Richard Verdi Books

"Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) was one of the towering figures of Western painting and Baroque art, a technical master renowned for his focus on realism and startling veracity. Everything he painted was treated as a portrait, from Spanish royalty and Pope Innocent X to a mortar and pestle. In this comprehensive introduction to Velázquez's life and art by Richard Verdi, the artist's major works are discussed along with most of his surviving output of approximately 110 paintings. Velázquez's greatest innovation, his unorthodox and revolutionary technique, is explored in relation to his most-celebrated contemporaries both in Spain and beyond, including Titian and Peter Paul Rubens. Velázquez concludes with a final chapter on the influence and importance of Velázquez's art on later painters from the time of his death to the art of recent times, including Francisco Goya, Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon, and the Impressionists."--Publisher marketing

The Barber Institute of Fine Arts , Birmingham, England, boasts a magnificent collection of paintings, drawings, sculptures and objects of art, all of which have been acquired by purchase since the late 1930s. Founded in 1932 by Dame Martha Constance Hattie Barber with the proviso that any works of art they published had to be of that standard and quality required by the National Gallery and the Wallace Collection. The result is one of the most pre-eminent small picture galleries in the world and the most representative collection of Western art assembled in Britain in the twentieth century. This completely revised and updated book presents over 50 of the finest works in the collection, all of which are illustrated in full colour. They include masterpieces by many of the greatest names in the history of art, including Bellini, Rubens, Rembrandt and all the major Impressionist painters.

Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) was the greatest French painter of the 17th century and one of the greatest painters of all time. His understanding of the art of antiquity and of the Italian Renaissance led him to create works of such sophistication, clarity, and discipline that they remained the model for all classicising artists up to Cezanne and even into our own century. Although Poussin's subject matter was largely religious and mythological, it derived from themes and preoccupations that were intensely personal in origin. At the same time, Poussin's study of the countryside around Rome laid the foundations for landscape paintings of heroic grandeur and lyrical beauty. This volume encompasses much recent research on Poussin and explores and clarifies an art that is fundamental to the Western classical tradition.