Anthony Blunt – författare

This book seeks to broaden the comprehension of the student of Italian Renaissance painting by concentrating not on the works of art themselves, but on the various artistic theories which influenced them or were expressed by them. Taking Alberti's treatises as his starting-point, Anthony Blunt traces the development of artistic theory from Humanism to Mannerism. He discusses the writings of Leonardo, Savonarola, Michelangelo, and Vasari, examines the effect of the Council of Trent on religious art, and chronicles the successful struggle of the painters and sculptors themselves to elevate their status from craftsmen to creative artists.

Francesco Borromini is one of the great geniuses of Baroque architecture, perhaps the greatest in inventiveness and in use of spatial effects. Here is the first book in English to survey the whole work of the master. The author, former Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art, is known internationally for his many works on French and Italian architecture and painting.In this lucid and fully illustrated account, Anthony Blunt charts Borromini’s career and analyzes and assesses his art. Mr. Blunt tells of Borromini’s training, relating his style to that of Bernini, under whom he worked, and to the architecture from which he learned, for example Michelangelo’s. Borromini’s patrons allowed him freedom to evolve his own ideas, and his originality and imagination in inventing new architectural forms become apparent as the author studies individual commissions. His imagination was apparently limitless, but his inventions evolved in terms of rigidly controlled geometry. It is this combination of revolutionary inventiveness and intellectual control that gives Borromini’s work particular appeal in the twentieth century.

A landmark account of the work, thought, and life of the seventeenth-century French painterIn this book, Anthony Blunt presents a rich account of the paintings, life, and development of the great seventeenth-century French classicist Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), addressing the artist’s entire oeuvre alongside his theory of art. Blunt shows why Poussin holds a central place in the great French humanist line that produced Racine, Molière, Voltaire, the Parnassians, and Mallarmé. At the same time, he examines how Poussin looks back to Raphael and ancient Rome, while pointing forward to Ingres, Cézanne, the Cubists, and Picasso.

The Baroque, for many the most thrilling architectural style ever created, was born in Rome and reached its apogee in the work of three geniuses born in the 1590s - Bernini, Borromini and Pietro da Cortona. Perhaps the greatest student of the style was Anthony Blunt, who spent a lifetime studying and teaching the work of these architects and their importance to us now. This elegant and concise introduction to the style and its flowering in Rome was first published in an anthology of essays in 1978, not long before Blunt died, and represents a summation of his teaching. It is republished here separately, copiously illustrated with contemporary engraved views and measured drawings. Many of these ravishing images have not been republished since the beginning of the 18th century. The combination of scintillating text and superb illustrations make this a delightful book as well as a must have on any student's list.