The Moment of Caravaggio (The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts) - Hardcover

Fried, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691147019 ISBN 13: 9780691147017

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2010

Synopsis

A richly illustrated reevaluation of Caravaggio from one of today's leading art historians

This is a groundbreaking examination of one of the most important artists in the Western tradition by one of the leading art historians and critics of the past half-century. In his first extended consideration of the Italian Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1573-1610), Michael Fried offers a transformative account of the artist's revolutionary achievement. Based on the A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts delivered at the National Gallery of Art, The Moment of Caravaggio displays Fried's unique combination of interpretive brilliance, historical seriousness, and theoretical sophistication, providing sustained and unexpected readings of a wide range of major works, from the early Boy Bitten by a Lizard to the late Martyrdom of Saint Ursula. And with close to 200 color images, The Moment of Caravaggio is as richly illustrated as it is closely argued. The result is an electrifying new perspective on a crucial episode in the history of European painting.

Focusing on the emergence of the full-blown "gallery picture" in Rome during the last decade of the sixteenth century and the first decades of the seventeenth, Fried draws forth an expansive argument, one that leads to a radically revisionist account of Caravaggio's relation to the self-portrait; of the role of extreme violence in his art, as epitomized by scenes of decapitation; and of the deep structure of his epoch-defining realism. Fried also gives considerable attention to the art of Caravaggio's great rival, Annibale Carracci, as well as to the work of Caravaggio's followers, including Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi, Bartolomeo Manfredi, and Valentin de Boulogne.

About this title

About the Author

Michael Fried is the J. R. Herbert Boone Professor Emeritus of Humanities and the History of Art at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of many books, including Absorption and Theatricality, Courbet's Realism, Manet's Modernism, Menzel's Realism, and Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before. He has also written several books of poems, including Promesse du Bonheur. He is the recipient of a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

From the Back Cover

"Seldom does one encounter a profoundly surprising yet rigorously historical reading of a very familiar work; inThe Moment of Caravaggio this happens with painting after painting. Though an account primarily of Caravaggio and his circle, Fried's discussions of address, of autonomy, of interiority, and of thedispositif of easel painting, among other topics, will resonate across the field. Every scholar of early modern art should read this book."--Michael W. Cole, Columbia University

"No one sees paintings better than Michael Fried, or thinks as persistently or with such philosophical depth about such seeing, about the very possibility of pictorial meaning.The Moment of Caravaggio is a spectacular, compelling addition to his oeuvre. An engrossing and often simply thrilling read, the book is a triumph."--Robert B. Pippin, University of Chicago

"This is a dazzling tour de force. Michael Fried's readings of a series of Caravaggio's most fascinating and enigmatic pictures keep one turning the pages with the greatest pleasure. Fried's arguments are compelling, muscular, and graceful."--Leonard Barkan, Princeton University

Reviews

This extravagantly produced, scholarly study of Caravaggio's art is based on six lectures given at the National Gallery of Art. Fried is rather like an extreme docent: this is no casual stroll. A professor of humanities and art history at Johns Hopkins, he winds through Caravaggio's oeuvre and several related themes: the use of mirrors and reflection; moments of extreme concentration and absorption; and events in and around the edges of the work. Fried pulls his thread taut, starting with the self-portrait--often just a torso or head--painted in front of a mirror and ending with the sword, made of reflective metal, that beheads John the Baptist. Caravaggio's works share the page with those of Dolci, Gentileschi, Manet, Courbet, and other artists, providing a place to continue looking, as Fried asks: "which way does a painting face?" In his response, Fried dares his reader to look into these paintings and see a reflection of what exists outside the frame. 194 color illus., 9 half-tones.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691147019
• ISBN 13: 9780691147017
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320