Central European Drawings 1680 1800

Central Europe occupies a prominent place in many realms of eighteenth-century culture. This volume is the catalogue of an exhibition of drawings, organized in 1989 by The Art Museum, Princeton University, which presents some of the little-known accomplishments of artists from the region of present-day East and West Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and parts of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. Providing the first available survey of drawings of the period in English, the illustrated introduction to the catalogue considers the works in historical and artistic context. The book includes important drawings by artists such as Cosmas Damian Asam, Egid Quirin Asam, Matthus Gnther, and Adrian Zingg. Published for the first time are unique drawings by such important sculptors as Georg Raphael Donner and Franz Xaver Messerschmidt. The fully illustrated catalogue contains 105 entries, many of which deal with major issues of art of the time and treat the drawings exhibited in relation to works elsewhere. Biographies are presented for all the artists exhibited.

Central Europe occupies a prominent place in many realms of eighteenth-century culture. This volume is the catalogue of an exhibition of drawings, organized in 1989 by The Art Museum, Princeton University, which presents some of the little-known accomplishments of artists from the region of present-day East and West Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and parts of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. Providing the first available survey of drawings of the period in English, the illustrated introduction to the catalogue considers the works in historical and artistic context. The book includes important drawings by artists such as Cosmas Damian Asam, Egid Quirin Asam, Matthus Gnther, and Adrian Zingg. Published for the first time are unique drawings by such important sculptors as Georg Raphael Donner and Franz Xaver Messerschmidt. The fully illustrated catalogue contains 105 entries, many of which deal with major issues of art of the time and treat the drawings exhibited in relation to works elsewhere. Biographies are presented for all the artists exhibited.

"Five centuries of drawing in Central Europe are surveyed in this interpretive and fully illustrated catalogue featuring one of the oldest public collections in the United States. Included are the works of well-known masters Albrecht Durer, Johan Rottenhammer, and Johan Georg von Dillis, artists whose production influenced successive generations. This catalogue also offers a unique look at rare sheets by important figures such as Karel Skreta, Wenzel Hollar, and Johann Holzer. Overall, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann's achievement is realized in bringing this important collection of Old Master drawings from Central Europe together in a beautiful volume sure to provide an invaluable resource to scholars, connoisseurs, and art enthusiasts alike." --Book Jacket.

"This exhibition is the first to offer an extensive overview of the Museum's holdings of early Central European drawings, many of which were acquired in the last two decades. An emphasis on works by later sixteenth- and seventeenth-century artists is balanced by a selection of German drawings from the fifteenth and earlier sixteenth century, of which some of the most exceptional ones--including works by Albrecht Deurer--entered the Museum with The Robert Lehman Collection in 1975."--Publisher's website.

"Early European art was a consuming interest of both Robert Lehman and his father, Philip Lehman, an interest reflected in the remarkable number and quality of drawings they owned from the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. In addition to an important group of early German drawings, the collection includes a "Saint Paul" from a series associated with Jan van Eyck and the famous "Scupstoel" from the circle of Rogier van der Weyden, the only design for a decorative sculpture to survive from the fifteenth century. The great artists of the seventeenth century, Peter Paul Rubens, Jacob Jordaens, Claude Lorrain, and Rembrandt among them, are also represented, Rembrandt by seven drawings, including the large study of Leonardo's "Last Supper" that would stay in his mind all through his career. Drawings by Antoine Watteau, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Gabriel de Saint-Aubin, Thomas Gainsborough, Paul Sandby, and George Romney are among the many from eighteenth-century France and England. The volume discusses all 153 drawings at length, placing each in its art historical setting and complementing the discussion with comparative illustrations of related works." This e-book on the MetPublications website is also accompanied by links to related works and under the "Additional resources"tab are links to Met works of art and Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History essays and timelines (viewed May 1, 2014).

Rethinking the Baroque explores a tension. In recent years the idea of ?baroque? or ?the baroque? has been seized upon by scholars from a range of disciplines and the term ?baroque? has consequently been much in evidence in writings on contemporary culture, especially architecture and entertainment. Most of the scholars concerned have little knowledge of the art, literature, and history of the period usually associated with the baroque. A gulf has arisen. On the one hand, there are scholars who are deeply immersed in historical period, who shy away from abstraction, and who have remained often oblivious to the convulsions surrounding the term ?baroque?; on the other, there are theorists and scholars of contemporary theory who have largely ignored baroque art and architecture. This book explores what happens when these worlds mesh. In this book, scholars from a range of disciplines retrieve the term ?baroque? from the margins of art history where it has been sidelined as ?anachronistic?, to reconsider the usefulness of the term ?baroque?, while avoiding simply rehearsing familiar policing of periodization, stylistic boundaries, categories or essence. ?Baroque? emerges as a vital and productive way to rethink problems in art history, visual culture and architectural theory. Rather than attempting to provide a survey of baroque as a chronological or geographical conception, the essays here attempt critical re-engagement with the term ?baroque? - its promise, its limits, and its overlooked potential - in relation to the visual arts. Thus the book is posited on the idea that tension is not only inevitable, but even desirable, since it not only encapsulates intellectual divergence (which is always as useful as much as it is feared), but helps to push scholars (and therefore readers) outside their usual runnels.

"Kaufmann situates Maulbertsch as a fresco painter at a time of transition to easel painting, a colorist at a time when color was not fully appreciated by contemporary observers, and an interpreter of religious themes at a time when secular subjects were becoming more popular. Although he has been dismissed as an eccentric by previous scholars, Kaufmann's analysis shows Maulbertsch involved in the intellectual and aesthetic issues of his day."--BOOK JACKET.