Le catalogue des oeuvres de Pierre Paul Rubens (1577-1640), chantre du baroque dans sa theatralite, son mouvement et sa sensualite, compte plus de 1000 references. Cette monographie resumee presente les oeuvres les plus importantes qui ont jalonne un parcours artistique etonnamment prolifique, afin d'explorer les inspirations et innovations de Rubens, ainsi que son incroyable influence sur les arts visuels et l'histoire de l'art. Cet ouvrage richement illustre parcourt les portraits, paysages et toiles historiques de Rubens, ainsi que ses fameux nus bien en chair. Il se penche sur l'eblouissante technique de l'artiste et son habilete a traduire un recit sous forme de scenes puissantes et eloquentes, aussi bien pour un episode mythologique erotique qu'une sage histoire biblique. Ce talent artistique remarquable est replace a la fois dans la longue lignee d'artistes inspires par Rubens, de Van Dyck a Velazquez et au-dela, et dans le contexte de sa vie d'erudit, de diplomate et de chevalier. A propos de la collection Chaque volume de la Basic Art Series de TASCHEN contient: une chronologique detaillee de la vie et de l'oeuvre de l'artiste qui rend compte de son importance culturelle et artistique une biographie concise une centaine d'illustrations couleur accompagnees de legendes explicatives

Par rapport a ses contemporains du XVIe siecle tardif a Venise, El Greco (1541--1614) incarne leur exact oppose, un artiste au talent inne, extraordinairement doue, mais fermement decide a suivre sa propre voie. Tout au long de sa carriere, depuis ses debuts en Crete jusqu'a ses sejours a Venise, a Rome, puis son installation a Tolede, en Espagne, "Le Grec" est demeure a la marge de ses pairs, synthetisant differentes traditions artistiques de l'Occident pour creer un langage pictural unique. Le style singulier de El Greco traduit un rejet du naturalisme autant que de la facilite. Des peintures comme Le Christ depouille de sa tunique (1577-1579), L'Enterrement du comte d'Orgaz (1586-1588) et L'Ouverture du Cinquieme Sceau de l'Apocalypse (1608-1614) revelent des figures allongees et tourmentees, des couleurs irreelles et un traitement experimental de l'espace, autant d'elements s'opposant a une lecture rapide et orientee, mais temoignant d'un art d'une profondeur epique et d'une grande beaute spirituelle. Souvent considere d'un oeil critique et suspicieux durant sa vie, El Greco fut redecouvert par un petit nombre d'admirateurs fervents parmi les peintres modernes, comme Pablo Picasso, Roger Fry et le pionnier du collectif "Der Blaue Reiter", Franz Marc. Aujourd'hui, l'artiste appartient au cercle restreint des grands maitres de la peinture, autant comme figure d'exception de son temps que comme artiste de reference a travers les siecles. Cette introduction de reference, issue de la Petite Collection 2.0 proposee par TASCHEN, explore les influences et les caracteristiques de la vision singuliere et radicale de El Greco, de l'univers symbolique des icones byzantines et les valeurs humanistes de la Renaissance aux premices d'une pratique conceptuelle. A propos de la collection Chaque volume de la Basic Art Series de TASCHEN contient: une chronologique detaillee de la vie et de l'oeuvre de l'artiste qui rend compte de son importance culturelle et artistique une biographie concise une centaine d'illustrations couleur accompagnees de legendes explicatives

Intricate, expressive, given to grandeur and even excess, Baroque art as a style is inseparable from the meanings it seeks to convey. Vernon Hyde Minor's Baroque Visual Rhetoric probes this combination of style and message and - equally importantly - the methodological basis on which the critical art historian comes to establish that meaning. Drawing on a breathtaking range of critical literature, from the German founders of art history as an academic discipline to Heidegger, Derrida, and de Man, Minor considers the issue through a series of Baroque masterpieces: Bernini's Baldacchino in St. Peter's Basilica, the statues in the church of San Giovanni in Laterano, Borromini's church of Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza, Baciccio's frescoes in the church of Il Gesu, the paintings of Philippe de Champaigne, and the Corsini Chapel in San Giovanni in Laterano.

Joseph Anton Feuchtmayer gehorte im 18. Jahrhundert zu den genialen Bildhauern seiner Zeit. Seine beruhmte Werkstatt in Salem-Mimmenhausen, unweit vom Bodensee, war ein grosses Unternehmen und ein bedeutendes Kunstzentrum, in welchem internationale Stromungen zusammenliefen. Woher nahm der Meister seine Inspirationen? Wie fertigte er seine schneeweissen, tanzerischen Skulpturen? Welches Geheimnis birgt der in kostbaren Farben glanzende Stuckmarmor? Wie entstand sein Meisterwerk, die beruhmte Wallfahrtskirche Birnau? Ein reich bebildertes Buch, in welchem der Bildhauer von den Sonnen- und Schattenseiten seines Lebens sowie von der Entstehung seiner aussergewohnlichen Werke bericht

"Baroque New Worlds" traces the changing nature of Baroque representation in Europe and the Americas across four centuries, from its seventeenth-century origins as a Catholic and monarchical aesthetic and ideology to its contemporary function as a postcolonial ideology aimed at disrupting entrenched power structures and perceptual categories. Baroque forms are exuberant, ample, dynamic, and porous, and in the regions colonized by Catholic Europe, the Baroque was itself eventually colonized. In the New World, its transplants immediately began to reflect the cultural perspectives and iconographies of the indigenous and African artisans who built and decorated Catholic structures, and Europe's own cultural products were radically altered in turn. Today, under the rubric of the Neobaroque, this transculturated Baroque continues to impel artistic expression in literature, the visual arts, architecture, and popular entertainment worldwide.

Since Neobaroque reconstitutions necessarily reference the European Baroque, this volume begins with the reevaluation of the Baroque that evolved in Europe during the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth. Foundational essays by Friedrich Nietzsche, Heinrich Wolfflin, Walter Benjamin, Eugenio d'Ors, Rene Wellek, and Mario Praz recuperate and redefine the historical Baroque. Their essays lay the groundwork for the revisionist Latin American essays, many of which have not been translated into English until now. Authors including Alejo Carpentier, Jose Lezama Lima, Severo Sarduy, edouard Glissant, Haroldo de Campos, and Carlos Fuentes understand the New World Baroque and Neobaroque as decolonizing strategies in Latin America and other postcolonial contexts. This collection moves between art history and literary criticism to provide a rich interdisciplinary discussion of the transcultural forms and functions of the Baroque.

Contributors. Dorothy Z. Baker, Walter Benjamin, Christine Buci-Glucksmann, Jose Pascual Buxo, Leo Cabranes-Grant, Haroldo de Campos, Alejo Carpentier, Irlemar Chiampi, William Childers, Gonzalo Celorio, Eugenio d'Ors, Jorge Ruedas de la Serna, Carlos Fuentes, edouard Glissant, Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, angel Guido, Monika Kaup, Jose Lezama Lima, Friedrich Nietzsche, Mario Praz, Timothy J. Reiss, Alfonso Reyes, Severo Sarduy, Pedro Henriquez Urena, Maarten van Delden, Rene Wellek, Christopher Winks, Heinrich Wolfflin, Lois Parkinson Zamora

Profusely illustrated, this historical work focuses on the planning and construction of the Plaza Mayor in Madrid, Spain, during the second half of the 16th century--when Madrid went from being a mercantile town to the capital of the Hapsburg Empire. Including a detailed analysis of archived documents, architectural plans, and drawings, this study chronicles this monument's architectural and urban development, explains the symbolism associated with it, and reveals how it came to be a model for other European constructions. "Profusamente ilustrada, esta obra historica enfoca el planeamiento y construccion de la Plaza Mayor en Madrid, Espana, durante la segunda parte del siglo 16--cuando Madrid paso de ser un pueblo mercantil a capital del imperio de los Habsburgo. Incluyendo un analisis detallado de documentos archivisticos, planos arquitectonicos y dibujos, este estudio relata los progresos arquitectonicos y urbanos del monumento, explica el simbolismo asociado con ello, y revela como llego a ser un modelo para otras construcciones europeas."

The late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are frequently labeled the age of theater. Throughout western Europe, the dramatic arts attained new heights of cultural prestige, political importance, and commercial success. This series of essays investigates the dialogue between the newly invigorated theater and the plastic arts. Discussed are the interactions between spectator and spectacle, social performance and the staging of the individual, the shaping of space and time, and the debates over the relationship that visual and theatrical representations have to the objects they portray.

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.

The Carthusian monks at San Martino began a series of decorative campaigns in the 1580s that continued until 1757, transforming the church of their monastery, the Certosa di San Martino, into a jewel of marble revetment, painting, and sculpture. The aesthetics of the church generate a jarring moral conflict: few religious orders honored the ideals of poverty and simplicity so ardently yet decorated so sumptuously. In this study, Nick Napoli explores the terms of this conflict and of how it sought resolution amidst the social and economic realities and the political and religious culture of early modern Naples. Napoli mines the documentary record of the decorative campaigns at San Martino, revealing the rich testimony it provides relating to both the monks' and the artists' expectations of how practice and payment should transpire. From these documents, the author delivers insight into the ethical and economic foundations of artistic practice in early modern Naples. The first English-language study of a key monument in Naples and the first to situate the complex within the cultural history of the city, The Ethics of Ornament in Early Modern Naples sheds new light on the Neapolitan baroque, industries of art in the age before capitalism, and the relation of art, architecture, and ornament.