Richard Verdi – författare

Rembrandt van Rjin (1606–1669) was among the few celebrated old masters who enjoyed considerable freedom in his choice of subject matter. Living and working in the Protestant Netherlands, he painted largely for private patrons and the open market, selecting his own subjects in the hope of finding buyers. Although he depicted biblical, historical, and mythological themes in emulation of the great artists of the past, his subjects often focus on fundamental human experiences and emotions that transcend their literary sources. Even when working within the confines of specific commissions, Rembrandt managed to imbue his paintings with deeper, personal meanings. These works reveal the artist’s profound humanity and at times reflect the circumstances of his life. This illuminating study explores some of the central themes of Rembrandt’s paintings, drawings, and etchings: grand – love, sin, repentance and forgiveness, adultery, fatherhood, and the conflict between the generations – as well as mundane and idiosyncratic. It demonstrates how Rembrandt’s subjects can offer new revelations about this complex artist.

An updated edition of this classic survey, a thorough overview of Paul Cézanne’s life and work. For Picasso he was ‘like our father’; for Matisse, ‘a god of painting’. Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) is widely regarded as the father of modern art. In this authoritative and accessible study, Richard Verdi traces the evolution of Cézanne’s landscape, still-life and figure compositions, from the turbulently romantic creations of his youth to the visionary masterpieces of his final years. The painter’s biography – his fluctuating reputation and strained relations with his parents, wife and close friend Emile Zola – is vividly evoked using excerpts from his own letters and from contemporary accounts of the artist. Cézanne was torn between the desires to create art and to seek inspiration – to master the themes of the past, through his copying sessions in the Louvre, and to explore the eternal qualities of nature in the countryside of his native Provence. In this way the artist sought ‘to make of Impressionism something solid and durable, like the art of the museums’. In this richly illustrated overview Verdi explores the strength, vitality and magnitude of Cézanne’s achievement.

A comprehensive introduction to Velázquez’s life and art which includes a discussion of all his major works. 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. This comprehensive introduction to Velázquez’s life and art includes a discussion of all his major works, and illustrates most of Velázquez’s surviving output of approximately 110 paintings. The artist’s greatest innovation – his unorthodox and revolutionary technique is explored in relation to the styles of certain of his most celebrated contemporaries both in Spain and beyond, including Titian and Rubens. The book concludes with a final chapter on the influence and importance of Velázquez’s art on later painters from the time of his own death to the art of recent times including Francisco Goya, Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon and the Impressionists.