Stefan Weppelmann - Böcker

Venice and Padua are neighboring cities with a topographical and geopolitical distinction. Venice is a port city in the Venetian Lagoon, which opened up towards Byzantium and the East. Padua on the mainland was founded in Roman times and is a university city, a place of Humanism and research into antiquity. The contributions analyze works of art as aesthetic formulations of their places of origin, which however also have an effect on and expand their surroundings. International experts investigate how these two different concepts stimulated each other in the Early Modern Age, and how the exchange worked.

In her elective home country of Mexico, the artist Olga Costa (1913–1993), a native of Leipzig, has long been established as an important female voice of Mexican Modernism. This volume presents impressively her autonomous artistic work between Mexican and European Modernism, and follows the traces of her life from Germany out into the world and back again.As the daughter of a Jewish-Ukrainian musician, the autodidact Olga Costa emigrated to Mexico in the 1920s, where she explored her new surroundings in her painting. Throughout her life she was not only inspired by people’s everyday lives and the intensive colours of the landscape, but also by the dialogue with other artistic positions. It was not least Costa’s examination of questions of cultural identity and feminism as well as her broad cultural-political commitment that made her one of the most important women artists in the circle surrounding Frida Kahlo.

More than any other artist, the painter Rembrandt developed a charisma through the outstanding quality and originality of his works and through the organisation of his workshop. His pupils and successors continued his style as the Rembrandt “brand” with an appeal which has remained unbroken to this day. We ask: Why did Rembrandt’s art affect contemporary painters as well as continuing to attract generations of collectors and present-day viewers? This magnificent volume examines not only the great master’s remarkable talent for the portrayal of emotions and passions, his sketch-like openness and focus on essentials, but also his ability to pass on the particular features of his painting style while at the same time encouraging the artistic individuality of his pupils. Some 120 paintings, drawings and etchings by Rembrandt and his pupils afford a fascinating insight into Dutch painting in the 17th century. Artists include Rembrandt Harmensz. Van Rijn, Carel Fabritius, Ferdinand Bol, Abraham Van Dijck, Govert Flinck, Aert De Gelder, Jan Lievens, et al.