A rare art history classic that The New York Times calls a “delightful, scholarly and gossipy romp through the character and conduct of artists from antiquity to the French Revolution.”Born Under Saturn is a classic work of scholarship written with a light and winning touch. Margot and Rudolf Wittkower explore the history of the familiar idea that artistic inspiration is a form of madness, a madness directly expressed in artists’ unhappy and eccentric lives. This idea of the alienated artist, the Wittkowers demonstrate, comes into its own in the Renaissance, as part of the new bid by visual artists to distinguish themselves from craftsmen, with whom they were then lumped together. Where the skilled artisan had worked under the sign of light-fingered Mercury, the ambitious artist identified himself with the mysterious and brooding Saturn. Alienation, in effect, was a rung by which artists sought to climb the social ladder.As to the reputed madness of artists—well, some have been as mad
This classic survey of Italian Baroque art and architecture focuses on the arts in every center between Venice and Sicily in the early, high, and late Baroque periods. The heart of the study, however,
This classic survey of Italian Baroque art and architecture focuses on the arts in every center between Venice and Sicily in the early, high, and late Baroque periods. The heart of the study, however,
This classic survey of Italian Baroque art and architecture focuses on the arts in every center between Venice and Sicily in the early, high, and late Baroque periods. The heart of the study, however,
This classic survey of Italian Baroque art and architecture focuses on the arts in every center between Venice and Sicily in the early, high, and late Baroque periods. The heart of the study, however,
