Dreaming of Italy

"Dreaming of Italy is the story of a love affair. It recounts the age-long passion that western-European artists have felt for the land of Italy, with all its warmth and light, art and culture. Art historian and former director of Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, Henk van Os, develops the account in his inimitable style, disclosing for the first time how the dream of Italy grew and changed down the centuries." "He tells the story with masterworks by major artists such as Gossaert, Claude Lorrain, Poussin, Corot, Turner and Feuerbach. It starts in the sixteenth century, when artists became interested in studying and documenting the relics of an ancient past. Their seventeenth-century successors were charmed by the beauty of the countryside and the golden glow of the Italian sunlight. The idealized landscapes they produced became the benchmark for many years to conic. In about 1800 a new trend began - open-air painting, which had its birth in Rome. This led to a new way of looking at the landscape. Side by side with this came an interest in the ordinary people with their unquestioning faith. Around 1900, the rearguard of the Italian artistic Grand Tour became filled with a nostalgic longing, as intense as its object was unattainable."--BOOK JACKET.Os, H. W. Van is the author of 'Dreaming of Italy', published 2006 under ISBN 9789040082375 and ISBN 9040082375.