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

A "New York Times" Notable Book of the Year
As vividly and unflinchingly presented herein with "blood and bone and sinew" ("Times Literary Supplement") by Peter Robb, Caravaggio's wild and tempestuous life was a provocation to a culture in a state of siege. The end of the sixteenth century was marked by the Inquisition and Counter-Reformation, a background of ideological war against which, despite all odds, brilliant feats of art and science were achieved. No artist captured the dark, violent spirit of the time better than Caravaggio, variously known as Marisi, Moriggia, Merigi, and sometimes, simply M. As art critic Robert Hughes has said, "There was art before him and art after him, and they were not the same." Robb's masterful biography "re-creates the mirror Cravaggio held up to nature," as Hilary Spurling wrote in "The New York Times Book Review," "with singular delicacy as well as passion and panache."

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 Baroque period was crucial for the development of art theory and the advancement of the artistic academy. This collection of primary sources brings this important period to life with significant documents and texts. It conveniently assembles major texts, which are otherwise available only in scattered publications. The lives of leading artists--Caravaggio, El Greco, among others---are discussed by their contemporaries, while Bellori, Galileo, Pascoli, and others write on art theory and practice. The documents provide fascinating glimpses of the period's artistic self-image.

The Kunstkammer in Dresden's Royal Palace houses a fascinating variety of collected objects from the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. It owes its unique collection of plain and ornate tools, for example, to the founder of the Kunstkammer, Elector August (1526-1586). They range from gardening equipment to goldsmithing, carpentry and ironworking tools and even to so-called Brechzeugen (tools for prising or breaking things open). In addition, the museum guide presents elaborately decorated art-room cabinets, two richly embellished Augsburg cabinets, tables inlaid with iridescent mother-of-pearl, precious board games, and musical instruments alongside filigree woodturned pieces, items of decorative art, and objects from distant cultures. Numerous previously unpublished masterpieces from the Kunstkammer in Dresden's Royal Palace

During the early modern period sculptors experimented with forms, typologies, and materials of their art in unprecedented ways. Sculpture was at the center of theoretical debates concerning the relative merits of the different arts, the differences between ancient and modern art, and the relationship between art and nature. Rome was a major center for these theoretical debates, as well as a locus for patronage and collecting. Sculptors from all over Europe came to Rome to study the remains of the antique past and to practice their art. Critical Perspectives on Roman Baroque Sculpture stakes out a new frontier of research on seventeenth-century sculpture in Rome-a frontier that looks well beyond attributional and technical questions, instead focusing on questions of historical context and criticism including the interaction of sculptural theory and practice; the creative roles of sculptors and their patrons; the relationship of sculpture to its antique models and to contemporary painting; and problems of contextual meaning and reception. Aside from the editors, the contributors are Michael Cole, Julia K. Dabbs, Maarten Delbeke, Damian Dombrowski, Maria Cristina Fortunati, Estelle Lingo, Peter M. Lukehart, Aline Magnien, and Christina Strunck.

Lange Zeit galt Genrekunst als Abbild der Wirklichkeit und der Prozess zunehmender Sakularisierung schien die Ursache ihrer Entstehung. Heute herrschen Erklarungen vor, welche die Genrekunst im Sinne gemalter Ethik und Lasterdarstellungen als Beitrag eines christlich-didaktischen Programms werten. Der vorliegende Band erweitert diese Perspektiven. Denn die Genremalerei stellt sich politischen, theologischen wie kunsttheoretischen Fragen und erweist sich als Medium einer im Aufbruch begriffenen Welt. So ist es kein Zufall, dass sich die Anfange der Genrekunst im 15. Jahrhundert in druckgraphischen Werken - im fortschrittlichsten Reproduktionsmedium jener Zeit - finden. Dabei adressiert sie ein stadtisches Publikum, das im Alltag immer wieder dem Problem christlicher Lebensfuhrung gegenubersteht. Die Publikation versammelt Beitrage mit Interpretationen exemplarischer Genrebilder von Albrecht Durer, Hieronymus Bosch, Petrus Christus oder Jan Sanders van Hemessen und regt zu einer Neubewertung der Gattung an, um sie als selbstreflexive, konfliktoffene Kunstform sichtbar zu machen.

The Galleria Borghese brings together an extraordinary collection of ancient and modern sculpture within a beautifully decorated villa. This volume, dedicated to modern sculpture (Late Renaissance to Baroque to Neoclassical), marks the start of a new general catalogue of the collection. The introduction narrates the history of the collection, from its creation by Cardinal Scipione Borghese in the 17th century to its sale to the Italian Republic at the end of the 19th century. The entries are full of chronological details, new attributions, information on restorations and account for the different historical settings thanks to an accurate study of the inventory records of the villa. They include world-famous masterpieces by Algardi, Bernini and Canova among others. The sale to Napoleon of many of its Antique works of art (now in the Louvre) was key to the Borghese's commission works of ancient inspiration, the analysis of which animates the pages of another section, based on the concepts of copy and remake. The catalogue closes with a section on restoration, that gives an account of the fundamental role of 16- to 18th-century sculptors in the maintenance and transformation of the archaeological collection in relation to the villa's display requirements. Text in Italian.

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.

The Art of Allegiance explores the ways in which Spanish imperial authority was manifested in a compelling system of representation for the subjects of New Spain during the seventeenth century. Michael Schreffler identifies and analyzes a corpus of "source" material--paintings, maps, buildings, and texts--produced in and around Mexico City that addresses themes of kingly presence and authority as well as obedience, loyalty, and allegiance to the crown.

The Art of Allegiance opens with a discussion of the royal palace in Mexico City, now destroyed but known through a number of images, and then moves on to consider its interior decoration, particularly the Hall of Royal Accord and the numerous portraits of royalty and government officials displayed in the palace. Subsequent chapters examine images in which the conquest of Mexico is depicted, maps showing New Spain's relationship to Spain and the larger world, and the restructuring of space in and through imperial rule. Although the book focuses on material from the reign of Charles II (1665-1700), it sheds light on the wider development of cultural politics in the Spanish colonial world.

This comprehensive study of the sculptures of Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) follows in twelve chapters his development as an artist and the area in which he excelled: portraits, the likeness of which astonished his contemporaries; the sculptures for St Peter in Rome; his extraordinary fountains; the timeless beauty of his renderings of mythological figures. German text. Die umfassende Monographie ueber die Skulpturen Gianlorenzo Berninis (1598-1680) beleuchtet in zwolf Kapiteln die Stationen seiner Entwicklung und die Gebiete, in denen er brillierte: die Portrats, deren -sprechende- Ahnlichkeit die Zeitgenossen verblueffte, die Werke fuer den Petersdom, die grandiosen Brunnen und seine Heiligen und zeitlos schonen Gestalten der antiken Mythologie. Den ausgefuehrten Werken gegenuebergestellte Vorzeichnungen, Tonskizzen und Modelle erlauben einen faszinierenden Einblick in den kuenstlerischen Schaffensprozea.

This work, the fruit of more than ten years of research, consists of a systematic cataloguing of all Florentine painters, and of all the painters active over many years in the Tuscan city, between the early 17 th and the end of the 18 th Centuries. Alongside artists who have already won renown and about whom various monographic studies already exist, this publication shines a collateral light on relatively unknown personages who are worthy of more than a little interest. In some cases these are artists otherwise unknown to contemporary criticism. The intention is to make a significant contribution to art history and the work is in some cases decisive in its attributions of uncertain works that have hitherto been habitually associated only with the better-known names. The three volumes are accompanied by biographies and lists of paintings along with, as is to be expected, an ample selection of approximately 1,800 colour and monochrome photographic reproductions. Volume I (312 pages) Presentation and introduction by Mina Gregori Colour plates I-CVI Biographies of the artists and index of works Bibliography, index of artists in the catalogue, of names and place names Volume II (376 pages) Plates 1-824 (Allori - Guiducci) Volume III (392 pages) Plates 825-1,698 (Hugford - Zocchi)

Imposing and famous sailing ships are the subject of countless Dutch paintings of the 17th Century. But the works not only bear witness to the skills of their creator; they are documents of historical, topographical and meteorological events. Visibly billowing sails, glorious and proud sailing ships, a ship heeled in the swell and the salvation of banks never to be reached: Many of the paintings of Dutch painters from the mid-17th Century give impressions of maritime affairs that never occurred. These images thus open a wide horizon of interpretations from different areas of knowledge from the period. They document the range and richness of Holland's marine culture in the 17th Century. The works stimulate multiple interpretations: the ship as a metaphor for life, as a symbol of the state, for the exploration of distant lands, as a demonstration of foreign and trade policy in the 17th Century. This book explains the various interpretations in selected examples while at the same time laying bare the picturesque characteristics of eachwork. In cooperation with the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London, the exhibition brings together masterpieces from the leading marine painters of the Golden Age, and show alongside unique, large-scale seascapes the subtle drawings from the Print Room of the Hamburg Kunsthalle. German text.

During the first half of the 17th century, Haarlem was a flourishing center of the arts and Frans Hals was its preeminent artist. This catalog demonstrates the variety of topics and genres painted, as well as the leading role of Haarlem artists in innovations in Dutch painting. German text.