Tuesday 21 September 2010The Man of Sorrows in Venetian Art

Passion in Venice: Crivelli to Tintoretto and Veronese is a beautifully illustrated volume which explores one of the central themes of Christian art: Christ as the Man of Sorrows. Drawing on works by some of the of the greatest names in Venetian painting including Veronese, Tintoretto, Crivelli, Giambono and the Bassano family, Passion in Venice creates a new and illuminating context for these great masters by considering their work alongside contemporary works in other media, and from other parts of Western Europe, including Tuscany, France, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands.

This volume provides a re-assessment of the artistic scene in Venice, examining the rich visual tradition which flourished over three centuries across all artistic media, outstripping other western European schools in terms of output and the number of artists committed to the subject.

An essay by Catherine Puglisi and William Barcham explores the origins of the image of Christ as Man of Sorrows and its emergence as a distinct and central devotional image in the religious life of Venice from about 1300. The authors address the questions of who was the Man of Sorrows and why the figure grew significantly in Venice during the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance. Xavier Seubert’s essay focuses on the appeal of the Man of Sorrows as an image expressing anguish, which by encouraging empathy with suffering offers hope for deliverance and redemption.

The main catalogue section presents works from major American and European collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the National Gallery of Canada, the J Paul Getty Center and the National Gallery, London, almost none of which have been linked before through the study of a common artistic theme. This rich array of artworks includes illuminated manuscripts, paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings and liturgical objects.

The Authors
William Barcham is professor in the department of the History of Art at the Fashion Institute of Technology, the State University of New York. He is the author of The Religious Paintings of Giambattista Tiepolo: Piety and Tradition in Eighteenth-century Venice (1990), and Paintings in the National Gallery, London (2000) with Augusto Gentili and Linda Whiteley. In 2004, Dr. Barcham was awarded the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship. Catherine Puglisi is professor and chair of the department of Art History at Rutgers University, New Jersey, where she specializes in Italian Baroque painting and sculpture. She is the author of Caravaggio (1998) and of the monologue and catalogue raisonné on Francesco Albani (1999). Xavier John Seubert is Thomas Plassmann Distinguished Professor for Art and Theology at St. Bonaventure University, New York, where he is also director of the Art History department. He has contributed to In Solitude and Dialogue: Contemporary Franciscans Theologize (2000), Postmodern Worship and the Arts (2002), and Between the Human and the Divine: Philosophical and Theological Hermeneutics (2002).

PASSION IN VENICE
CRIVELLI TO TINTORETTO AND VERONESE

176 pages, 280 x 240mm (9½ x 11 in.), portrait
93 colour and 6 b&w illustrations, hardback
Text: Up to 42,000 words
ISBN: 978 1 904832 82 9
Price: US$45.00/UK£30.00
Publication date: February 2011
Publisher: D Giles Limited, London

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