Baroque: Architecture, Sculpture, Painting (Hardcover)

~ Rolf Toman (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

These substantial volumes on art periods vividly portray the most important achievements from the areas of European architecture, sculpture, and painting. The impressive photographs of works from all visual arts movements are at the center of these richly illustrated volumes. The books successfully provide an overview of the artistic diversity of the individual periods, and they couldn't have been written and illustrated any more clearly. The informative and interesting texts have been written by renowned authors from the fields of history, architecture and art history, providing a multifaceted view of each period. These books are a real pleasure for anyone with an interest in art. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

For this work, editor Rolf Toman has gathered contributions from seven renowned authors with great expertise in the fields of architecture and art history to work with him. Taken as a whole, they give us a multi-faceted picture of baroque art in all its forms. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 502 pages
• Publisher: Konemann; illustrated edition edition (April 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3895089176
• ISBN-13: 978-3895089176
• Product Dimensions: 12.7 x 11.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,086,020 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kudos for Baroque, February 26, 2000

By	Thomas E. Burke (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews

The cover alone will stop you in your tracks, a magnificent photograph of the Hofburg Library in Vienna. Open the cover and you will find page after page of amazingly detailed color photos of architecture, sculpture, and paintings. And to top it off, the text is generally interesting without any mindnumbing pedantic nose-in-the-air commentary. I have been an architect for 25 years and have never stopped searching for a reasonably priced book of Baroque with high quality pictures and text. This is it.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kudos for Baroque, February 26, 2000

By	Thomas E. Burke (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews

The cover alone will stop you in your tracks, a magnificent photograph of the Hofburg Library in Vienna. Open the cover and you will find page after page of amazingly detailed color photos of architecture, sculpture, and paintings. And to top it off, the text is generally interesting without any mindnumbing pedantic nose-in-the-air commentary. I have been an architect for 25 years and have never stopped searching for a reasonably priced book of Baroque with high quality pictures and text. This is it.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The mother of all coffee table books? , July 22, 2008

By	Ashtar Command "Functional atheist, philosoph... (Stockholm, Sweden) - See all my reviews

The text of this book is boring, tedious and frequently gets bogged down in little details.

So why did I give it five stars?

It's because of the photos! The book is 500 pages long, and there are literally hundreds of full-color photographs of Baroque palaces, cathedrals, paintings and sculptures. The book pages are very large, and this makes the photos large and detailed as well. But the most sensational thing is the price: only 25 dollars for the hardback edition! Trust me, a book like this usually goes for 100 dollars or more. Perhaps it's subsidized by some UN agency? (A caveat: Since the book is very heavy, the postage might be larger than average.)

Rolf Toman's "Baroque" is probably mostly directed at students of European art and architecture. As already noted, the text quickly gets tedious for the non-specialist, with details of 17th century Italian architects and the popes who paid their barbills. However, the stunning illustrations make the book an excellent birthday or Christmas gift even for general readers. I bought the Swedish translation for my mother last Christmas.

In a sense, this is the mother of all coffee table books. If you have it on your coffee table or book shelf, you will be sure to impress your friends. Just don't tell them you got it at bargain price!

The Baroque is a period in West European art history that began around AD 1600 and ended around AD 1750. Versailles in France is the most well-known example of Baroque architecture. Many churches and palaces in Rome are considered Baroque. The Baroque even spread to South and Central America, due to the Spanish and Portuguese conquests.

Rolf Toman's book concentrates on French, Italian, Spanish and German architecture. There are shorter chapters on the other European nations, and an even shorter chapter on colonial Baroque. Further, the book contains sections on Baroque painting and sculpture, with exquisite photos of 17th and 18th century paintings from various European museums. The notorious Rococo style is mentioned only in passing.

The Baroque has been much maligned. It's ostentation, connections to royal absolutism and Catholic counter-reformation, and supposed evolution into the Rococo, all has come up for criticism. And yes, the Early Modern Period wasn't a particularly happy one. I mean, the French revolution didn't exactly fall from the skies! Still, from an aesthetic point of view, the art of the period seems grossly underrated.

Recommended.

PS. I have only seen (the Swedish) HARDBACK edition of this book. How the paperback edition looks like, I don't know. It seems to be even cheaper!