Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"This landmark catalogue is published for the 400th anniversary of the birth of Anthony van Dyck, one of the most celebrated Flemish painters of the 17th century. Coinciding with the major exhibition of Van Dyck's paintings at the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp and the Royal Academy of Arts, London, this publication contains over 100 of Van Dyck's masterpieces, including many rarely seen works drawn from the British Royal Collection, private collections, and museums and churches in Europe and around the world." "There are full-color comparative illustrations, a chronology, and a detailed description of each work. The most prominent scholars in the field discuss the development of Van Dyck's work, making this the most authoritative volume to be published on the artist."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

An exhibition catalog marking the 400th anniversary of the Flemish artist's birth, this is the first substantial English-language treatment since the Washington exhibition in 1990. Curatorial authors cover the chronological and geographic span of Van Dyck's brief life in 90 pages of essays, from his birth in Antwerp to his study with Rubens, years in Genoa, return to Antwerp and religious painting, and final years as chronicler of the Stuart court of Charles I in England. The authors write briefly and accessibly but without breaking new ground. The bulk of the book is detailed entries, chronologically arranged, on the 100-plus pictures in the exhibition, held in London and Antwerp. There are a generous number of comparative illustrations, though the plates are rather harshly colored, and each entry has full scholarly apparatus. Overall, this is a good visual summary of Van Dyck's life and work for public and academic art history collections.ÄJack Perry Brown, Art Inst. of Chicago Lib. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

Scholarship of Van Dyck has flourished in recent years, in substantial measure through its links to exhibitions and accompanying publications; the last show was not so long ago (Anthony van Dyck, by Arthur K. Wheelock et al., CH, Jun'91; and Van Dyck 350, ed. by Susan J. Barnes and Arthur K. Wheelock, CH, Dec'94). Yet this beautifully illustrated and written catalog provides substantial new material, in archival discoveries and interpretations, and connections between the artist's drawings, paintings, and prints; the bibliography is fairly comprehensive. It is anticipated that the papers presented in the Antwerp colloquium of May 1999 will eventually be published. Van Dyck's oeuvre offers visual brilliance and social complexity to sustain and reward this attention. A sensitive portraitist and ambitious painter of altarpieces, Van Dyck emerges ever more as independent of Rubens and as the creator of the English ideal of grace. Weaving biography and art, the introduction establishes Van Dyck's importance in the European culture of his time; other essays examine the Antwerp, Genoese, Sicilian, and English periods, and pious themes by the artist. A valuable contribution to the art of the Baroque and of portraiture, this is also an insightful and pleasurable text. General readers; undergraduates through faculty. A. Golahny; Lycoming College