El Greco to Velázquez: Art during the Reign of Philip III
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism
El Greco to Velázquez: Art during the Reign of Philip III Details
From School Library Journal Starred Review. Published to accompany a major traveling exhibition, this work records a fertile and innovative period in Spanish art history. The court of Philip III (1578–1621) ushered in a time of elaborate celebrations and religious festivals, a major expansion in new building, and an unprecedented rage for art collecting in the Spanish court. Spain's art became more naturalistic and expressive; the royal portraits are masterpieces of detailed elegance, and the religious figures have reality and solidity new to the genre. By treating not only the best-known artists but also less-well-known contributors to the changing approach to painting, Baer (senior curator, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) and Schroth (senior curator, Nash Museum, Duke Univ.) offer a series of elegant and enlightening essays. This is far more than an exhibition catalog: it is an impressive exposition of a significant transition period in Spanish art and culture. With splendid illustrations (170 color plates), detailed biographies of the exhibited artists, and extensive notes, this is an important contribution and deserves a place in every art library, academic library, and large public collection.—Paula Frosch, Metropolitan Museum of Art Lib., New York Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Read more
Reviews
The catalogue for a 2008 exhibition held at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, this book is centered on a period between 1577 and 1623, which corresponds to the reign of King Philip III. It is a very well documented book which benefits from a very high quality of reproductions, with many close-ups of details (especially of the works by El Greco which are kept in American museums, such as the View of Toledo, the Vision of Saint John or the Laocoön). The text is informative and easy to read, centering on the historical context, the personality of the king, the vision of power and of religion (both of which were the main concerns of any Spanish artist of the time), the religious or private patrons of the arts and the ideas that were developed among Spanish writers of the period. Outstanding is the chapter centered on portraiture, for which Spanish artists became unequalled masters.An enlightening book, probably one of the best recent publications on Spanish art of the XVIth-XVIIth centuries.
