The Genius of Rome 1592-1623 - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0810966379 ISBN 13: 9780810966376

Publisher: Harry N Abrams Inc, 1900

Synopsis

Three full-color reproductions showcase the accomplishments of the great artists who came to Rome in the late sixteenth century to execute commissions for popes, princes, and cardinals, looking at the key roles of four major artists--Caravaggio, Annibale Carracci, Rubens, and Adam Elsheimer--who gave birth to the Baroque style of painting.

About this title

Review:

Designed to accompany the exhibition of the same name held at the Royal Academy in London, The Genius of Rome 1592-1623 is a sumptuous catalogue of essays that celebrates what its editor sees as "the international confluence of artistic talent in Rome around 1600 that fostered what would become known as baroque art". Between 1592 and 1623 three Popes--Clement VIII, Paul V and Gregory XV--spent spectacular sums on churches, chapels, palaces and urban renewal, deliberately recreating Rome as a centre of artistic life, and commissioning the work of (among others) Caravaggio, Annibale Carracci, Adam Elsheimer and Peter Paul Rubens.

While The Genius of Rome amounts to much more than these four painters, they are identified with "the birth of the baroque", evolving from a mixture of Carracci's "temperate classicism", Caravaggio's "intensely naturalistic style", and the still life and landscape traditions imported from the north by Rubens and Elsheimer. The essays collected here offer a fascinating range of responses to the creation of the Baroque, from the shady underworld of Caravaggio's "cardsharps, gypsies and street vendors", via considerations of the paintings of music, classicism, still lives and landscape, to a discussion of the radical intermingling of the sacred and the profane in the paintings and altarpieces of Caravaggio. Ultimately, Caravaggio steals the show, partly in the light of Peter Robb's controversial biography M, and Helen Langdon's more considered book Caravaggio: A Life, but with over 300 beautiful colour-plates gathered together here, there is an embarrassment of Baroque artistic riches from which to choose. --Jerry Brotton

Synopsis:

This volume accompanies an exhibition of the same name, running from January to April 2001 at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. It focuses on Rome at around 1600, then the centre of the art world, and in particular upon four artists: Caravaggio, Carracci, Elsheimer and Rubens.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harry N Abrams Inc
• Publication date: 1900
• ISBN 10: 0810966379
• ISBN 13: 9780810966376
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Editor: Brown Beverly Louise