Poussin and the Poetics of Painting: Pictorial Narrative and the Legacy of Tasso
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Hardcover. Red cloth over boards with gilt lettering on the spine; color illustrated DJ with yellow and white lettering; xv, 282 pp.; richly illustrated. VG (DJ shows mild shelf/edgewear; boards show mild shelf/edgewear; pages are clean and bright; binding is solid.). Item #192767
ISBN: 9780521833677
"Poussin and the Poetics of Painting examines how Poussin cultivated a poetics of painting from the literary culture of his own time, and especially through his response to the work of Torquato Tasso. Tasso's poetic discourses were the most important source for Poussin's theory of painting. The poet's ideas on artistic imitation, novelty, and plot structure and unity, which are exemplified in his epic La Gerusalemme liberata, proved to be fundamental to the artist's conception of narrative painting, culminating in the Israelites Gathering Manna. In the paintings after the Gerusalemme, Poussin does not merely illustrate Tasso's verse, but cultivates pictorial means to refashion the poet's metaphors of desire. The interplay of poetic and painterly imagery also animates Poussin's Ovidian masterpieces, the Echo and Narcissus and the Realm of Flora. Offering new interpretations of these works, this book also investigates Poussin's larger literary culture and how this context illuminates the artist's response to contemporary poetic texts, especially in his mythological paintings."-- Jacket.
OCLC: 61115548
Price: $55.00