Beyond the sainted Rembrandt--who harbored a startling darkness--and the mysterious Vermeer, whose true subject, it turned out, was lurking in plain sight, Moser got to know a whole galaxy of geniuses: the doomed virtuoso Carel Fabritius, the anguished wunderkind Jan Lievens, the deaf prodigy Hendrik Avercamp. And through their artwork, he got to know their country, too: from the translucent churches of Pieter Saenredam to Paulus Potter's muddy barnyards, and from Pieter de Hooch's cozy hearths to Jacob van Ruisdael's tragic trees.

Year after year, as he tried to make a life for himself in the Netherlands, Moser found friends among these centuries-dead artists. And he found that they, too, were struggling with the same questions that he was. Why do we make art? What even is art, anyway--and what is an artist? What does it mean to succeed as an artist, and what does it mean to fail? Is art a consolation--or a mortal danger?

The Upside-Down World is an invitation to ask these questions, and to turn them on their heads: to look, and then to look again. This is Holland and its great artists as we've never seen them before. And it's a sumptuously illustrated, highly personal coming-of-age-story, twenty years in the making: a revealing self-portrait by one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation.

The rediscovery of a Baroque masterpiece by the venerable Italian painter

In 2021, a painting was offered at a Madrid auction houses at a starting price of 1,500 euros. Almost immediately and almost unanimously, this Ecce Homo was attributed by experts to Caravaggio (1571-1610), an unprecedented event in the critical history of the painter.
This publication comprises essays by four of the most authoritative specialists on Caravaggio and Baroque painting, who together offer an essential starting point for the understanding of this new and fundamental addition to our knowledge of Caravaggio's work.
Maria Cristina Terzaghi, Gianni Papi, Giuseppe Porzio and Keith Christiansen tackle the interpretation of the painting, taking different approaches. One essay dwells on the circumstances of the discovery, another traces its Spanish provenance, while the stylistic, technical and iconographic aspects of the work are examined in depth, along with the artist's critical fortune and the legacy he left behind in Naples.
The four texts offer the reader a variety of interpretations that constitute the true value of this publication. While others have expressed skepticism over the attribution, all the contributing scholars share the same enthusiastic certainty: the Ecce Homo is a masterpiece by Caravaggio and, as such, still has a lot to tell us about the artist.

Manet called him the greatest painter of all. Picasso was so inspired by his masterpiece Las Meninas that he painted 44 variations of it. Francis Bacon painted a study of his portrait of Pope Innocent X. Monet and Renoir, Corot and Courbet, Degas and Dalí... for so many champions of art history, the ultimate sounding board was--and remains--Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599-1660).

This monograph edition brings together Velázquez's complete works with a selection of enlarged details and photography of recently restored paintings, achieved through the joint initiative of TASCHEN and the Wildenstein Institute. The dazzling images are accompanied by insightful commentary from José López-Rey on Velázquez's interest in human life and his equal attention to all subjects, from an old woman frying eggs to a pope or king, as well as his commitment to color and light, which would influence the Impressionists over two centuries later.

A new account of the renowned Baroque painter, revealing how her astute professional decisions shaped her career, style, and legacy

Art has long been viewed as a calling--a quasi-religious vocation that drives artists to seek answers to humanity's deepest questions. Yet the art world is a risky, competitive business that requires artists to make strategic decisions, especially if the artist is a woman. In Artemisia Gentileschi and the Business of Art, Christopher Marshall presents a new account of the life, work, and legacy of the Italian Baroque painter, revealing how she built a successful four-decade career in a male-dominated field--and how her business acumen has even influenced the resurrection of her reputation today, when she has been transformed from a footnote of art history to a globally famous artist and feminist icon.

Combining the most recent research with detailed analyses of newly attributed paintings, the book highlights the business considerations behind Gentileschi's development of a trademark style as she marketed herself to the public across a range of Italian artistic centers. The disguised self-portraits in her early Florentine paintings are reevaluated as an effort to make a celebrity brand of her own image. And, challenging the common perception that Gentileschi's only masterpieces are her early Caravaggesque paintings, the book emphasizes the importance of her neglected late Neapolitan works, which are reinterpreted as innovative responses to the conventional practices of Baroque workshops.

Artemisia Gentileschi and the Business of Art shows that Gentileschi's remarkable success as a painter was due not only to her enormous talent but also to her ability to respond creatively to the continuously evolving trends and challenges of the Italian Baroque art world.

The Golden Age in Holland and Flanders roughly spanned the 17th century and was a period of enormous advances in the fields of commerce, science--and art. Still lifes, landscape paintings, and romantic depictions of everyday life became valued by the increasingly wealthy merchant classes in the Dutch provinces, while religious and historic paintings as well as portraits continued to appeal to the Flemish patronage.
The Golden Age brought us Rembrandt, Vermeer, Rubens, and Van Dyck, but it was also the period of Frans Hals' revolutionary portraiture, Adriaen Brouwer's depictions of the working class at play, Jan Brueghel's velvety miniatures, and Hendrick Avercamp's lively winter landscapes. Norbert Wolf applies his vast understanding of the interplay between history, culture, and art to explore the forces that led to the Golden Age in Holland and Flanders and how this period influenced later generations of artists.
Accompanied by luminous color illustrations, Wolf's accessible text considers the complex political, religious, social, and economic situation that led to newfound prosperity and, thus, to an enormous artistic output that we continue to marvel at and enjoy today.

Exploring the impact and influence of global trade networks on 17th-century Dutch life and art

The 17th century has long been considered a golden age for Dutch art, fueled by the Dutch Republic's growth as an economic world power. Nourished by an innovative stock market and burgeoning global trade network, this vibrant economy not only provided artists with a rich context in which to make their art, but also directly influenced the art itself--in its subject matter, materials, meaning and interpretation. The genre scenes and still lifes that today seem quintessentially Dutch actually project a global vision, and often address the positive and negative aspects of economic and global expansion.
Drawing on the world-renowned collection of Dutch paintings, works on paper, decorative arts and illustrated books at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, this book offers a fresh look at 17th-century Dutch art, accompanied by authoritative essays that ask readers to consider the global context in which this work was made.
Artists include: Rembrandt van Rijn, Jacob van Ruisdael, Rachel Ruysch, Frans Hals, Judith Leyster, Gerrit van Honthorst, Maria Schalcken, Pieter Claesz, Nicolaes Maes, Jan van Huysum and Johannes Vermeer.

An Italian village on a hilltop near the Adriatic coast, a decaying palazzo facing the sea, and in the basement, cobwebbed and dusty, lit by a single bulb, an archive unknown to scholars. Here, a young graduate student from Rome, Francesca Cappelletti, makes a discovery that inspires a search for a work of art of incalculable value, a painting lost for almost two centuries.

The artist was Caravaggio, a master of the Italian Baroque. He was a genius, a revolutionary painter, and a man beset by personal demons. Four hundred years ago, he drank and brawled in the taverns and streets of Rome, moving from one rooming house to another, constantly in and out of jail, all the while painting works of transcendent emotional and visual power. He rose from obscurity to fame and wealth, but success didn't alter his violent temperament. His rage finally led him to commit murder, forcing him to flee Rome a hunted man. He died young, alone, and under strange circumstances.

Caravaggio scholars estimate that between sixty and eighty of his works are in existence today. Many others-no one knows the precise number-have been lost to time. Somewhere, surely, a masterpiece lies forgotten in a storeroom, or in a small parish church, or hanging above a fireplace, mistaken for a mere copy.

Prizewinning author Jonathan Harr embarks on an spellbinding journey to discover the long-lost painting known as The Taking of Christ-its mysterious fate and the circumstances of its disappearance have captivated Caravaggio devotees for years. After Francesca Cappelletti stumbles across a clue in that dusty archive, she tracks the painting across a continent and hundreds of years of history. But it is not until she meets Sergio Benedetti, an art restorer working in Ireland, that she finally manages to assemble all the pieces of the puzzle.

Praise for The Lost Painting

Jonathan Harr has gone to the trouble of writing what will probably be a bestseller . . . rich and wonderful. . . . In truth, the book reads better than a thriller. . . . If you're a sucker for Rome, and for dusk . . . you'll] enjoy Harr's more clearly reported details about life in the city.--The New York Times Book Review

Jonathan Harr has taken the story of the lost painting, and woven from it a deeply moving narrative about history, art and taste--and about the greed, envy, covetousness and professional jealousy of people who fall prey to obsession. It is as perfect a work of narrative nonfiction as you could ever hope to read.--The Economist

The Dutch Golden Age of painting spawned some of history's greatest artists and artisans, but few can boast the genius and legacy of Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (1606-1669). Despite never leaving his native Netherlands, Rembrandt projected his oeuvre past the boundaries of his own experience, producing some of art's most diverse and impactful works across portraiture, biblical, allegorical, landscape, and genre scenes. In all their forms, Rembrandt's paintings are built of intricacies--the totality of each subtle facial wrinkle, gaze, or figure amounting to an emotional force that stands unmatched among his contemporaries and artistic progeny alike.

Each work is imbued with feeling. Biblical scenes, like Bathsheba at her Bath, become vehicles for meditations on human longing, probing depths beyond that which is canonized in scripture or depicted in other representations. His portraits, be them of wealthy patrons or tradesmen, communicate the essence of an individual through fine demarcations, their faces bathed in an ethereal light against darkened earthtones. Perhaps most striking, his series of self-portraits is a triumph of the medium; beginning in his youth and spanning until a year prior to his death, Rembrandt's self portraiture is an intimate glimpse into his lifelong process of self-reflection.

This XL monograph compiles all 330 of Rembrandt's paintings in stunning reproductions. From Belshazzar's Feast to The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, we discover Rembrandt's painted oeuvre like never before.

Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) was a clerk in the Paris customs service who dreamed of becoming a famous artist. At the age 49, he decided to give it a try. At first, Rousseau's bright, bold paintings of jungles and exotic flora and fauna were dismissed as childish and simplistic, but his unique and tenacious style soon won acclaim. After 1886, he exhibited regularly at Paris's prestigious Salon des Indépendants, and in 1908 he received a legendary banquet of honor, hosted by Picasso.

Although best known for his tropical scenes, Rousseau, in fact, never left France, relying on books and magazines for inspiration, as well as trips to natural history museums and anecdotes from returning military acquaintances. Working in oil on canvas, he tended toward a vibrant palette, vivid rendering, as well as a certain lush, languid sensuality as seen in the nude in the jungle composition The Dream.

Today, Rousseau's myth is well established in art history, garnering comparison with such other post-Impressionist masters as Cézanne, Matisse, and Gauguin. In this dependable TASCHEN introduction, we explore the makings of this late-blooming artist and his legacy as an unlikely hero of modernism.

The Dutch Golden Age of painting spawned some of history's greatest artists and artisans, but few can boast the genius and legacy of Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (1606-1669). Despite never leaving his native Netherlands, Rembrandt projected his oeuvre past the boundaries of his own experience, producing some of art's most diverse and impactful works across portraiture, biblical, allegorical, landscape, and genre scenes. In all their forms, Rembrandt's paintings are built of intricacies--the totality of each subtle facial wrinkle, gaze, or figure amounting to an emotional force that stands unmatched among his contemporaries and artistic progeny alike.

Each work is imbued with feeling. Biblical scenes, like Bathsheba at her Bath, become vehicles for meditations on human longing, probing depths beyond that which is canonized in scripture or depicted in other representations. His portraits, be them of wealthy patrons or tradesmen, communicate the essence of an individual through fine demarcations, their faces bathed in an ethereal light against darkened earthtones. Perhaps most striking, his series of self-portraits is a triumph of the medium; beginning in his youth and spanning until a year prior to his death, Rembrandt's self portraiture is an intimate glimpse into his lifelong process of self-reflection.

This XL monograph compiles all 330 of Rembrandt's paintings in stunning reproductions. From Belshazzar's Feast to The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, we discover Rembrandt's painted oeuvre like never before.

More than any other artist, the painter Rembrandt developed charisma through the outstanding quality and originality of his works and the organization of his workshop. His pupils and successors continued his style as the Rembrandt brand with an appeal that has remained unbroken to this day. This book poses the question: Why did Rembrandt's art both affect contemporary painters and attract generations of collectors and present-day viewers?

This magnificent volume examines the great master's remarkable talent for portraying emotions and passions, his sketch-like openness, and his focus on essentials. Further, it explores his ability to pass on the particular features of his painting style while at the same time encouraging the artistic individuality of his pupils. Through some 120 paintings, drawings, and etchings by Rembrandt and his pupils, this book affords fascinating insights into Dutch painting in the seventeenth century.

Luisa Rold n (1652-1706), also known as La Roldana, was an accomplished Spanish Baroque artist, much admired during her lifetime for her exquisitely crafted and painted wood and terracotta sculptures. Rold n trained under her father and worked in Seville, C diz, and Madrid. She even served as sculptor to the royal chambers of two kings of Spain. Yet despite her great artistry and achievements, she has been largely forgotten by modern art history.

Written for art lovers of all backgrounds, this beautifully illustrated book offers an important perspective that has been missing--a deeper understanding of the opportunities, and the challenges, facing a woman artist in Rold n's time. With attention to the historical and social dynamics of her milieu, this volume places Rold n's work in context alongside that of other artists of the period, including Vel zquez, Murillo, and Zurbar n, and provides much-needed insight into what life was like for this trailblazing artist of seventeenth-century Spain.

Bernini and His World is a unique exploration of Gian Lorenzo Bernini the sculptor, offering new insights and including discussions of the artist's stylistic innovations and the ways in which he approached sculpture. Placing his life and work within a social, anthropological and historical context, Livio Pestilli gives a fascinating and in-depth account, from the Rome in which Bernini lived and its reception of foreign sculptors to the myth-making narrative of his biographers, and the judgements of his critics.

Beautifully illustrated and engagingly written, this book draws on a deep familiarity with both historic and modern Italian culture to give readers a vivid account of sculpture and sculptors in early modern Rome, and of Bernini's lasting legacy.

The life of Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-after 1654) was as exceptional as her paintings. She was a child prodigy, raised without a mother by her artist father, a follower of Caravaggio. Although she learned to paint under her father, she became an artist against his wishes. Later, as she moved between Florence, Rome, Venice, Naples, and London, her artistic style evolved, but throughout her career she specialized in large-scale, powerful, nuanced portrayals of women. This book highlights Gentileschi's enterprising and original engagement with emerging feminist notions of the value and dignity of womanhood.

Sheila Barker's cutting-edge scholarship in Artemisia Gentileschi clears a pathway for all audiences to appreciate the artist's pictorial intelligence, as well as her achievement of a remarkably lucrative and high-profile career at a time when few women were artists. Bringing to light newly attributed paintings and archival discoveries, this is the first biography to be written by an authority on Gentileschi since 1999.

The volume is beautifully illustrated, and Barker weaves this extraordinary story with in-depth discussions of key artworks, such as Susanna and the Elders (1610), Judith Beheading Holofernes (c.1619-20), and Lot and His Daughters (1640-45). Also included is the J. Paul Getty Museum's recent acquisition, Lucretia (c.1635-45). Through such works, Barker explores the evolution of Gentileschi's expressive goals and techniques.

Celebrated for his masterful realism and innovative techniques, Diego Velázquez profoundly influenced art history through his use of light, perspective, and portraiture.

Opening with an introductory essay, Velázquez's life and work are explored within their historical context, and in stunning reproductions of 35 of his significant works. Readers will discover how Velázquez's role as court painter to King Philip IV of Spain allowed him to experiment with new techniques, and how masterpieces such as Las Meninas, and The Triumph of Bacchus showcase his genius for composition and psychological depth.

How do artists ensure that their works will still be known in later centuries? How do they reach a public that lies far away geographically? In around 1600, printed graphics were the answer. The outstanding works of Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617) and Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) show us how international success could be achieved in this way.

Printed graphics are easy to reproduce and distribute, and so around 1600, they became the perfect ambassadors for themselves in the diplomatic service of art. Through 160 masterly copperplate engravings, this volume shows how innovative and strategically astute Goltzius and Rubens were in their use of this medium--beguiling the public, arousing desires, and disseminating their new artworks. In addition to their paintings, the engravings became sought-after collectors' items which played a decisive part in the promotion of the careers of both artists.