The painterly style known as bravura emerged in sixteenth-century Venice and spread throughout Europe during the seventeenth century. While earlier artistic movements presented a polished image of the artist by downplaying the creative process, bravura celebrated a painter鈥檚 distinct materials, virtuosic execution, and theatrical showmanship. This resulted in the further development of innovative techniques and a popular understanding of the artist as a weapon-wielding acrobat, impetuous wunderkind, and daring rebel. In Bravura, Nicola Suthor offers the first in-depth consideration of bravura as an artistic and cultural phenomenon. Through history, etymology, and in-depth analysis of works by such important painters as Fran耀ois Boucher, Caravaggio, Francisco Goya, Frans Hals, Peter Paul Rubens, Tintoretto, and Diego Vel谩zquez, Suthor explores the key elements defining bravura鈥檚 richness and power.
Suthor delves into how bravura鈥檚 unique and groundbreaking methods鈥攙isible brushstrokes, sharp chiaroscuro, severe foreshortening of the body, and other forms of visual emphasis鈥攃ause viewers to feel intensely the artist鈥檚 touch. Examining bravura鈥檚 etymological history, she traces the term鈥檚 associations with courage, boldness, spontaneity, imperiousness, and arrogance, as well as its links to fencing, swordsmanship, henchmen, mercenaries, and street thugs. Suthor discusses the personality cult of the transgressive, self-taught, antisocial genius, and the ways in which bravura artists, through their stunning displays of skill, sought applause and admiration.
Filled with captivating images by painters testing the traditional boundaries of aesthetic excellence, Bravura raises important questions about artistic performance and what it means to create art.
Nicola Suthor is professor of art history at Yale University. She is the author of Rembrandt鈥檚 Roughness (快色直播).
"Suthor invigorates this subject in myriad ways, not least by the sheer verve of her writing and the ambition of her project. The book is itself a bravura performance, galloping through several centuries of European art history with considerable wit and erudition."鈥擜lexander Marr, Apollo Magazine
"[A] pioneering book. . . . this brilliant and well-illustrated book confirms that bravura was one of the most cognitively demanding techniques of Renaissance painting. The brilliance of Suthor’s analysis lies in her fresh terminology and perceptive language of description of even the smallest and most easily overlooked details of composition, and in her critical ability to relate such intricacies to larger issues taken up in paintings and in criticism. She writes in engaging, precise language, and makes persuasive connections with contemporary art criticism and modern aesthetics and cultural theory."鈥擥oran Stanivukovic, Renaissance and Reformation
"Bravura surveys the breadth of meaning that bravura conveys, probing the subtleties of the concept from multiple viewpoints. . . . This breadth, which makes it possible to see patterns and similarities over centuries and national boundaries, is refreshing in our age of narrowly defined specialist studies and helps us see the consistency over longer periods in European art, something that is often lost in our focus on differences. . . . [Suthor’s] skill at integrating theory and practice is commendable and provides a service to the theorists and biographers who were artists themselves, reminding those who would study paintings in isolation from the ideas valued by their makers that they do so at serious peril."鈥擩anis Bell, Renaissance Quarterly
"I learned a great deal from Bravura, enjoyed [Suthor’s] in-depth descriptions of paintings, and found myself entertained by the many anecdotes quoted. Her skill at integrating theory and practice is commendable and provides a service to the theorists and biographers who were artists themselves."鈥擩anis Bell, Renaissance Quarterly
"Traveling easily between art criticism and artworks, this clearly written book explores the theoretical concepts and artistic manifestations of bravura in early modern art. Suthor weaves together an impressive collection of quotes and anecdotes pertaining to bravura鈥攆rom ancient texts and fencing manuals to early modern writings鈥攁nd seamlessly ties these to specific paintings."鈥擩odi Cranston, Boston University
"Bravura presents an exciting and timely look at the technique, style, visual power, and mythic creation of individual artists. Rigorously framed, this memorable book is important for many reasons: it is expansive, multinational and multilingual, and textually rich. This is an original, vital, and essential addition to the literature."鈥擯hilip Sohm, University of Toronto
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