Between 1796 and 1800 Baron Peter von Braun, a rich businessman and manager of Vienna's court theaters, transformed his estate at Schnau into an English-style landscape park. Among several buildings with which he embellished his garden, the most remarkable and celebrated was the Temple of Night, a domed rotunda accessible only through a meandering rockwork grotto that led visitors to believe that their destination lay somewhere deep underground. A life-size statue of the goddess Night on a chariot pulled by two horses presided over the Temple, while from the dome, which depicted the night sky, came the sounds of a mechanical musical instrument that visitors likened to music of the spheres. Only the ruins of the Temple of Night survive, and it has received little scholarly attention. This book brings it back to life by assembling the many descriptions of it by early nineteenth-century eyewitnesses. Placing the Temple within the context of the eighteenth-century English landscape park and of Viennese culture in the fascinating period of transition between Enlightenment and Biedermeier, Rice's book will appeal to anyone interested in the history of garden design, architecture, theater, and music.

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?

Peter Paul Rubens was one of the most productive and exciting painters of his time, noted for his expressive, emotive and sensual paintings which are now instantly recognizable. Indeed, his voluptuous female figures have given rise to the word 'Rubenesque'. This book explores the life and times of Rubens, from his early studies in Italy through to his apprenticeship in Antwerp and his subsequent outstanding accomplishments as 'the prince of painters and the painter of princes'. It also contains a gallery of 300 of his paintings and drawings, revealing his unparalleled position as an artist, diplomat, scholar, linguist, teacher, art collector and devoted family man.

This book examines the reception in Latin America of prints designed by the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, showing how colonial artists used such designs to create all manner of artworks and, in the process, forged new frameworks for artistic creativity. Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) never crossed the Atlantic himself, but his impact in colonial Latin America was profound. Prints made after the Flemish artist's designs were routinely sent from Europe to the Spanish Americas, where artists used them to make all manner of objects. Rubens in Repeat is the first comprehensive study of this transatlantic phenomenon, despite broad recognition that it was one of the most important forces to shape the artistic landscapes of the region. Copying, particularly in colonial contexts, has traditionally held negative implications that have discouraged its serious exploration. Yet analyzing the interpretation of printed sources and recontextualizing the resulting works within period discourse and their original spaces of display allow a new critical reassessment of this broad category of art produced in colonial Latin America-art that has all too easily been dismissed as derivative and thus unworthy of sustained interest and investigation. This book takes a new approach to the paradigms of artistic authorship that emerged alongside these complex creative responses, focusing on the viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It argues that the use of European prints was an essential component of the very framework in which colonial artists forged ideas about what it meant to be a creator."

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.

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.

In his joint capacities of Premier peintre du roi, director of the Gobelins manufactory and rector of the Academie royale de peinture et de sculpture, Le Brun exercised a previously unprecedented influence on the production of the visual arts - so much so that some scholars have repeatedly described him as 'dictator' of the arts in France. The Sovereign Artist explores how Le Brun operated in his diverse fields of activities, linking and juxtaposing his portraiture, history painting and pictorial theory with his designs for architecture, tapestries, carpets and furniture. It argues that Le Brun sought to create a repeatable and easily recognizable visual language associated with Louis XIV, in order to translate the king's political claims for absolute power into a visual form. How he did this is discussed through a series of individual case studies ranging from Le Brun's lost equestrian portrait of Louis XIV, and his involvement in the Querelle du coloris at the Academie, to his scheme for 93 Savonnerie carpets for the Grande Galerie at the Louvre, his Histoire du roy tapestry series, his decoration of the now destroyed Escalier des Ambassadeurs at Versailles and the dramatic destruction of the Sun King's silver furniture. One key theme is the relation between the unity of the visual arts, to which Le Brun aspired, and the strong hierarchical distinctions he made between the liberal arts and the mechanical crafts: while his lectures at the Academie advocated a visual and conceptual unity in painting and architecture, they were also a means by which he attempted to secure the newly gained status of painting as a liberal art, and therefore to distinguish it from the mechanical crafts which he oversaw the production of at the Gobelins. His artistic and architectural aspirations were comparable to those of his Roman contemporary Gianlorenzo Bernini, summoned to Paris in 1665 to design the Louvre's East facade and to create a portrait bust of Louis XIV. Bernini's failure to convince the king and Colbert of his architectural scheme offered new opportunities for Le Brun and his French contemporaries to prove themselves capable of solving the architectural problems of the Louvre and to transform it into a palace appropriate "to the grandeur and the magnificence of the prince who [was] to inhabit it" (Jean-Baptiste Colbert to Nicolas Poussin in 1664). The comparison between Le Brun and Bernini not only illustrates how France sought artistic supremacy over Italy during the second half of the 17th century, but further helps to demonstrate how Le Brun himself wanted to be perceived: beyond acting as a translator of the king's artistic ambition, the artist appears to have sought his own sovereign authority over the visual arts.

This is the first book to concentrate on Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals's highly innovative approach to male portraiture. Frans Hals is one of the greatest portrait painters of all time and, together with Rembrandt, is one of the most eminent seventeenth-century Dutch artists. Published to coincide with the Wallace Collection's exhibition of the same name, Frans Hals: The Male Portrait explores the artist's highly innovative approach to male portraiture, from the beginning of his career in the 1610s until the end of his life in 1666. Through pose, expression and virtuosic painterly technique, Hals revolutionised the male portrait into something entirely new and fresh, capturing and revealing his sitters' characters like no one else before him. This book includes the first in-depth study of Hals's great masterpiece, The Laughing Cavalier, from 1624. The extravagantly dressed young man, confidently posed with his left arm akimbo in the extreme foreground of the picture and seemingly penetrating into the viewer's space, has been charming audiences for over a century. Richly illustrated, Frans Hals: The Male Portrait situates The Laughing Cavalier within the artist's larger oeuvre and demonstrates how, at a relatively early point in his career, Hals was able to achieve this great masterpiece.

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.

An original and breathtakingly beautiful perspective on how art developed through the ages, this book reveals how new materials and techniques inspired artists to create their greatest works. The Story of Painting will completely transform your understanding and enjoyment of art. Covering a comprehensive array of topics, from the first pigments and frescos to linear perspective in Renaissance paintings, the influence of photography, Impressionism, and the birth of modern art, it follows each step in the evolution of painting over the last 25,000 years, from the first cave paintings to the abstract works of the last 100 years. Packed with lavish colour reproductions of paintings and photographs of artists at work and the materials they used, it delves into the key paintings from each period to analyse the techniques and secrets of the great masters in detail. Immerse yourself in the pages of this stunning book and find yourself dazzled by new colours; marvel at the magic of perspective; wonder at glowing depictions of fabric and flesh; understand cubism; and embrace abstraction. You will look at paintings in a whole new light.

A beautiful, lively tour through the portraits of one of the most celebrated painters of 17th century Europe In this sumptuously illustrated volume, eminent art historian Sir Christopher White places the portraiture of renowned Flemish painter Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641) in context among the work of his contemporaries working in and around the courts of seventeenth-century Europe. Van Dyck's artistic development is charted through his travels, beginning in his native Antwerp, then to England, Italy, Brussels, the Hague, and back again. Combining historical insights with a discerning appreciation of the work, White brings Van Dyck's paintings to life, showing how the virtuoso not only admired his artistic predecessors and rivals but refashioned what he learned from them into new kind of portraiture. Beautifully produced and a pleasure to read, this book is an important contribution to the literature on a celebrated painter. Distributed for Modern Art Press

An investigation into how landscape drawing informed a new Dutch identity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, amid enormous expansion in global commerce and colonization, landscape drawing played a key role in forging Dutch national identity. Featuring works on paper by Rembrandt, Bruegel, and Ruisdael, among dozens of other artists, this study examines how a hyperlocal impulse in many of these drawings inspired domestic pride and a sense of connection to the land, as they also reflected aspects of the broader ecological and social change taking place. Incisive essays offer close readings that push our understandings of these artists and their work in important new directions, including eco-criticism, land use and environmentalism, race, and class. Distributed for the Harvard Art Museums Exhibition Schedule: Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA (May 21-August 14, 2022)

The legendary splendor of Genoese baroque art Genoa completed its transformation from a faded maritime power into a thriving banking center for Europe in the seventeenth century. The wealth accumulated by its leading families spurred investment in the visual arts on an enormous scale. This volume explores how artists both foreign and native created a singularly rich and extravagant expression of the baroque in works of extraordinary variety, sumptuousness, and exuberance. This art, however, has remained largely hidden behind the facades of the city's palaces, with few works, apart from those by the school's great expatriates, found beyond its borders. As a result, the Genoese baroque has been insufficiently considered or appreciated. Lavishly illustrated, A Superb Baroque is comprehensive, encompassing all the major media and participants. Presented are some 140 select works by the celebrated foreigners drawn to the city and its flourishing environment-from Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, and Giulio Cesare Procaccini to Pierre Puget, Marcantonio Franceschini, and Francesco Solimena; by the major Genoese masters active for much of their careers in other settings-Bernardo Strozzi, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, Filippo Parodi, and Alessandro Magnasco; and above all by the brilliantly synthetic but unfamiliar masters who worked primarily in Genoa itself-Gioacchino Assereto, Valerio Castello, Domenico Piola, and Gregorio De Ferrari. Offering three levels of exploration-essays that frame and interpret, section introductions that characterize principal currents and stages, and texts that elucidate individual works-this volume is by far the most extensive study of the Genoese baroque in the English language. Published in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC Exhibition Schedule Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome March 4-June 19, 2022

The recent rediscovery of Rubens's Massacre of the Innocents (bought by Lord Thomson for GBP50 million in 2002) offers an important opportunity to reassess the painter's early career. Of Rubens's works immediately following his return to Antwerp in 1608, it is the most assured, achieving a remarkable complexity both compositionally and emotionally. David Jaffe, Senior Curator at the National Gallery, London, considers the work in its context, discussing the numerous sources and influences - both visual and literary - from which Rubens drew. He also compares it to contemporary works by the artist, such as the London National Gallery's Samson and Delilah, and publishes new research illuminating the career and profile of the Massacre's first owner, the Milanese merchant resident in Antwerp Jacopo Carenna. In association with the Thomson Collection, the Art Gallery of Ontario and Skylet.

Pedro de Mena y Medrano (1628-1688) is the most highly regarded master of Spanish Baroque sculpture, on a par with his contemporaries, the great seventeenth-century painters Velazquez, Zurbaran and Murillo. Mena's contributions to Spanish Baroque sculpture are unsurpassed in both technical skill and expressiveness of his religious subjects. His ability to sculpt the human body was remarkable, and he excelled in creating figures and scenes for contemplation. This first monograph of Pedro de Mena shows incredible details and remarkable images of his hyper-realistic sculptures, full of passion. In addition to text by curator Xavier Bray, Pedro de Mena also features important contributions by Jose Luis Romeo Torres, curator of the exhibition Pedro de Mena, to be held in Malaga in 2019.

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)