Transformations in Late Eighteenth-Century Art

Rosenblum''s classic essays on the art and architecture of this transformational period in modern art—now available in paperback for a new generation of readers

The importance of the late eighteenth century in the genesis of modern art emerges in these four essays on various aspects of the art and architecture of a neglected period. Written by the author of Cubism and Twentieth Century Art, the essays take a “Cubist view” of these crucial decades of transition, a view “that constantly shifts its vantage point and moves freely from one nation and one medium to another.” Such diverse matters as the emotional and stylistic flexibility of Neoclassicism, the emergence of Historicism, the rapport between politics and the new moralizing art, and the search for a radical formal purity are considered. Many works of art previously unpublished, and sometimes even unphotographed, make their first appearance here.