Modern Painters

The work now laid before the public originated in indignation at the shallow and false criticism of the periodicals of the day on the works of the great living artist to whom it principally refers. It was intended to be a short pamphlet, reprobating the matter and style of those critiques, and pointing out their perilous tendency, as guides of public feeling. But, as point after point presented itself for demonstration, I found myself compelled to amplify what was at first a letter to the Editor of a Review, into something very like a treatise on art, to which I was obliged to give the more consistency and completeness, because it advocated opinions which, to the ordinary connoisseur, will sound heretical. I now scarcely know whether I should announce it is an Essay on Landscape Painting, and apologize for its frequent reference to the works of a particular master; or, announcing it as a critique on particular works, apologize for its lengthy discussion of general principles. But of whatever character the work may be considered, the motives which led me to undertake it must not be mistaken. No zeal for the reputation of any individual, no personal feeling of any kind, has the slightest weight or influence with me. The reputation of the great artist to whose works I have chiefly referred, is established on too legitimate grounds among all whose admiration is honorable, to be in any way affected by the ignorant sarcasms of pretension and affectation.

Dealing with not only specific artists in the context of their national identity, but also with overarching themes in the rise of modernism, Czech Modern Painters is an articulate and well-researched overview of modern art styles from the former Czechoslovakia, focusing on impressionism, the Art Nouveau movement, and cubism. This study covers three generations of artists who changed the landscape of traditional art at the turn of the twentieth century, and looks specifically at how these artists pushed the boundaries of and came into conflict with the work of their predecessors. To do so, Petr Wittlich has combed through each artist's work in art school, galleries, and new art journals, while tracking each individual's own personal style. The result is a beautifully illustrated book that carefully explains the aesthetic theory of each movement, and provides biographical information on the leading personalities of the period and brief, informative captions for each reproduction. Wittlich also investigates the profound influence of capitalism, and the way in which these artists departed from the prevailing aesthetic tastes of their contemporaries. Czech Modern Painters has the magisterial quality of a textbook for students of modern art styles while maintaining readability, making it appealing to art lovers and historians alike.

Le revers de la jaquette indique : "With the rise of museums in the 19th century, including the formation in 1824 of the National gallery in London, the art of the past became visible and accessible (in Victorian England) as never before. Inspired by the work of Sandro Botticelli, Jan van Eyck, Diego Velazquez, and others, British artists transformed contemporary art through a creative process that emphasized imitation and emulation. Elizabeth Prettejohn analyzes the ways in which the Old Masters were interpreted by artists, as well as critics, curators, and scholars, and argues that Victorian artists were, paradoxically, at their most original when they imitated the Old Masters most faithfully. Covering Victorian art from the Pre-Raphaelites through to the early modernists, she vividly traces the ways in wich artist such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, and William Orpen engaged with the art of the past to produce some of the greatest art of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries."

This is the first complete translation of the biographies of fifteen artists, including Annibale Carracci, Carvaggio, Rubens, Van Dyck, and Poussin, written by the seventeenth-century antiquarian Giovan Pietro Bellori. Originally conceived as a continuation of Vasari's famous Lives, it is a fundamental source for seventeenth-century Italian art and artistic theory, providing detailed descriptions of extant and lost works of art, while casting light on the cultural politics of contemporary Rome and the relations between Rome and France. The importance of Bellori's Lives lies in the scrupulous documentation of artists, many of whom he knew personally; the author's detailed descriptions of their works; and his exposition of the classicist theory of art in the introductory lecture, the Idea. This volume contains the twelve Lives published in the original edition of 1672 and three Lives (Guido Reni, Andrea Sacchi, and Carlo Maratti) that survive in manuscript form and that were published for the first time in 1942.