Clark Art Institute
2 total works
The great French artist Claude Lorrain (1600-1682), for whom drawing was an integral part of the artistic process, spent most of his career in Italy, where he documented the beauty of the landscape and the splendour of classical ruins. This richly illustrated book examines the wide-ranging role the medium played throughout Claude's career. The book presents some of Claude's most remarkable drawings, representing all aspects of his style and subject matter, from informal outdoor sketches of trees, rivers, and ruins to formal presentation drawings and elaborate compositional designs for paintings, many of which have never before been reproduced in colour. A detailed and scholarly essay places them within the social and cultural contexts of their time and includes comparative illustrations of paintings and etchings to situate them within the artist's oeuvre. A selection of works from the "Liber Veritatis" (Book of Truth), a portfolio of highly finished drawings that the artist created to document his own painted compositions, is also included.
Portraiture is an enduring genre that has captivated artists and viewers for hundreds of years. From the late 15th through the early 19th century, artists continued to find new ways of approaching the portrait by exploring a range of styles, strategies, and themes. In this beautiful book, noted scholars discuss these various approaches and explain how they apply to specific examples, focusing on thirty superb portraits drawn from a distinguished private collection. Although many of these portraits are by renowned artists such as Lucas Cranach the Elder, Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Hans Memling, and Anthony van Dyck, others testify to the talents of lesser-known artists who are equally deserving of attention. Several of the featured paintings have never before been published, including outstanding portraits by acclaimed European masters such as Giovanni Battista Moroni, Parmigianino, Jusepe de Ribera, and Peter Paul Rubens. "Eye to Eye" offers a new understanding of these exceptional and rarely seen works within the portrait genre.