This book aims to present trompe-l'oeil painting, which epitomizes the myth of the illusionistic image - an early modern way of thinking about pictures, according to which it is possible to create an image identical to what it represents that at the same time preserves its own pictorial identity. Trompe-l'oeil, despite being a marginal genre, embodied an ideal that painting should attain, and therefore is a good point of departure for analyzing issues such as (aesthetic) illusion in art. As the myth undermines Plato's aesthetics, it is his philosophy of art, with its dichotomies of appearance/reality or mimesis/diegesis that offers the most useful context for the discussion of this topic and shows that trompe-l'oeil is a playful and ironic genre, which has cognitive value as well.

For over a millennium, the Italian coastal state of the Most Serene Republic of Venice, or La Serenissima, flourished as a center for sea trade and the arts. Here an important final phase of late Baroque mythological and Biblical painting took place. Venice also became an important destination on the Grand Tour, where its aquatic setting and unique network of canals, palaces, and churches inspired a talented group of view painters, especially during the eighteenth century. Today, collections throughout North America hold many works from this prolific period.

"La Serenissima" presents new scholarship on works that have not received due public attention in recent years and brings together approximately 65 works of art from more than 25 collections. Together, they represent important regional developments in religious and topographical painting as well as genre and portraiture. These artworks display the inimitable aspects of Venetian taste and culture in the age of the Grand Tour and through the decline of the Republic. La Serenissima also casts new light on the achievements of Venetian view painters, including master painter Antonio Canaletto, Bernardo Bellotto, Luca Carlevarijs, and Francesco Guardi.

Hardy George is curator of the exhibition "La Serenissima: Eighteenth-century Venetian Art from North American Collections" at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. Other contributors are George Knox, Alison Palmer, Jon Seydl, Andria Derstine, Edgar Peters Bowron, and John Marciari.

Der heutige Museumsbesucher orientiert sich an eingeubten Verhaltensmustern, die eine eigene Geschichte haben. In dieser Studie wird am Beispiel der Jahresausstellungen der koeniglichen Kunstakademie im Louvre untersucht, wie sich Normen einer oeffentlichen Kunstbetrachtung im Zeitalter der Aufklarung etablierten und schliesslich hinterfragt wurden. Erstmalig wird auf Basis eines umfassenden und kritischen Quellenstudiums herausgearbeitet, wie sich das Verstandnis von einem passiv bewundernden hin zu einem kreativ (mit)gestaltenden, koerperlich wie emotional bewegten Bildbetrachter entwickelte. Die genaue Analyse der sich wandelnden Diskurse uber Rezeptionsgewohnheiten, die in Texten und Bildern der Zeit sichtbar werden, vermag auch den Blick auf "moderne" Rezeptionsbedingungen zu scharfen.

El presente estudio explora El libro de romances y coplas del Carmelo de Valladolid [c. 1590-1609] escrito por las hermanas carmelitas descalzas del Convento de la Concepcion del Carmen en Valladolid Espana a finales del siglo XVI y principios del XVII. Por medio de esta monografia demostraremos de que manera estas mujeres utilizaban la poesia, escrita por hombres, que tenian a su alcance y entonces, reconfiguraban el discurso masculino, haciendolo propio y lo adaptaban a su delicada voz. Apuntaremos la forma en que estas mujeres describian a otras mujeres revistiendolas de carne y hueso, tan poderosas, tan hermosas y tan espirituales, difiriendo - en muchas ocasiones - del convencional modelo petrarquista de descripcion femenina en el que la mujer era representada como una estatua fria y rigida. Estas escritoras entonaban sus versos para su esposo espiritual con la misma intensidad que los mas atrevidos poetas decantaban sus corazones al exaltar a sus musas. Las poetisas del cancionero tomaron prestada la forma y el contenido de la lirica masculina pero los adaptaron a su amorosa, delicada y religiosa voz.

Salvator Rosa (1615--1673) was a colorful and controversial Italian painter, talented musician, a notable comic actor, a prolific correspondent, and a successful satirist and poet. His paintings, especially his rugged landscapes and their evocation of the sublime, appealed to Romantic writers, and his work was highly influential on several generations of European writers. James S. Patty analyzes Rosa's tremendous influence on French writers, chiefly those of the nineteenth century, such as Stendhal, Honor? de Balzac, Victor Hugo, George Sand, and Th?ophile Gautier. Arranged in chronological order, with numerous quotations from French fiction, poetry, drama, art criticism, art history, literary history, and reference works, Salvator Rosa in French Literature forms a narrative account of the reception of Rosa's life and work in the world of French letters.

Karel van Manders Schilder-Boeck von 1604 ist eine der komplexesten kunsthistoriographischen und kunsttheoretischen Quellenschriften zur Malerei der Fruhen Neuzeit. Angesichts der theoretischen Gewichtung sind dem Schilder Boeck maltechnische Inhalte bislang konsequent abgesprochen worden. Die Vielzahl der in den Lebensbeschreibungen und im Lehrgedicht abgelagerten technischen Hinweise lasst jedoch auch eine auf die Malpraxis bezogene Lesart des Textes zu. Denn gerade durch die Einbeziehung von produktionsrelevanten Aspekten vermag van mander zwei wesentliche Intentionen seiner Theoriediskussion argumentative zu stutzen: Die Widerlegung der von Vasari beanspruchten kulturellen Autoritat der italienischen Malerei und die Formulierung eines demonstrativen Protests gegen das einengende, jeglichen kunstlerischen Fortschritt hemmende Regelwerk der niederlandischen Zunfte.

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.

Zar Peter der Grosse legte 1714 nahe St. Petersburg den Grundstein zu Schloss Peterhof, dem "russischen Versailles", das zwei Jahrhunderte lang als Sommerresidenz der Zaren diente. Wahrend die Schlossbauten im Zweiten Weltkrieg beinahe vollstandig zerstoert wurden und bis heute aufwendig rekonstruiert werden, gelang es, viele der Kunst- und Ausstattungsgegenstande des Palastkomplexes zu evakuieren. Der Katalog stellt mit zahlreichen Abbildungen und Textbeitragen die im Augsburger Schaezlerpalais erstmals in Deutschland gezeigte Auswahl von weit uber 100 original erhaltenen Objekten russischer und westeuropaischer Provenienz aus Schloss Peterhof vor. Sie umfasst samtliche Gattungen der Kunst und des Kunsthandwerks und spiegelt damit die hoefische Kunst und Wohnkultur des 18. Jahrhunderts.

Profiling milestones and movements in the arts, literature, music and religion from a specific period, each volume in this set helps students and researchers understand the various disciplines of the humanities in relation to each other, as well as to history and culture. An overview of the period and a chronology of major world events begin each volume. Nine chapters follow covering the major branches of the humanities: architecture and design, dance, fashion, literature, music, philosophy, religion, theater and visual arts. Chapters begin with a chronology of major events within the discipline followed by articles covering the movements, schools of thought and masterworks that characterize the discipline during the era and biographical profiles of pioneers, masters and other prominent figures in the field. Chapters also include significant primary documents from the period, including quotations, excerpts from artists about their work and/or commentaries/criticism published during the period, and a list of general references for further information.

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 is the sixth volume in the series of catalogues of Italian drawings in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum. The leading masters of the period, such as Bernini, Maratti, Lanfranco and Domenichino, are well represented.