Bosch and Bruegel: From Enemy Painting to Everyday Life - Bollingen Series XXXV: 57 (Bollingen Series (General))
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism
Bosch and Bruegel: From Enemy Painting to Everyday Life - Bollingen Series XXXV: 57 (Bollingen Series (General)) Details
Review "Winner of the 2017 PROSE Award in Art History & Criticism, Association of American Publishers""Among the many publications about art I acquired or received, the most important were Bosch and Bruegel: From Enemy Painting to Everyday Life, a long-awaited, provocative study of these two key painters by Harvard art historian Joseph Leo Koerner."---Sebastian Smee, Boston Globe"A tremendous achievement. Koerner is one of the most gifted and intelligent art historians at work anywhere, as well as a remarkably fluent and resourceful stylist capable of presenting extremely subtle and persuasive readings in elegant and simple prose."―Michael Fried, author of The Moment of Caravaggio"Like many of Koerner's earlier books . . . its powerful analyses carry strong conviction. These lectures show prolonged, thoughtful engagement with these artists and their oeuvres. . . . Most will savor the rich commentary initiated by the author, akin to Bruegel's own visual dialogue with viewers of all eras."---Larry Silver, Sixteenth Century Journal"An extremely thoughtful, wide-ranging examination of Hieronymus Bosch (?1450-1516) and Pieter Bruegel (1525-69), who have been considered together almost from their own time, this volume attests to the layers of meaning invested in these artists and to Koerner's erudition." (Choice)"The most brilliant example that I have encountered recently of truly innovative literary historical thought is a book about painting: Joseph Koerner's Bosch and Bruegel: From Enemy Painting to Everyday Life. . . . Koerner shows what it is like to burrow deeply into enigmatic works of art, to refuse to resolve painful ambiguities, to embrace brilliant description as a theoretical practice."---Stephen Greenblatt, Slovo a Smysl"More gripping than a thriller. . . . A frightening, fascinating study. . . . It is rare, when reading a work of scholarly criticism, to be so gripped as to feel nervous about turning the page. Be warned: there are chapters here more frightening than a thriller because they allow us to see, with Bosch, infinitely multiplying sin. . . . This is a book to read and reread in any moment of doubt about what critical analysis can achieve. Koerner believes that every painting by Bruegel ‘can sustain a lifetime of looking.' He has written a passionately attentive book that brings all life to bear on these pictures, and makes one feel that a lifetime of looking would be well spent."---Alexandra Harris, The Guardian"Koerner’s book is certainly different from the recent Bosch studies and, I suspect, will be unique among the forthcomingwritings on Bruegel. He offers a compelling portrait of both masters that is at once a feastof close observation and a wide-ranging intellectual meditation on their art and their culturalenvironments. This dense text demands but richly rewards the patient reader."---Jeffrey Chipps Smith, Renaissance Quarterly"[An] eloquent and rich exploration . . . based on Koerner's A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the series of talks seamlessly form a book of linked essays that discuss individual paintings, with magnifying precisions, while simultaneously advancing a broader theory on art in a Europe emerging from its dark ages. . . . [Koerner's] observations bring Bosch's work into relevance today."---Nina Siegal, New York Times Book Review"One of the Evening Standard Best Art Books of 2017 (chosen by David Ekserdijian)" Read more From the Back Cover "In this magisterial book, Joseph Koerner explores the role of Bosch and Bruegel in the great early modern shift of the ends of art from theological explanation to time-bound description, from being to picturing. Along the way, he offers a rich account of a newly global culture and a violently contested religious milieu where the status of images was itself an issue of life and death."--Susan Stewart, author of On Longing and The Poet's Freedom: A Notebook on Making"Bosch and Bruegel is a magnificent book--massively erudite, profoundly human, and sometimes even shatteringly poetic. Koerner is a marvelously compelling writer."--Claudia Swan, Northwestern University"A tremendous achievement. Koerner is one of the most gifted and intelligent art historians at work anywhere, as well as a remarkably fluent and resourceful stylist capable of presenting extremely subtle and persuasive readings in elegant and simple prose."--Michael Fried, author of The Moment of Caravaggio"Insightful and encyclopedic. Koerner renders fresh and thought-provoking paintings that have been seen and discussed for centuries."--Keith Moxey, author of Visual Time: The Image in History Read more About the Author Joseph Leo Koerner is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of the History of Art and Architecture and Senior Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. His previous books include The Moment of Self-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art, The Reformation of the Image, and Caspar David Friedrich and the Subject of Landscape. Read more
Reviews
Superb! Captures the essence of this hyper-imaginative period of art very well, with good selection of reproductions and informative text. I love this book almost as much as I love Bruegel ... whom I came to via W C Williams' poetry.