Amazon.com Review
Designed to accompany the exhibition of the same name held at the Royal Academy in London,
The Genius of Rome, 1592-1623 is a sumptuous catalog of essays that celebrates what its editor sees as "the international confluence of artistic talent in Rome around 1600 that fostered what would become known as baroque art." Between 1592 and 1623, three popes, Clement VIII, Paul V, and Gregory XV spent "spectacular sums on churches, chapels, palaces and urban renewal," deliberately re-creating Rome as a center of artistic life and commissioning the work of (amongst others) Caravaggio, Annibale Carracci, Adam Elsheimer, and Peter Paul Rubens.
While The Genius of Rome amounts to much more than these four painters, they are identified with "the birth of the baroque," evolving from a mixture of Carracci's "temperate classicism," Caravaggio's "intensely naturalistic style," and the still life and landscape traditions imported from the north by Rubens and Elsheimer. The essays collected here offer a fascinating range of responses to the creation of the baroque, from the shady underworld of Caravaggio's "cardsharps, gypsies, and street vendors," via considerations of the paintings of music, classicism, still lives, and landscape, to a discussion of the radical intermingling of the sacred and the profane in the paintings and altarpieces of Caravaggio. Ultimately, Caravaggio steals the show, partly as a result of Peter Robb's controversial biography M: The Man Who Became Caravaggio, and Helen Langdon's more considered book Caravaggio: A Life, but with over 300 beautiful color plates gathered together here, there is an embarrassment of baroque artistic riches from which to choose. --Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk
From Library Journal
Like Florence in the early 15th century, Rome at the dawn of the 17th century was marked by an incredible outburst of artistic activity and achievement. Inspired by brilliant figures like Carracci, Caravaggio, Rubens, and Elsheimer, talented painters from all over Italy and transalpine Europe flocked to the papal city in search of inspiration and patronage. Although created as an exhibition catalog for a superb gathering of works at London's Royal Academy of Arts, this volume is in fact an excellent and useful conspectus of the multifaceted achievement that marks the early phases of the Baroque style. Among the 12 almost uniformly excellent essays by international scholars and curators are insightful discussions of the age's stylistic currents and its several significant genres, as well as evocative analyses of the fusing of sacred and profane imagery, of nocturnal scenes, and of the impact of northern art in the city. The integration of the text and the catalog proper further enhances the usefulness and accessibility of this important contribution to seicento studies. For all academic and larger public libraries. Robert Cahn, Fashion Inst. of Technology, New York
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
