Review by Choice Review
This authoritative monograph confirms Joos van Cleve (1485/1490-1541) as a foremost artist of Antwerp in the later Renaissance. His large workshop produced portraits, Madonnas, and grand altarpieces for a local and international clientele. Replicas and some overall repetition in many of the smaller paintings indicate both the popularity of these types and the use of templates for their production. Ongoing technical study of the underdrawings reveals alterations and the creative process. Continuing the delicate features, symbolism, and meticulous painting methods of Rogier van der Weyden and Hugo van der Goes, Joos appropriated perspective, contrapposto, and chiaroscuro from Italian artists, especially Leonardo. In turn, Italian artists quoted from his paintings that were in Genoa. Joos's work thus offers a case study of the reception of Italian art in the north and northern art in Italy. Hand (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC) skillfully defines the oeuvre and analyzes the few surviving documents. Further critical approaches may offer reconciliation of the seeming disjunction of Joos's Netherlandish detail and Italian spatial arrangement and bold figures. As the major resource for this artist in recent decades and in English, this fully illustrated volume would be better served with larger plates of the altarpieces. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. A. Golahny Lycoming College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
