In his monumental study, Christopher Braider explores the dialectical contest between history and truth that defines the period of cultural transition called the 'baroque'. For example, Annibale Carracci's portrayal of the Stoic legend of Hercules at the Crossroads departs from earlier, more static representations that depict an emblematic demigod who has already rejected the fallen path of worldly Pleasure for the upward road of heroic Virtue. Braider argues that, in breaking with tradition in order to portray a tragic soliloquist whose dominant trait is agonized indecision, Carracci joins other baroque artists, poets and philosophers in rehearsing the historical dilemma of choice itself. Carracci's picture thus becomes a framing device that illuminates phenomena as diverse as the construction of gender in baroque painting and science, the Pauline ontology of art in Caravaggio and Rembrandt, the metaphysics of baroque soliloquy and the dismantling of Cartesian dualism in Cyrano de Bergerac and Pascal.

Artemisia Gentileschi, widely regarded as the most important woman artist before the modern period, was a major Italian Baroque painter of the seventeenth century and the only female follower of Caravaggio. This first full-length study of her life and work shows that her powerfully original treatments of mythic-heroic female subjects depart radically from traditional interpretations of the same themes.

Poussin's Women: Sex and Gender in the Artist's Works examines the paintings and drawings of the well-known seventeenth-century French painter Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) from a gender studies perspective, focusing on a critical analysis of his representations of women. The book's thematic chapters investigate Poussin's women in their roles as predators, as lustful or the objects of lust, as lovers, killers, victims, heroines, or models of virtue. Poussin's paintings reflect issues of gender within his social situation as he consciously or unconsciously articulated its conflicts and assumptions. A gender studies approach brings to light new critical insights that illuminate how the artist represented women, both positively and negatively, within the framework in his seventeenth-century culture. This book covers the artist's works from Classical mythology, Roman history, Tasso, and the Bible. It serves as a good overview of Poussin as an artist, discussing the latest research and including new interpretations of his major works.

A comprehensive reference book on the life and works of Diego Valazquez, the most important painter in the Spanish Habsburg court of King Phillip IV. Featuring a wonderful gallery of his paintings, accompanied by an expert analysis of each work, and a description of his style and technique. This beautifully illustrated book is essential reading for anyone who would like to learn more about this master of painting, who influenced so many later artists.

Baroque depictions of violence are often dismissed as 'over the top' and 'excessive'. Their material richness and exciting visual complexity, together with the visceral engagement they demand from beholders, are usually explained in literature as reflecting the presumed violence of early modern society. This book explores the intersection between materiality, excess, and violence in seventeenth-century paintings through a close analysis of some of the most iconic works of the period. Baroque paintings expose or reference their materiality by insisting on various physical changes wrought through violence. This study approaches violence as the work of materiality, which has the potential to analogously stage pictorial surfaces as corporeal surfaces, where paint becomes flayed flesh, canvas threads ruptured skin, and red paint spilt blood.

Manet called him "the greatest painter of all." Picasso was so inspired by his masterpiece Las Meninas that he painted 44 variations of it. Francis Bacon painted a study of his portrait of Pope Innocent X. Monet and Renoir, Corot and Courbet, Degas and Dali... for so many champions of art history, the ultimate sounding board was-and remains-Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez (1599-1660). First available as an XXL-sized volume, this accessible edition brings together Velazquez's complete works with a selection of enlarged details and photography of recently restored paintings, achieved through the joint initiative of TASCHEN and Wildenstein. The dazzling images are accompanied by insightful commentary from Jose Lopez-Rey on Velazquez's interest in human life and his equal attention to all subjects, from an old woman frying eggs to a pope or king, as well as his commitment to color and light, which would influence the Impressionists over two centuries later.

This absorbing introduction to the story of Rembrandt's rampant fame and influence in Britain is filled with beautiful images. The story of 'Rembrandt mania' began in 18th-century Britain with passionate, and often eccentric, collectors acquiring artworks by any and every means. As the craze for Rembrandt ebbed and flowed, each new wave of enthusiasm brought him ever-greater fame and influence, and collectors became increasingly ingenious. This master's impact not only on collectors and the public but also on British artists over the last four centuries is explored, with lavish paintings, drawings and prints from artists such as Henry Raeburn, Joshua Reynolds and James Abbott McNeill Whistler shown alongside some of Rembrandt's most famous masterpieces.

Vermeer and the Art of Love is about the emotions evoked in those elegant interiors in which a young woman may be writing a letter to her absent beloved or playing a virginal in the presence of an admirer. But it is also about the love we sense in the painter's attentiveness to every detail within those rooms, which lends even the most mundane of objects the quality of something extraordinary. In this engaging and beautifully illustrated book, Georgievska-Shine uncovers the ways in which Vermeer challenges the dichotomies between 'good' and 'bad' love, the sensual and the spiritual, placing him within the context of his contemporaries to give the reader a fascinating insight into his unique understanding and interpretation of the subject.

Extensively illustrated, this is the first accessible publication on the history of tapestry in over two decades. Woven with dazzling images from history, mythology and the natural world, and breath-taking in their craftsmanship, tapestries were among the most valuable and high-status works of art available in Europe from the medieval period to the end of the eighteenth century. Over 600 historic examples hang in National Trust properties in England and Wales - the largest collection in the UK. This beautifully illustrated study by tapestry expert Helen Wyld, in association with the National Trust, offers new insights into these works, from the complex themes embedded in their imagery, to long-forgotten practices of sacred significance and ritual use. The range of historical, mythological and pastoral themes that recur across the centuries is explored, while the importance of the 'revival' of tapestry from the late nineteenth century is considered in detail for the first time. Although focussed on the National Trust's collection, this book offers a fresh perspective on the history of tapestry across Europe. Both the tapestry specialist and the keen art-history enthusiast can find a wealth of information here about woven wall hangings and furnishings, including methods of production, purchase and distribution, evolving techniques and technologies, the changing trends of subject matter across time, and how tapestries have been collected, used and displayed in British country houses across the centuries.

Rubens and the Eloquence of Drawing re-examines the early graphic practice of the preeminent northern Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577-1640) in light of early modern traditions of eloquence, particularly as promoted in the late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Flemish, Neostoic circles of philologist, Justus Lipsius (1547-1606). Focusing on the roles that rhetorical and pedagogical considerations played in the artist's approach to disegno during and following his formative Roman period (1600-08), this volume highlights Rubens's high ambitions for the intimate medium of drawing as a primary site for generating meaningful and original ideas for his larger artistic enterprise. As in the Lipsian realm of writing personal letters - the humanist activity then described as a cognate activity to the practice of drawing - a Senecan approach to eclecticism, a commitment to emulation, and an Aristotelian concern for joining form to content all played important roles. Two chapter-long studies of individual drawings serve to demonstrate the relevance of these interdisciplinary rhetorical concerns to Rubens's early practice of drawing. Focusing on Rubens's Medea Fleeing with Her Dead Children (Los Angeles, Getty Museum), and Kneeling Man (Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen), these close-looking case studies demonstrate Rubens's commitments to creating new models of eloquent drawing and to highlighting his own status as an inimitable maker. Demonstrating the force and quality of Rubens's intellect in the medium then most associated with the closest ideas of the artist, such designs were arguably created as more robust pedagogical and preparatory models that could help strengthen art itself for a new and often troubled age.

This catalogue accompanies an exhibition at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts that will shine a spotlight on Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564 - 1637/38), an artist who was hugely successful in his lifetime but whose later reputation has been overshadowed by that of his famous father, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c.1525 - 1569). Peasants and Proverbs: Pieter Brueghel the Younger as Moralist and Entrepreneur shares recent research into the Barber's comical yet enigmatic little painting, Two Peasants Binding Firewood, setting out fresh insights and offering a new appreciation of a figure whose prodigious output and business skills firmly established and popularised the distinctive 'Brueghelian' look of Netherlandish peasant life. Born in Brussels, Pieter Brueghel the Younger was just five years old when his renowned father died prematurely. Clearly talented, by the time he was around 20 years old, Brueghel the Younger was already registered as a master in Antwerp's Guild of Saint Luke. Between 1588, the year of his marriage, and 1626, he took on nine apprentices, demonstrating that he had established a successful studio. His workshop produced an abundance of paintings, ranging from exact copies of famous compositions by his father, to pastiches and more inventive compositions that further promoted the distinctive Bruegelian 'family style', usually focused on scenes of peasant life. He was, as a consequence, later deemed a second-rate painter, capable of only producing derivative works. This exhibition and book highlight how a more sophisticated understanding is now emerging of a creative and capable artist, and a savvy entrepreneur, who exploited favourable market conditions from his base in cosmopolitan Antwerp. From this deeper understanding of his practice, his favoured subjects and the market for them, we gain a more profound and compelling insight into the society in which he operated and its preoccupations and passions. A dozen other versions of Two Peasants Binding Firewood exist and, by examining some of them alongside the Barber painting, and using the insights gleaned from recent conservation work and technical analysis, the exhibition and book will explore how Brueghel the Younger operated his studio to produce and reproduce paintings, and the extent to which the entire enterprise was motivated by trends in the contemporary art market.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) lived the darkest and most dangerous life of any of the great painters. This commanding biography explores Caravaggio's staggering artistic achievements, his volatile personal trajectory, and his tragic and mysterious death at age thirty-eight. Featuring more than eighty full-color reproductions of the artist's best paintings, Caravaggio is a masterful profile of the mercurial painter.

Examined through the lens of cutting-edge scholarship, Artemisia Gentileschi clears a pathway for non-specialist audiences to appreciate the artist's pictorial intelligence, as well as her achievement of a remarkably lucrative and high-profile career. Bringing to light recent archival discoveries and newly attributed paintings, this book highlights Gentileschi's enterprising and original engagement with emerging feminist notions of the value and dignity of womanhood. Beautifully illustrated throughout, Artemisia Gentileschi brings to life the extraordinary story of this Italian artist, placing her within a socio-historical context. Sheila Barker weaves the story with in-depth discussions of key artworks, examining them in terms of their iconographies and technical characteristics in order to portray the developments in Gentileschi's approach to her craft and the gradual evolution of her expressive goals and techniques.

A new interpretation of the development of artistic modernity in eighteenth-century France What can be gained from considering a painting not only as an image but also a material object? How does the painter's own experience of the process of making matter for our understanding of both the painting and its maker? The Painter's Touch addresses these questions to offer a radical reinterpretation of three paradigmatic French painters of the eighteenth century. In this beautifully illustrated book, Ewa Lajer-Burcharth provides close readings of the works of Francois Boucher, Jean-Simeon Chardin, and Jean-Honore Fragonard, entirely recasting our understanding of these painters' practice. Using the notion of touch, she examines the implications of their strategic investment in materiality and sheds light on the distinct contribution of painting to the culture of the Enlightenment. Lajer-Burcharth traces how the distinct logic of these painters' work-the operation of surface in Boucher, the deep materiality of Chardin, and the dynamic morphological structure in Fragonard-contributed to the formation of artistic identity. Through the notion of touch, she repositions these painters in the artistic culture of their time, shifting attention from institutions such as the academy and the Salon to the realms of the market, the medium, and the body. Lajer-Burcharth analyzes Boucher's commercial tact, Chardin's interiorized craft, and Fragonard's materialization of eros. Foregrounding the question of experience-that of the painters and of the people they represent-she shows how painting as a medium contributed to the Enlightenment's discourse on the self in both its individual and social functions. By examining what paintings actually "say" in brushstrokes, texture, and paint, The Painter's Touch transforms our understanding of the role of painting in the emergence of modernity and provides new readings of some of the most important and beloved works of art of the era.

Originally published in 1926, this book contains the text of the Rede Lecture for the same year, delivered by art historian Arthur Hind. Hind discusses the connection between the Baroque painter Claude Lorrain and the art of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with particular regard to landscape painting, and illustrates the text with images of Lorrain's work. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in art history and the art of Claude Lorrain.

This beautifully illustrated monograph presents the first overview in English of the life and work of Luisa Roldan (1652-1706), a prolific and celebrated sculptor of the Spanish Golden Age. The daughter of Pedro Roldan, a well-known sculptor from Seville, she developed her talent in her father's workshop. Early in her career she produced large polychromed wooden sculptures for churches in Seville, Cadiz, and surrounding towns. She spent the second half of her career in Madrid, where she worked in both polychromed wood and polychromed terracotta, developing new products for a domestic, devotional market. In recognition of her talent, she was awarded the title of Sculptor to the Royal Chambers of two kings of Spain, Charles II and Philip V. This book places Roldan within a wider historical and social context, exploring what life would have been like for her as a woman sculptor in early modern Spain. It considers her work alongside that of other artists of the Baroque period, including Velazquez, Murillo, and Zurbaran. Reflecting on the opportunities available to her during this time, as well as the challenges she faced, Catherine Hall-van den Elsen weaves the narrative of Roldan's story with analysis, revealing the complexities of her oeuvre. Every year, newly discovered sculptures in wood and in terracotta enter into Roldan's oeuvre. As her artistic output begins to attract greater attention from scholars and art lovers, Luisa Roldan provides invaluable insights into her artistic achievements.

Artemisia Gentileschi was the greatest female artists of the Baroque age. In Artemisia Gentileschi, critic and historian Jonathan Jones discovers how Artemisia overcame a turbulent past to become one of the foremost painters of her day. As a young woman Artemisia was raped by her tutor, and then had to endure a seven-month-long trial during which she was brutally examined by the authorities. Gentileschi was shamed in a culture where honour was everything. Yet she went on to become one of the most sought-after artists of the seventeenth century. Yet she went on to become one of the most sought-after artists of the seventeenth century. Gentileschi's art communicated a powerful personal vision. Like Frida Kahlo, Louise Bourgeois or Tracey Emin, she put her life into her art. 'Lives of the Artists'is a new series of brief artists biographies from Laurence King Publishing. The series takes as its inspiration Giorgio Vasari's five-hundred-year-old masterwork, updating it with modern takes on the lives of key artists past and present. Focusing on the life of the artist rather than examining their work, each book also includes key images illustrating the artist's life.

For nearly a century, members of three generations of the Bibiena family were the most highly sought theater designers in Europe. Their elaborate stage designs were used for operas, festivals, and courtly performances across Europe: from their native Italy to cites as far afi eld as Vienna, Prague, Stockholm, St. Petersburg, and Lisbon. Beyond these performances, the distinctive Bibiena style survives through their remarkable drawings. Architecture, Theater, and Fantasy marks the promised gift to the Morgan Library& Museum of a group of Bibiena drawings from the collection of Jules Fisher, the Tony Award-winning lighting designer, and commemorates an exhibition of these works, the first in the United States in over thirty years to celebrate these talented draftsmen. These drawings demonstrate the range of the Bibienas' output, from energetic sketches to highly finished watercolors. With representations of imagined palace interiors and lavish illusionistic architecture, this group of drawings highlights the visual splendor of the Baroque stage. The catalogue opens with Diane Kelder's introductory essay about the Bibiena family. Laurel Peterson then discusses the Bibienas as draftsmen, underscoring the drawings from the Fisher collection. Arnold Aronson, in turn, explores the family's contribution to the theater, setting them within a history of European stage design and explaining the significance of the dynamic angled perspective of their scena per angolo sets. John Marciari's essay considers the Fisher gift among the many Bibiena drawings already at the Morgan, mainly from the Oenslager collection, and looks at the collecting of Bibiena drawings more generally. Finally, Diane Kelder's checklist off ers information regarding the attribution and provenance of the works in the exhibition.

A sweeping history of premodern architecture told through the material of stone Spanning almost five millennia, Painting in Stone tells a new history of premodern architecture through the material of precious stone. Lavishly illustrated examples include the synthetic gems used to simulate Sumerian and Egyptian heavens; the marble temples and mansions of Greece and Rome; the painted palaces and polychrome marble chapels of early modern Italy; and the multimedia revival in 19th-century England. Poetry, the lens for understanding costly marbles as an artistic medium, summoned a spectrum of imaginative associations and responses, from princes and patriarchs to the populace. Three salient themes sustained this "lithic imagination": marbles as images of their own elemental substance according to premodern concepts of matter and geology; the perceived indwelling of astral light in earthly stones; and the enduring belief that colored marbles exhibited a form of natural-or divine-painting, thanks to their vivacious veining, rainbow palette, and chance images.

This volume represents a long overdue reassessment of the Neapolitan painter Paolo de Matteis, an artist largely overlooked in English language scholarly publications, but one who merits our attention for the quality of his work and the originality of its iconography, as well as for his remarkable ability to respond creatively to his patrons' aesthetic ideals and agendas. Following a meticulous examination of the ways in which posterity's impression of de Matteis has been conditioned by a biased biographical and literary tradition, Livio Pestilli devotes rich, detailed analyses to the artist's most significant paintings and drawings. More than just a novel approach to de Matteis and the Neapolitan Baroque, however, the book makes a significant contribution to the study and understanding of early eighteenth-century European art and cultural history in general, not only in Naples but in other major European centers, including Paris, Vienna, Genoa, and Rome.

An in-depth examination of the crucial role that Amsterdam played in Rembrandt's evolution as an artist Around the age of 25, Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) moved from his hometown of Leiden to Amsterdam, which was the commercial capital of northern Europe at that time. Considered a bold step for a fledgling artist, this change demonstrates that Rembrandt wanted to benefit financially from Amsterdam's robust art market. He soon married the cousin of a successful art dealer, and came into frequent contact with wealthy and sophisticated patrons who eagerly commissioned him to paint their portraits. The artist's style quickly evolved from the small, meticulous panels of his Leiden period to the broadly brushed, dramatically lit, and realistically rendered canvases for which he is renowned. Rembrandt in Amsterdam explores this pivotal transition in the artist's career and reveals how the stimulating and affluent environment of Amsterdam inspired him to reach his full potential. Lavishly illustrated, this volume offers a fascinating look into Amsterdam's unparalleled creative community and its role in Rembrandt's development of a wide-ranging brand that comprised landscapes, genre scenes, history paintings, portraits, and printmaking. Distributed for the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa Exhibition Schedule: National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (May 14-September 6, 2021) Stadel Museum, Frankfurt am Main (Fall 2021)

"The behind-the-scenes story of the world's most famous palace, painting a picture of the way its residents truly lived and examining the palace's legacy, from French history through today
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The story of Versailles is one of historical drama, under the last three kings of France's old regime, mixed with the high camp and glamour of the European courts, all in an iconic home for the French arts. The palace itself has been radically altered since 1789, and the court was long ago swept away. "Versailles" sets out to rediscover what is now a vanished world: a great center of power, seat of royal government, and, for thousands, a home both grand and squalid, bound by social codes almost incomprehensible to us today.""

Using eyewitness testimony as well as the latest historical research, Spawforth offers the first full account of Versailles in English in over thirty years. Blowing away the myths of Versailles, he analyses afresh the politics behind the Sun King's construction of the palace and shows how Versailles worked as the seat of a royal court. He probes the conventional picture of a "perpetual house party" of courtiers and gives full weight to the darker side: not just the mounting discomfort of the aging buildings but also the intrigue and status anxiety of its aristocrats. The book brings out clearly the fateful consequences for the French monarchy of its relocation to Versailles and also examines the changing place of Versailles in France's national identity since 1789.

Many books have told the stories of the royals and artists living in Versailles, but this is the first to turn its focus on the palace itself---from architecture and politics to scandal and restoration.

Millions of paintings were produced in the Dutch Republic. The works that we know and see in museums today constitute only the tip of the iceberg - the top-quality part. But what else was painted? This book explores the low-quality end of the seventeenth-century art market and outlines the significance of that production in the genre of history paintings, which in traditional art historical studies, is usually linked to high prices, famous painters, and elite buyers. Angela Jager analyses the producers, suppliers, and consumers active in this segment to gain insight into this enormous market for cheap history paintings. What did the supply consist of in terms of quantity, quality, price, and subject? Who produced all these works and which production methods did these painters employ? Who distributed these paintings, to whom, and which strategies were used to market them? Who bought these paintings, and why?

Published to coincide with the major exhibition at the National Gallery this autumn, here is the ultimate book on Rembrandt's art and life - his work as an artist, his family, friends and patrons, his place in European culture - by one of the world's best-known writers on Dutch art. Designed to be the Rembrandt book of first resort, this complete and accessible volume, available again in a new, reduced format edition, will be an invaluable work of reference and vital reading for art lovers, art students and museum-goers.