Examines the designs of Italian buildings in the baroque and rococo architectural styles and discusses the careers of architects such as Gianlorenzo Bernini, Francesco Borromini, and Pietra da Cortona

Baroque and Rococo art and architecture have become popular once more, after a century and a half of neglect, misunderstanding and scorn. This radical shift in taste has led to a rapid growth of detailed knowledge about the artists who created these exhilarating styles. The famous masters have been reassessed and whole areas of achievement - Italian Baroque painting, German Rococo architecture - have been brought to a new, enthusiastic public. Germain Brazin's engrossing survey of this rich subject ranges over all Europe and traces the orgins and effects of Baroque and Rococo - from the Counter-Reformation to Neoclassicism, Exoticism, and even Art Nouveau.

This classic survey of Italian Baroque art and architecture focuses on the arts in every center between Venice and Sicily in the early, high, and late Baroque periods. The heart of the study, however, lies in the architecture and sculpture of the exhilarating years of Roman High Baroque, when Bernini, Borromini, and Cortona were all at work under a series of enlightened popes. Wittkower's text is now accompanied by a critical introduction and substantial new bibliography. This edition-now published in three volumes-will also include color illustrations for the first time.

Baroque and Rococo Art and Architecture is the first in-depth history of one of the great periods of Western art, spanning the years 1585 to 1785. The text treats the major media-painting, sculpture, drawings, prints, and architecture-as well as gardens, furniture, tapestries, costume, jewelry, and ceramics, all in terms of their original function and patronage and with emphasis on the social, political and cultural context. Organized by country and medium, the book contains biographies of the leading creative figures of the time, from Caravaggio and Rembrandt to Watteau and Hogarth. Significantly, Professor Neuman offers the fullest account to date of women artists and the representation of women and families in art. Additionally, drawing from recent scholarship, the text explores such fields as Spanish polychrome sculpture and Viceregal American painting. Baroque and Rococo Art and Architecture reviews traditional and recent strategies for interpreting artworks. It also traces the dissemination of visual ideas through prints and drawings-the forerunners of today's art reproductions and digital media. In special sections the text raises questions regarding the nature of perception and how artists transfer optical data to the canvas. Artists' techniques, from painting and printmaking to sculpting in marble and casting in bronze, are explained. Analysis of the institutions of art, such as the royal academies, apprenticeship systems, and artists' exhibition rooms, complements an examination of collecting at all levels of society. The book is exceptional in considering issues related to authenticity and the relative value of artworks based on attribution. The illustrations comprise a visual resource of unprecedented quality, with some 450 images reproduced in full color and in a large format that ensures high detail and emphasizes recent conservation efforts. Finally, an extensive glossary introduces seventeenth- and eighteenth-century art terms.