to February 2019. For six generations the Haukohls have collected art, rare books, drawings, sculpture and textiles. It has been the fulfilling result of a Milwaukee-based American Midwestern family who has had equal determination and always with an eye towards acquiring fine art for the benefit of the future generations. This book presents masterworks of Italian painting and sculpture from the 16th through 18th centuries drawn from the largest private American collection of Florentine Baroque painting, featuring works by key artists such as Cesare Dandini, Jacopo da Empoli, and Francesco Furini.

Rubens was well placed to take advantage of the increasing demand for scenes of Christ's Passion in the Southern Netherlands at the beginning of the 17th Century. He had developed a reputation for his religious paintings in Italy, and his return to Antwerp coincided with the efforts of the Catholic Church to restore and replace altarpieces damaged by the Calvinists. The experience of Italy fostered Ruben's interest in both the historical and the human aspects of Christ's Passion. The influence of classical sculpture and of Titian, Michelangelo and Caravaggio is evident in the monumental quality of his compositions, but he also valued the emotional intensity of Northern masters like Rogier van der Weyden and Quentin Massys. He made many innovations in his concern for accuracy, especially in disputed subjects like the Elevation of the Cross. Ruben's success in transforming all these diverse influences is a tribute to his deeply held religious beliefs and his determination to give his viewers the sense of witnessing a moment in history. The images that Rubens created were appropriated throughout Europe.

The second largest city in 17th-century Europe, Naples constituted a vital Mediterranean center in which the Spanish Habsburgs, the clergy, and Neapolitan aristocracy, together with the resident merchants, and other members of the growing professional classes jostled for space and prestige. Their competing programs of building and patronage created a booming art market and spurred painters such as Jusepe de Ribera, Massimo Stanzione, Salvator Rosa, and Luca Giordano as well as foreign artists such as Caravaggio, Domenichino, Artemisia Gentileschi, and Giovanni Lanfranco to extraordinary heights of achievement. This new reading of 17th-century Italian Baroque art explores the social, material, and economic history of painting, revealing how artists, agents, and the owners of artworks interacted to form a complex and mutually sustaining art world. Through such topics as artistic rivalry and anti-foreign labor agitation, art dealing and forgery, cultural diplomacy, and the rise of the independently arranged art exhibition, Christopher R. Marshall illuminates the rich interconnections between artistic practice and patronage, business considerations, and the spirit of entrepreneurialism in Baroque Italy.

Apart from a handful of art historians no one has ever heard of the Brussels painter Hendrick De Clerck (1560-1630). Nevertheless, De Clerck was a contemporary of Peter Paul Rubens, the latter having gone down in history as an artistic trailblazer and painting powerhouse, while Hendrick De Clerck has quietly faded into oblivion. Yet the subtly coded, vibrantly coloured pictures that De Clerck painted for Archduke Albert of Austria and his wife Isabella are political propaganda of the highest order. In creating a mode of archducal representation that could help to gain an empire, the sky is quite literally the limit. De Clerck represents Isabella as wise Minerva, chaste Diana, the Virgin Mary. And that's nothing compared to her husband, for in De Clerck's paintings Albert is transformed into the sun god Apollo or even into Jesus Christ himself. Hendrick De Clerck's mastery of ingenious pictorial strategy made him a leading player in one of the most ambitious projects history has ever seen. For those who know how to read them, his paintings tell a story of power, political promises, and grandiose ambition. Most of all, they are supreme examples of image-building; for as the Archdukes were well aware, even as a monarch you're only as important as you make yourself.

Despite numbering at just 35, his works have prompted a New York Times best seller; a film starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth; record visitor numbers at art institutions from Amsterdam to Washington, DC; and special crowd-control measures at the Mauritshuis, The Hague, where thousands flock to catch a glimpse of the enigmatic and enchanting Girl with a Pearl Earring, also known as the "Dutch Mona Lisa". In his lifetime, however, the fame of Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) barely extended beyond his native Delft and a small circle of patrons. After his death, his name was largely forgotten, except by a few Dutch art collectors and dealers. Outside of Holland, his works were even misattributed to other artists. It was not until the mid-19th century that Vermeer came to the attention of the international art world, which suddenly looked upon his narrative minutiae, meticulous textural detail, and majestic planes of light, spotted a genius, and never looked back. This 40th anniversary edition showcases the complete catalog of Vermeer's work, presenting the calm yet compelling scenes so treasured in galleries across Europe and the United States into one monograph of utmost reproduction quality. Crisp details and essays tracing Vermeer's career illuminate his remarkable ability not only to bear witness to the trends and trimmings of the Dutch Golden Age but also to encapsulate an entire story in just one transient gesture, expression, or look. About the series TASCHEN is 40! Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible publishing, helping bookworms around the world curate their own library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia at an unbeatable price. Today we celebrate 40 years of incredible books by staying true to our company credo. The 40 series presents new editions of some of the stars of our program-now more compact, friendly in price, and still realized with the same commitment to impeccable production.

Between 1667 and 1792, the artists and amateurs of the Acade mie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris lectured on the Acade mie's 'confe rences', foundational documents in the theory and practice of art. These texts and the principles they embody guided artistic practice and art theory in France and throughout Europe for two centuries. In the 1800s, the Acade mie's influence waned, and few of the 388 Acade mie lectures were translated into English. Eminent scholars Christian Michel and Jacqueline Lichtenstein have selected and annotated forty-two of the most representative lectures, creating the first authoritative collection of the 'confe rences' for readers of English. Essential to understanding French art of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, these lectures reveal what leading French artists looked for in a painting or sculpture, the problems they sought to resolve in their works, and how they viewed their own and others' artistic practice.

The subject of writing and receiving letters, which recurs frequently in the work of Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), is given dramatic tension in this masterful painting of two women in a mysterious moment of crisis. The artist seldom, if ever, surpassed the subtly varied effects of light seen here as it gleams from the pearl jewellery, sparkles from the glass and silver objects on the table, and falls softly over the figures in their shadowy setting. The Frick Diptych series sparks a dialogue between creative spirits and art historians, promising new insights into some of the Frick's most famous masterpieces. The third volume, to be published in 2019, will have a contribution by author Edmund de Waal on a pair of porcelain and bronze candlesticks by the 18th-century French metalworker Pierre Gouthiere.

Men in stately black, women with huge ruffs, children with golden rattles, old women with wizened faces, and self-satisfied artists... These are the main players in just about every portrait ever painted in the Southern Netherlands. From the15th to the 17th centuries, the tract of land that we today call Flanders was the economic, cultural, intellectual and financial heart of Europe. And money flows - with everyone who could afford it investing in a portrait. Today, these cherished status symbols of the past have largely lost their original significance. But beyond their functional and emotional aspects, these portraits turn their subjects into gateways to the past. This book takes masterpieces from the collection of The Phoebus Foundation and outlines the broad context in which they came into being, peeling back levels of meaning like the layers of an onion. Whether captured in an impressive Rubens or Van Dyck, or an intimate portrait by a forgotten artist, the persons portrayed were once flesh and blood, each with their own peculiarities, hidden agendas and ambitions. Some portraits are very personal and hyper-individual. Others are a little dusty, the ladies and gentleman being children of their time. In most cases, however, their dreams and aspirations are surprisingly timeless and soberingly recognisable. The Bold and the Beautiful is an appointment with history: a meeting through portraiture with men and women from bygone centuries. But for those willing to look closely, the border between the present and the past is paper-thin. Published on the occasion of the exhibition Blind Date. Portretten met blikken en blozen, Autumn 2020, in Snijders&Rockoxhuis Antwerp, curated by Dr. Katharina Van Cauteren & Hildegard Van de Velde with a scenography by Walter Van Beirendonck.

In Jesuit Art, Mia Mochizuki considers the artistic production of the pre-suppression Society of Jesus (1540-1773) from a global perspective. Geographic and medial expansion of the standard corpus changes not only the objects under analysis, it also affects the kinds of queries that arise. Mochizuki draws upon masterpieces and material culture from around the world to assess the signature structural innovations pioneered by Jesuits in the history of the image. When the question of a 'Jesuit style' is rehabilitated as an inquiry into sources for a spectrum of works, the Society's investment in the functional potential of illustrated books reveals the traits that would come to define the modern image as internally networked, technologically defined, and innately subjective.

Gardens of Court and Country provides the first comprehensive overview of the development of the English formal garden from 1630 to 1730. Often overshadowed by the English landscape garden that became fashionable later in the 18th century, English formal gardens of the 17th century displayed important design innovations that reflected a broad rethinking of how gardens functioned within society. With insights into how the Protestant nobility planned and used their formal gardens, the domestication of the lawn, and the transformation of gardens into large rustic parks, David Jacques explores the ways forecourts, flower gardens, bowling greens, cascades, and more were created and reimagined over time. This handsome volume includes 300 illustrations - including plans, engravings, and paintings - that bring lost and forgotten gardens back to life. Published in association with the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

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

This is a fascinating exploration of the mystery that surrounds of Ruben's most well-known and intriguing drawings. Peter Paul Rubens was one of the most talented and successful artists working in 17th-century Europe. During his illustrious career as a court painter and diplomat, Rubens expressed a fascination with exotic costumes and headdresses. With his masterful handling of black chalk and touches of red, Rubens executed a compelling drawing that features a figure wearing Asian costume - a depiction that has recently been identified as Man in Korean Costume. Despite the drawings renown - both during Ruben's own lifetime and in contemporary art scholarship - the reasons why it was made and whether it actually depicts a specific Asian person remain a mystery. The intriguing story that develops involves a shipwreck, an unusual hat, the earliest trade between Europe and Asia, the trafficking of Asian slave, and Jesuit missionaries.