This study provides a new analysis of the pictorial ensemble of the Torre de la Parada, the hunting lodge of King Philip IV of Spain. Created in the late 1630s by a group of artists led by Peter Paul Rubens, this cycle of mythological imagery and hunting scenes was completed by Diego Velazquez. Despite the lack of a written program, surviving works provide eloquent testimony of several basic themes that embody Neostoic ideals of self-restraint and prudent governance. While Rubens set the moral tone through his serio-comic Ovidian narratives, Velazquez added an important grace note with his portraits of ancient philosophers, and royals and fools of the court. This study is the first to consider in depth their joint artistic contributions and shared ambition. Through analysis of individual works, the authors situate these pictorial inventions within broader intellectual currents in both Spanish Flanders and Spain, especially in the advice literature and drama presented to the Spanish king. Moreover, they point to the lasting resonance of Torre de la Parada for Velazquez, especially within his late masterworks, Las Meninas and Las Hilanderas. Ultimately, this study illuminates the dialogical nature of this ensemble in which Rubens and Velazquez offer a set of complementary views on subjects ranging from the nature of classical gods to the role of art as a mirror of the prince.

This study provides a new analysis of the pictorial ensemble of the Torre de la Parada, the hunting lodge of King Philip IV of Spain. Created in the late 1630s by a group of artists led by Peter Paul Rubens, this cycle of mythological imagery and hunting scenes was completed by Diego Velazquez. Despite the lack of a written program, surviving works provide eloquent testimony of several basic themes that embody neo-Stoic ideals of self-restraint and prudent governance. While Rubens set the moral tone through his serio-comic Ovidian narratives, Velazquez added an important grace note with his portraits of ancient philosophers, and royals and fools of the court. This study is the first to consider in depth their joint artistic contributions and shared ambition. Through analysis of individual works, the authors situate these pictorial inventions within broader intellectual currents in both Spanish Flanders and Spain, especially in the advice literature and drama presented to the Spanish king. Moreover, they point to the lasting resonance of Torre de la Parada for Velazquez, especially within his late masterworks, Las Meninas and The Spinners. Ultimately, this study illuminates the dialogical nature of this ensemble in which Rubens and Velazquez offer a set of complementary views on subjects ranging from the nature of classical gods to the role of art as a mirror of the prince."

Europe Views the World examines the wide diversity of images that Europeans produced to represent the wide variety of peoples and places around the globe during and after the so-called 'Age of Exploration'. Beginning with the medieval imagery of Europe's imagined alien races, and with an emphasis on the artists of Northern Europe, Larry Silver takes the reader on a tour across continents, from the Americas to Africa and Asia. Encompassing works such as prints, paintings, maps, tapestries and sculptural objects, this book addresses the overall question of an emerging European self-definition through the evidence of visual culture, however biased, about the wider world in its component parts. Unique to this book, each chapter concludes with an 'in response', analysing representations of Europeans by indigenous peoples of each continent to give a deeper and more multi-faceted account of the impact of Europe's view of the world.

"Larry Silver, a professor of art history at the University of Pennsylvania, elucidates "The Garden of Earthly Delights" and the nightmarish circus it presents, as well as a host of Bosch's other magnificent works. He draws upon new research into his subject's cultural milieu, belief system and artistic intentions. His explications of the paintings and their influence on other artists, most notably Pieter Bruegel the Elder, contain many fresh insights. . . . Bosch has 310 illustrations, most in full and high quality color, a vast bibliography and index. It's a big book and will well reward the many hours needed to digest it." - Bloomsbury Review The phantasmagoric imagery of Hieronymus Bosch (d. 1516) has been the source of widespread interest ever since the painter's lifetime, and is still so enigmatic that scholars have theorised that it contains hidden astrological, alchemical, or even heretical meanings. Yet none of these theories has ever seemed to provide an adequate understanding of Bosch's work. Moreover, the considerable professional success that the artist enjoyed in his native Hertogenbosch, not to mention his membership in a traditional religious organisation, suggests that he pursued not a sinister secret agenda but simply his personal artistic vision. This intriguing new monograph by noted art historian Larry Silver interprets that artistic vision with admirable lucidity: it explains how Bosch's understanding of human sin, morality, and punishment, which was conceived in an era of powerful apocalyptic expectation, shaped his dramatic visualisations of hell and of the temptations of even the most steadfast saints. Silver's account of Bosch's artistic development is one of the first to benefit from recent technical investigations of the paintings, as well as from the reexamination of the artist's drawings in relation to his paintings. Hieronymus Bosch is also unique in how securely it places its subject's work in the broader history of painting in the Low Countries: Silver identifies sources of Bosch's iconography in a wide range of 15th-century panel paintings, manuscript illuminations, and prints, and describes how, despite their own religiousness, Bosch's pictures helped inspire the secular landscape and genre scenes of later Netherlandish painters. Augmented by 310 illustrations, most in colour, including many dramatic close-ups of Bosch's intricately imagined nightmare scenes, this is the definitive book on a perennially fascinating artist.

Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), perhaps the most famous of all German artists, embodies the modern ideal of the Renaissance man--he was a remarkable painter, printmaker, draftsman, designer, theoretician, and even a poet. More is known about his thoughts and his life than about any other Northern European master of his time, since he wrote extensively about himself, his family's history, his travels, and his friends. His woodcuts and engravings were avidly collected and copied across Europe, and they quickly established his reputation as a master. Praised in life and elegized in death by such thinkers as Martin Luther and Erasmus, he served Emperor Maximilian and other leading church and secular princes in the Holy Roman Empire.Although there is a vast specialized literature on the Nuremberg master, "The Essential Durer" fills the need for a foundational book that covers the major aspects of his career. The essays included in this book, written by leading scholars from the United States and Germany, provide an accessible, up-to-date examination of Durer's art and person as well as his posthumous fame. The essays address an array of topics, from separate and detailed studies of his paintings, drawings, printmaking, and sculpture, to broader concerns such as his visits to and interactions with Venice and the Netherlands, his personal relationships, and his relationships with other artists. Collectively these stimulating essays explore the brilliance of Durer's creativity and the impact he had on his world, exposing him as an artist fully engaged with the tumultuous intellectual and religious challenges of his time.

Long before the photo op, political rulers were manipulating visual imagery to cultivate their authority and spread their ideology. Born just decades after Gutenberg, the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (1459-1519) was, Larry Silver argues, the first ruler to exploit the propaganda power of printed images and text. Marketing Maximilian explores how Maximilian used illustrations and other visual arts to shape his image, achieve what Max Weber calls "the routinization of charisma," strengthen the power of the Hapsburg dynasty, and help establish the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A fascinating study of the self-fashioning of an early modern ruler who was as much image-maker as emperor, "Marketing Maximilian" shows why Maximilian remains one of the most remarkable, innovative, and self-aggrandizing royal art patrons in European history.

Silver describes how Maximilian--lacking a real capital or court center, the ability to tax, and an easily manageable territory--undertook a vast and expensive visual-media campaign to forward his extravagant claims to imperial rank, noble blood, perfect virtues, and military success. To press these claims, Maximilian patronized and often personally supervised and collaborated with the best printers, craftsmen, and artists of his time (among them no less than Albrecht Durer) to plan and produce illustrated books, medals, heralds, armor, and an ambitious tomb monument."

A Prayer Book owned by the Rothschilds, an Italian bronze casket by Antico, a lavishly illustrated Carnival chronicle from sixteenth-century Germany, an altarpiece by Pieter Brueghel the Younger - much of the artwork in this book, held by Australian collections, is essentially unknown beyond the continent. The authors of these essays showcase these extraordinary objects to their full potential, revealing a wide range of contemporary art and historical research. This collection of essays will surprise even specialists.

Modern viewers take for granted the pictorial conventions present in easel paintings and engraved prints of such subjects as landscapes or peasants. These generic subjects and their representational conventions, however, have their own origins and early histories. In sixteenth-century Antwerp, painting and the emerging new medium of engraving began to depart from traditional visual culture, which had been defined primarily by wall paintings, altarpieces, and portraits of the elite. New genres and new media arose simultaneously in this volatile commercial and financial capital of Europe, home to the first open art market near the city Bourse. The new pictorial subjects emerged first as hybrid images, dominated by religious themes but also including elements that later became pictorial categories in their own right: landscapes, food markets, peasants at work and play, and still-life compositions. In addition to being the place of the origin and evolution of these genres, the Antwerp art market gave rise to the concept of artistic identity, in which favorite forms and favorite themes by an individual artist gained consumer recognition. In Peasant Scenes and Landscapes, Larry Silver examines the emergence of pictorial kinds-scenes of taverns and markets, landscapes and peasants-and charts their evolution as genres from initial hybrids to more conventionalized artistic formulas. The relationship of these new genres and their favorite themes reflect a burgeoning urbanism and capitalism in Antwerp, and Silver analyzes how pictorial genres and the Antwerp marketplace fostered the development of what has come to be known as "signature" artistic style. By examining Bosch and Bruegel, together with their imitators, he focuses on pictorial innovation as well as the marketing of individual styles, attending particularly to the growing practice of artists signing their works. In addition, he argues that consumer interest in the style of individual artists reinforced another phenomenon of the later sixteenth century: art collecting. While today we take such typical artistic formulas as commonplace, along with their frequent use of identifying signatures (a Rothko, a Pollock), Peasant Scenes and Landscapes shows how these developed simultaneously in the commercial world of early modern Antwerp.

A century ago, all art was evaluated through the lens of European classicism and its tradition. This volume explores and questions the foundations of the European canon, offers a critical rethinking of ancient and classical art and interrogates the canons of cultures and regions that have often been left at the margins of art history. It underscores the historical and geographical diversity of canons and the local values underlying them. Twelve international scholars consider how canons are constructed and contested, focusing on the relationship between canonical objects and the value systems that shape their hierarchies. Deploying an array of methodologies-including archaeological investigations, visual analysis and literary critique-the authors examine canon formation throughout the world, including Africa, India, East Asia, Mesoamerica, South America, ancient Egypt, classical Greece and Europe. Global studies of art, which are dismantling the traditionally Eurocentric canon, promise to make art history more inclusive. To this end, this volume raises new questions about the importance of canons-including those from outside Europe-for the wider discipline of art history.

The recent rediscovery in Spain of Pieter Bruegel the ElderGCOs lost painting, "The Wine of Saint MartinGCOs Day," has created even more interest in this much-loved artist, who was one of the NetherlandsGCO two great masters of satire and fantasy, along with Hieronymus Bosch. Although these two artists never met each otherGCoBruegel was born around 1525, a decade after BoschGCOs deathGConumerous features link them; indeed, Bruegel painted several demon-infested hellscapes directly inspired by the older master, and he was known in Antwerp as a GCsecond Bosch.GC But Bruegel is most famous for his peasant scenes, often humorous and packed with anecdote, and for his landscapes, which poignantly evoke NatureGCOs changing seasons. His legacy to Netherlandish art was the enduring popularity of both these genres, as well as the artistic dynasty he founded, beginning with his painter sons Pieter the Younger and Jan Brueghel.Critics have often remarked how BruegelGCOs art, so keenly observed and richly detailed, seems to preserve a world in miniature. In this new monograph, Larry Silver, an eminent historian of Northern Renaissance art, serves as our guide to that world. He leads us expertly through BruegelGCOs complex and fascinating iconography, allowing us to see his paintings and drawings from the same perspective as his sixteenth-century countrymen. Silver situates Bruegel within the visual culture of his timeGCoexploring, for example, his relationship with the print publisher Hieronymus CockGCoand within the broader context of Netherlandish history. All of BruegelGCOs surviving paintings are reproduced here, with many full-page details, as well as all of his prints and representative works by his contemporaries and followers.This volume on Bruegel complements SilverGCOs widely praised monograph on Hieronymus Bosch, which was published by Abbeville Press in 2006. These two books are the most authoritative and best-illustrated studies of their respective subjects, and together they present us with a panorama of Netherlandish artGCOs emergence into the distinctive form of the Northern Renaissance.