This is a new release of the original 1924 edition.

This is a rich exploration of the role the Baroque master played in the Counter-Reformation. The art of Rubens is rooted in an era darkened by the long shadow of devastating wars between Protestants and Catholics. In the wake of this profound schism, the Catholic Church decided to cease using force to propagate the faith. Like Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) sought to persuade his spectators to return to the true faith through the beauty of his art. While Rubens is praised for the "baroque passion" in his depictions of cruelty and sensuous abandon, nowhere did he kindle such emotional fire as in his religious subjects. Their colour, warmth, and majesty - but also their turmoil and lamentation - were calculated to arouse devout and ethical emotions. This fresh consideration of the images of saints and martyrs Rubens created for the churches of Flanders and the Holy Roman Empire offers a masterly demonstration of Rubens' achievements, liberating their message from the secular misunderstandings of the post-religious age and showing them in their intended light.

An expert look at the life and captivating work of the Dutch painter Nicolaes Maes, Rembrandt's most famous pupil This book offers a close look at the art of Dutch Golden Age painter Nicolaes Maes (1634-1693). One of Rembrandt's most talented students, Maes began by painting biblical scenes in the style of his famous teacher. He later produced extraordinary genre pieces, in which the closely observed actions of the main figure, often a woman, have a hushed, almost monumental character. Maes also depicted mothers with children or older women praying or sleeping; such works have placed him among the most popular painters of the Dutch Golden Age. From around 1660, Maes turned exclusively to portraiture, and his elegant style attracted wealthy and eminent clients from Dordrecht and Amsterdam. This generously illustrated volume is the first in English to cover the full range of his repertoire. The authors-curators from the National Gallery, London, and the Mauritshuis, The Hague-bring extensive knowledge to bear for the benefit of specialists and the general public. Published by National Gallery Company in association with the Mauritshuis, The Hague, and Waanders Publishers, Zwolle/Distributed by Yale University Press Exhibition Schedule: Mauritshuis (October 17, 2019-January 19, 2020) National Gallery, London (February 22-May 31, 2020)

In this collection of nine essays some of the preeminent art historians in the United States consider the relationship between art and craft, between the creative idea and its realization, in Renaissance and Baroque Italy. The essays, all previously unpublished, are devoted to the pictorial arts and are accompanied by nearly 150 illustrations. Examining works by such artists as Michelangelo, Titian, Volterrano, Giovanni di Paolo, and Annibale Carracci (along with aspects of the artists' creative processes, work habits, and aesthetic convictions), the essayists explore the ways in which art was conceived and produced at a time when collaboration with pupils, assistants, or independent masters was an accepted part of the artistic process. The consensus of the contributors amounts to a revision, or at least a qualification, of Bernard Berenson's interpretation of the emergent Renaissance ideal of individual ""genius"" as a measure of original artistic achievement: we must accord greater influence to the collaborative, appropriative conventions and practices of the craft workshop, which persisted into and beyond the Renaissance from its origins in the Middle Ages. Consequently, we must acknowledge the sometimes rather ordinary beginnings of some of the world's great works of art--an admission, say the contributors, that will open new avenues of study and enhance our understanding of the complex connections between invention and execution. With one exception, these essays were delivered as lectures in conjunction with the exhibition The Artists and Artisans of Florence: Works from the Horne Museum hosted by the Georgia Museum of Art in the fall of 1992.

"Seventeenth-Century European Drawings in Midwestern Collections: The Age of Bernini, Rembrandt, and Poussin" brings together more than one hundred treasures of the Baroque age from museum collections throughout the Midwest. The volume presents a fascinating and representative selection of Italian, Dutch, Flemish, and French drawings in Midwestern repositories, offering new insights on many of these works of art. Many are relatively unknown, and some have never before been published.
Authored by major scholars in the field, the catalogue presents each drawing along with a concise description with full scholarly apparatus. Four essays, written by Babette Bohn, George S. Keyes, Kristi A. Nelson, and Alvin L. Clark, Jr., respectively, introduce the Italian, Dutch, Flemish, and French schools. The catalogue's introductory essay, by Shelley Perlove, places these works within the historical, iconographic, and stylistic currents of seventeenth-century art. The catalogue is designed to have widespread appeal for art historians, curators, artists, collectors, students, and general readers interested in art and cultural history. Moreover, "Seventeenth-Century European Drawings in Midwestern Collections "highlights the surprising number of institutions throughout the Midwest that have acquired distinguished European drawings from the seventeenth century worthy of full recognition by collectors and connoisseurs.

An Italian village on a hilltop near the Adriatic coast, a decaying palazzo facing the sea, and in the basement, cobwebbed and dusty, lit by a single bulb, an archive unknown to scholars. Here, a young graduate student from Rome, Francesca Cappelletti, makes a discovery that inspires a search for a work of art of incalculable value, a painting lost for almost two centuries.
The artist was Caravaggio, a master of the Italian Baroque. He was a genius, a revolutionary painter, and a man beset by personal demons. Four hundred years ago, he drank and brawled in the taverns and streets of Rome, moving from one rooming house to another, constantly in and out of jail, all the while painting works of transcendent emotional and visual power. He rose from obscurity to fame and wealth, but success didn't alter his violent temperament. His rage finally led him to commit murder, forcing him to flee Rome a hunted man. He died young, alone, and under strange circumstances.
Caravaggio scholars estimate that between sixty and eighty of his works are in existence today. Many others-no one knows the precise number-have been lost to time. Somewhere, surely, a masterpiece lies forgotten in a storeroom, or in a small parish church, or hanging above a fireplace, mistaken for a mere copy.
Prizewinning author Jonathan Harr embarks on an spellbinding journey to discover the long-lost painting known as The Taking of Christ-its mysterious fate and the circumstances of its disappearance have captivated Caravaggio devotees for years. After Francesca Cappelletti stumbles across a clue in that dusty archive, she tracks the painting across a continent and hundreds of years of history. But it is not until she meets Sergio Benedetti, an art restorer working in Ireland, that she finally manages to assemble all the pieces of the puzzle.
Told with consummate skill by the writer of the bestselling, award-winning "A Civil Action," The Lost Painting is a remarkable synthesis of history and detective story. The fascinating details of Caravaggio's strange, turbulent career and the astonishing beauty of his work come to life in these pages. Harr's account is not unlike a Caravaggio painting: vivid, deftly wrought, and enthralling.
." . . Jonathan Harr has gone to the trouble of writing what will probably be a bestseller . . . rich and wonderful. . .in truth, the book reads better than a thriller because, unlike a lot of best-selling nonfiction authors who write in a more or less novelistic vein (Harr's previous book, "A Civil Action," was made into a John Travolta movie), Harr doesn't plump up hi tale. He almost never foreshadows, doesn't implausibly reconstruct entire conversations and rarely throws in litanies of clearly conjectured or imagined details just for color's sake. . .if you're a sucker for Rome, and for dusk. . .[you'll] enjoy Harr's more clearly reported details about life in the city, as when--one of my favorite moments in the whole book--Francesca and another young colleague try to calm their nerves before a crucial meeting with a forbidding professor by eating gelato. And who wouldn't in Italy? The pleasures of travelogue here are incidental but not inconsiderable." --"The New York Times Book Review"

"Jonathan Harr has taken the story of the lost painting, and woven from it a deeply moving narrative about history, art and taste--and about the greed, envy, covetousness and professional jealousy of people who fall prey to obsession. It is as perfect a work of narrative nonfiction as you could ever hope to read." --"The Economist"

"From the Hardcover edition."

"A beautiful, intricate meditation on creativity and discovery, on fire and rebirth." --Elizabeth Gilbert

Awestruck at the sight of a Grinling Gibbons carving in a London church, David Esterly chose to dedicate his life to woodcarving--its physical rhythms, intricate beauty, and intellectual demands. Forty years later, he is the foremost practitioner of Gibbons's forgotten technique, which revolutionized ornamental sculpture in the late 1600s with its spectacular cascades of flowers, fruits, and foliage.

After a disastrous fire at Henry VIII's Hampton Court Palace, Esterly was asked to replace the Gibbons masterpiece destroyed by the flames. It turned out to be the most challenging year in Esterly's life, forcing him to question his abilities and delve deeply into what it means to make a thing well. Written with a philosopher's intellect and a poet's grace, "The Lost Carving" explores the connection between creativity and physical work and illuminates the passionate pursuit of a vocation that unites head and hand and heart.

This new title in the highly regarded Art & Ideas series presents a thorough introduction to the Baroque and Rococo styles. Encompassing architecture, interior design, furniture, ceramics, garden landscaping and theatrical spectaculars, as well as the masterpieces of this prolific period in the Fine Arts, these styles were global and had enormous impact on the history of art. Gauvin Bailey clarifies the essence of the styles and examines their complexities and contradictions, and their applications against the backdrop of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe, Latin America and Asia. With 250 illustrations, well-known sculptures by Bernini, paintings by Caravaggio and Rembrandt, and some of the most famous buildings in the world are set in their creative milieu with succinct analysis and broad clarity. Lesser known examples from across the world demonstrate how the aesthetic trends of the styles were concurrent throughout continents, and enlightens and refreshes the implications of the terms.