Pittoresco: Marco Boschini, his Critics, and their Critiques of Painterly Brushwork in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Italy (Cambridge Studies in the History of Art)

This is a history of brushwork and painting technique in the period c. 1550-1750, a history of art criticism and visual perception during the period, and a history of literary style. The appeal and disdain of loose, sketchy brushwork in Venetian Renaissance and Italian Baroque painting is studied linguistically by means of a number of key terms in the critics' arsenal. At the centre is pittoresco, i.e. 'painterly' or a loose, sketchy style of brushwork accepted by some for its spontaneity and search for form but condemned by others for its apparent sloppiness and haphazard method. The champion of the impressionistic style was Marco Boschini, a Venetian art dealer, art critic and painter. In studying the criticism of sketchy brushwork this book is a cultural history that examines the mutual dependence of visual and literary forms, and as such will be an invaluable source for all art and literary historians of the period.Philip Sohm is the author of 'Pittoresco: Marco Boschini, his Critics, and their Critiques of Painterly Brushwork in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Italy (Cambridge Studies in the History of Art)', published 1991 under ISBN 9780521382564 and ISBN 0521382564.