Caravaggio
For the first time nearly every extant work by Caravaggio is reproduced in color in this lavish new volume, the long-awaited result of more than 20 years of research by a leading authority on the artist.\ In an engaging and informed text, John T. Spike explores in detail Caravaggio's scandalous life and provocative work. Placing Caravaggio within the broad panorama of society and ideas at the turn of the 17th century, the author sets a richly detailed stage for an artist who has been called...
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In an engaging and informed text, John T. Spike explores in detail Caravaggio's scandalous life and provocative work. Placing Caravaggio within the broad panorama of society and ideas at the turn of the 17th century, the author sets a richly detailed stage for an artist who has been called "the first modern painter." Caravaggio (1571-1610) reflected in his canvases his own desires and spiritual crises to an extent no one ever had imagined possible, and he shocked his contemporaries by portraying the saints and virgins of Christianity with the faces and bodies of his companions and lovers in Rome's demimonde.Accompanying the book is a critical catalog on CD-ROM in which all of Caravaggio's extant paintings, as well as lost and rejected works, are thoroughly described. Each entry specifies the work's medium, dimensions, location, and provenance, and provides an annotated bibliography of sources. Most of the entries conclude with a brief technical analysis. Much of this scientific data, of prime importance for attribution and dating, has not previously been published.With its fresh insights, as well as judicious readings of the documents and the physical evidence of the paintings themselves, Caravaggio is the most thorough study on the artist to date, and it will no doubt remain a definitive monograph for many years to come.This revised edition will include a new preface and updated bibliography.Library JournalNew publications celebrate the 400th anniversary of Caravaggio's death. Spike (A History of Western Art: From Prehistory to the 20th Century) relates Caravaggio's paintings to contemporaneous events as well as to his religious, political, and social surroundings in this lavishly illustrated catalogue raisonné. The accompanying searchable CD-ROM catalog includes extant, lost, and rejected paintings; discussions of iconography; medium; dimension; location; provenance; and an annotated bibliography. This second edition features a new preface, updated biography, additional illustrations, and comparative photographs and X-rays showing the artistic process. Fried (Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before) retains the style of his series of Mellon Lectures, on which his new book is based, while expanding the content. His central themes are Caravaggio's "internal dynamic" of the acts of creating the painting, finishing the work, and giving it over to the viewer. Fried, who uses Spike's first edition as a source, also explores "self-absorbed" paintings in which viewers do not participate vs. those into which they are invited. Both books offer indexes and endnotes; Spike's catalogue raisonné also presents comparative and technical illustrations. While Fried compares Caravaggio's work to that of artists as seemingly far afield as James McNeill Whistler and Henri Matisse, Spike takes the more traditional chronological approach. VERDICT Owing to differing approaches and content, both titles are recommended for special collections, art faculty and students, and interested general readers.—Nancy J. Mactague, Aurora Univ. Lib., IL
Preface and AcknowledgmentsChapter 1: 1571-1592Chapter 2: 1592-1597Chapter 3: 1598-1600Chapter 4: 1601-1605Chpater 5: 1606-1610Notes Checklist of Paintings by or attributed to Caravaggio Chronology Bibliography IndexCatalogue of Paintings (on CD Notes to the Reader Autograph Notes Other works attributed to Caravaggio Lost Works
\ Library JournalNew publications celebrate the 400th anniversary of Caravaggio's death. Spike (A History of Western Art: From Prehistory to the 20th Century) relates Caravaggio's paintings to contemporaneous events as well as to his religious, political, and social surroundings in this lavishly illustrated catalogue raisonné. The accompanying searchable CD-ROM catalog includes extant, lost, and rejected paintings; discussions of iconography; medium; dimension; location; provenance; and an annotated bibliography. This second edition features a new preface, updated biography, additional illustrations, and comparative photographs and X-rays showing the artistic process. Fried (Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before) retains the style of his series of Mellon Lectures, on which his new book is based, while expanding the content. His central themes are Caravaggio's "internal dynamic" of the acts of creating the painting, finishing the work, and giving it over to the viewer. Fried, who uses Spike's first edition as a source, also explores "self-absorbed" paintings in which viewers do not participate vs. those into which they are invited. Both books offer indexes and endnotes; Spike's catalogue raisonné also presents comparative and technical illustrations. While Fried compares Caravaggio's work to that of artists as seemingly far afield as James McNeill Whistler and Henri Matisse, Spike takes the more traditional chronological approach. VERDICT Owing to differing approaches and content, both titles are recommended for special collections, art faculty and students, and interested general readers.—Nancy J. Mactague, Aurora Univ. Lib., IL\ \
