Books with author Richard Muther

The historian who wishes to relate the history of painting in the nineteenth century is confronted with quite other demands than await him who undertakes the art of an earlier period. The greatest difficulty with which the latter has to cope is the deficiency of sources. He manifestly gropes in the dark with regard to the works of the masters as well as to the circumstances of their lives. After he has searched archives and libraries in order to collect his biographical material, the real critical problem awaits him. Even amongst the admittedly authentic works, those which are undated confront those whose chronology is certain. To these must be added those nameless ones, as to whose history there is a doubt; to these again, those whose origin is to be ascertained. It needs a quick eye to separate the schools and groups, and finally to recognise the notes which are peculiar to the master.With none of these difficulties is the historian of modern art confronted. The painters of the nineteenth century have very seldom forgotten to attach a name and date to their works, and the circumstances of their lives are related with an accuracy that was, earlier, rarely the lot of the foremost men in history. It is all the more difficult, face to face with such a chaos of pictures, to discover the spiritual bond which connects them all, to construct a building out of the immense supply of accumulated bricks, the piled-up mass of rough material. The evolution of modern painting is more complicated and varied than that of the art of an earlier period, just as modern life itself is more complicated and varied than that of any previous age.

Inasmuch as modern art, in the beginning of its career, held commerce almost exclusively with the spirits of dead men of bygone ages, it had set itself in opposition to all the great epochs that had gone before. All works known to the history of art, from the cathedral pictures of Stephan Lochner down to the works of the followers of Watteau, stand in the closest relationship with the people and times amid which they have originated. Whoever studies the works of Dürer knows his home and his family, the Nuremberg of the sixteenth century, with its narrow lanes and gabled houses; the whole age is reflected in the engravings of this one artist with a truth and distinctness which put to shame those of the most laborious historian. Dürer and his contemporaries in Italy stood in so intimate a relation to reality that in their religious pictures they even set themselves above historical probability, and treated the miraculous stories of sacred tradition as if they had been commonplace incidents of the fifteenth century. Or, to take another instance, with what a striking realism, in the works of Ostade, Brouwer, and Steen, has the entire epoch from which these great artists drew strength and nourishment remained vivid in spirit, sentiment, manners, and costume. Every man whose name has come down to posterity stood firm and unshaken on the ground of his own time, resting like a tree with all its roots buried in its own peculiar soil; a tree whose branches rustled in the breeze of its native land, while the sun which fell on its blossoms and ripened its fruits was that of Italy or Germany, of Spain or the Netherlands, of that time; never the weak reflection of a planet that formerly had shone in other zones.It was not until the beginning of the nineteenth century that this connection with the life of the present and the soil at home was lost to the art of painting. It cannot be supposed that later generations will be able to form a conception of life in the nineteenth century from pictures produced in this period, or that these pictures will become approximately such documents as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries possess in the works of Dürer, Bellini, Rubens, or Rembrandt. The old masters were the children of their age to the very tips of their fingers. They were saturated with the significance, the ideals, and the aims of their time, and they saturated them with their own aims, ideals, and significance. On the other hand, if any one enters a modern picture gallery and picks out the paintings produced up to 1850, he will often receive the impression that they belong to earlier centuries. They are without feeling for the world around, and seem even to know nothing of it.

The year 1849 was made famous by a momentous interruption in the quiet course of English art brought about by the pre-Raphaelites. A movement, recalling the Renaissance, laid hold of the spirit of painters. In all studios artists spoke a language which had never been heard there before; all great reputations were overthrown; the most celebrated Cinquecentisti, whose names had hitherto been mentioned with respectful awe, were referred to with a shrug as bunglers. A miracle seemed to have taken place in the world, for the muse of painting was removed from the pedestal on which she had stood for three centuries and set up in triumph upon another.To understand fully the aims of pre-Raphaelitism it is necessary to recall the character of the age which gave it birth.After English art had had its beginning with the great national masters and enjoyed a prime of real splendour, it became, about the middle of the nineteenth century, the prey to a tedious disease. A series of crude historical painters endeavoured to fathom the noble style of the Italian Cinquecento, without rising above the level of intelligent plagiarism. As brilliant decorative artists possessed of pomp and majesty, and sensuously affected by plastic beauty, as worshippers of the nude human form, and as modern Greeks, the Italian classic painters were the worst conceivable guides for a people who in every artistic achievement have pursued spiritual expression in preference to plastic beauty. But in spite of the experiences gained since the time of Hogarth, they all went on the pilgrimage to Rome, as to a sacred spring, drank their fill in long draughts, and came back poisoned. Even Wilkie, that charming “little master,” who did the work of a pioneer so long as he followed the congenial Flemish painters and the Dutch, even Wilkie lost every trace of individuality after seeing Spain and Italy. As this imitation of the high Renaissance period led to forced and affected sentiment, it also developed an empty academical technique. In accordance with the precepts of the Cinquecento, artists proceeded with an affected ease to make brief work of everything, contenting themselves with a superficial façade effect. A painting based on dexterity of hand took the place of the religious study of nature, and a banal arrangement after celebrated models took the place of inward absorption.

An intricately woven tapestry of friendship and love follows Zazoo, who lives with her adoptive grandfather in his village in France, as she learns about the history of World War II and Vietnam through her Grand-Pierre and, with the help of Marius, the bicycle boy, and the local pharmacist, makes a startling discovery that forces her to face the past.

Zazoo is Vietnamese by birth but feels entirely French. She has lived with her adoptive Grand-Pierre in France in an old stone mill between the river and the canal since she was two, sharing poetry, adventures, and the predictable rhythms of the seasons. Then one misty October morning, a young man on a bicycle rides into Zazoo’s small village and asks a question from which many stories begin to unfold. A love story within a love story.

Strap on the goggles and hop aboard a fighter plane, as you're off to the skies as a fighter pilot during World War I! Your mission is to discover the identity of the British pilot who shot down Germany's infamous Red Baron.The Time Machine series challenges young readers to use their imagination and decision-making skills to write their own story. Options in the text allow readers to choose any path they like within the plot. Readers must draw on background information about the period to make the right choices. This makes the series a great educational device for youngsters to learn about history and all the different cultures, events, and periods that shaped it.

A small boy arrives with his father in a foreign land, but disaster strikes. This book covers some of the prehistory of the land of Perpetuis, and details the coming of the great Labyrinthian ship, the first dwarfs, a great journey, a dangerous battle, and the beginning of Maestro's life as a young wizard. This book is essential in the jigsaw of stories that make up the whole series in Ben Journeyman's adventures.