Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (6 de junio de 1599 – 6 de agosto de 1660), conocido como Diego Velázquez, fue un pintor del Siglo de Oro español que tuvo una influencia considerable en la corte del rey Felipe IV. Junto con Francisco de Goya y El Greco, es considerado uno de los artistas más importantes de la historia de España. Su estilo, aunque se mantuvo muy personal, se enmarca claramente en el movimiento barroco. Las dos visitas de Velázquez a Italia, demostradas por documentos de la época, tuvieron una gran influencia en la manera en la que evolucionó …

Degas was closest to Renoir in the impressionist’s circle, for both favoured the animated Parisian life of their day as a motif in their paintings. Degas did not attend Gleyre’s studio; most likely he first met the future impressionists at the Café Guerbois. He started his apprenticeship in 1853 at the studio of Louis-Ernest Barrias and, beginning in 1854, studied under Louis Lamothe, who revered Ingres above all others, and transmitted his adoration for this master to Edgar Degas. Starting in 1854 Degas travelled frequently to Italy: first to Naples, where he made the acquaintance of his numerous cousins, and …

After staying in Milan for his apprenticeship, Michelangelo da Caravaggio arrived in Rome in 1592. There he started to paint with both realism and psychological analysis of the sitters. Caravaggio was as temperamental in his painting as in his wild life. As he also responded to prestigious Church commissions, his dramatic style and his realism were seen as unacceptable. Chiaroscuro had existed well before he came on the scene, but it was Caravaggio who made the technique definitive, darkening the shadows and transfixing the subject in a blinding shaft of light. His influence was immense, firstly through those who were …

Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), conocido principalmente por su estilo único y grandilocuente, puede presumir de un repertorio extraordinario donde concurren cine, escultura, fotografía y, por supuesto, pintura. Mientras que su nombre es a menudo asociado, con razón, al surrealismo, Dalí demostró su maestría en géneros tan dispares como el clasicismo, el modernismo y el cubismo. No por menos, supone una figura crucial en la historia del arte que ha inspirado innumerables libros y estudios. En este volumen los lectores podrán encontrar una fascinante apreciación de la vida y obra de uno de los pioneros del arte que más controversia y excitación …

The English school of painting was officially recognised at the beginning of the 18th century through the work of William Hogarth. It includes works by the most famous English artists, such as Thomas Gainsborough, Joseph Mallord William Turner, John Constable, Edward Burne-Jones, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. This subject is introduced with a very unique text, published in 1882: a French study of English pictorial art. The author, Ernest Chesneau, was highly-cultured, an art historian and inspector of Fine Arts. He explains the beginnings of this school which excels in portraiture and landscapes, and reminds us of the English brilliance regarding …

Poet, draughtsman, engraver and painter, William Blake’s work is made up of several elements – Gothic art, Germanic reverie, the Bible, Milton and Shakespeare – to which were added Dante and a certain taste for linear designs, resembling geometric diagrams, and relates him to the great classical movement inspired by Winckelmann and propagated by David. This is the sole point of contact discernible between the classicism of David and English art, though furtive and indirect. Blake is the most mystic of the English painters, perhaps the only true mystic. He was ingenious in his inner imagination, and his interpretations of …

Influenced by the masters of Antiquity, the genius of Michelangelo and Baroque sculpture, particularly of Bernini, Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) is one of the most renowned artists in history. Though Rodin is considered a founder of modern sculpture, he did not set out to critique past classical traditions. Many of his sculptures were criticised and considered controversial because of their sensuality or hyperrealist qualities. His most original works departed from traditional themes of mythology and allegory, and embraced the human body, celebrating individualism and physicality. This book uncovers the life and career of this highly acclaimed artist by exploring his most …

Pieter Brueghel was the first important member of a family of artists who were active for four generations. Firstly a drawer before becoming a painter later, he painted religious themes, such as Babel Tower, with very bright colours. Influenced by Hieronymus Bosch, he painted large, complex scenes of peasant life and scripture or spiritual allegories, often with crowds of subjects performing a variety of acts, yet his scenes are unified with an informal integrity and often with wit. In his work, he brought a new humanising spirit. Befriending the Humanists, Brueghel composed true philosophical landscapes in the heart of which …

Ornans, Courbet’s birthplace, is near the beautiful valley of the Doubs River, and it was here as a boy, and later as a man, that he absorbed the love of landscape. He was by nature a revolutionary, a man born to oppose existing order and to assert his independence; he had that quality of bluster and brutality which makes the revolutionary count in art as well as in politics. In both directions his spirit of revolt manifested itself. He went to Paris to study art, yet he did not attach himself to the studio of any of the prominent masters. …

At fifteen, Turner was already exhibiting View of Lambeth. He soon acquired the reputation of an immensely clever watercolourist. A disciple of Girtin and Cozens, he showed in his choice and presentation of theme a picturesque imagination which seemed to mark him out for a brilliant career as an illustrator. He travelled, first in his native land and then on several occasions in France, the Rhine Valley, Switzerland and Italy. He soon began to look beyond illustration. However, even in works in which we are tempted to see only picturesque imagination, there appears his dominant and guiding ideal of lyric …