Masters of Art: Van Dyck - Hardcover

Moir, Alfred

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0810939177 ISBN 13: 9780810939172

Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, 1994

Alfred Moir, Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of Caravaggio, also in the Masters of Art Series, has written a compelling study of the seventeenth-century Flemish painter and his oeuvre. It is illustrated with 81 black-and-white reproductions of works by Van Dyck and influential works by other painters, notably Rubens and Titian. Forty full-page color-plates are each accompanied by a commentary about the work, its genesis, its meaning, and its place in Van Dyck's oeuvre.

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About the Author:

Robin Blake's other books include Mind Over Medicine, Compulsion (with Eleanor Stephens), and two novels, Fat Man's Shadow and The Gwailo. He lives and writes in London.

From Publishers Weekly:

Famous for his so-called "swagger portraits" of 17th-century European noblemen, Van Dyck (1599-1641) is most often seen as a courtier interested only in flattering the rich and famous of the baroque era. For the artist's quadricentennial last year, British author Blake (Mind Over Medicine; Fat Man's Shadow) produced this more sympathetic life of the painter, now published in the U.S., recasting the relatively few facts that are known about the painter's life. The book is divided into three sections based on the artist's first name as it changed with his locale: early years in Antwerp as Antoon; apprentice years in Italy as Antonio; and finally England, where Van Dyck became Sir Anthony, a commercial and artistic success painting the Stuarts. Blake is not an art historian, and his book often goes out on speculative limbs, particularly in positing romantic relationships for Van Dyck with models, for which definitive documentation does not exist. He relies heavily on secondary sources, but chooses them well, making for a lively if sometimes overly romantic narrative of the artist among the fabulously wealthy and powerful, reaching a sad climax when Van Dyck dies (of what remains unknown) just as his young wife gives birth to their first child. The bibliography helpfully lists ISBNs whenever possible, and includes the address of Blake's personal Web site devoted to Van Dyck (www.vandyck.co.uk) as well as those of numerous sites where photos of the artist's work may be seen. Scholars, however, would be better served by Christopher Brown's less excitable study. 3 inserts of b&w reproductions. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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