Poussin and the Poetics of Painting

Download or read book Poussin and the Poetics of Painting written by Jonathan Unglaub and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-02-06 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines how Poussin cultivated a poetics of painting from the literary culture of his own time, and especially through his response to the work of Torquato Tasso. Tasso's poetic discourses were the most important source for Poussin's theory of painting. Poussin does not merely illustrate Tasso's verse, but cultivates pictorial means to refashion the poet's metaphors of desire. Offering new interpretations of these works, this book also investigates Poussin's larger literary culture and how this context illuminates the artist's response to contemporary poetic texts, especially in his mythological paintings.