Background
Alpers, Svetlana Leontief was born on February 10, 1936 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Daughter of Wassily W. Leontief and Estelle Marks Leontief.
(Reconsiders the concensus on Rubens as a successful, prol...)
Reconsiders the concensus on Rubens as a successful, prolific, and facile court painter who is dwarfed by the achievements of his near-contemporary Rembrandt. This book scrutinizes the assumptions upon which this image is built, and discovers an artist involved with ambivalence and ambiguity.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300067445/?tag=2022091-20
(Tiepolo is a brilliant example of the specifically pictor...)
Tiepolo is a brilliant example of the specifically pictorial intelligence. This book is both a study of his art and an argument for fuller recognition of the peculiarities of the painter's representational medium. Alpers and Baxandall locate distinctive modes of Tiepolo's representation of the world and human action; follow his process of invention from first pen drawings, through small oil sketches, to great frescoes; and analyse his best and biggest painting, the Four Continents in the Stairway Hall of the Prince-Bishop's Residence at Wurzburg, illustrated with photographs specially taken for the book. The topics taken up include: painting's resistance to enacted narrative drama, its engagement with indeterminacies and repetitions, the senses in which a painter may 'perform' both past art and himself, the constructive roles of gestural drawing, exploitation of shifts of scale between design and finished work, dialogue between the changing natural site lighting and in-picture lighting, contributions made by the beholder's own mobility, the expressive scope of tensions between two and three dimensions, the deep rationale of rococo formal structure, and the sources of the moral force of pictures without an explicit moral. The book - both art criticism and a practical polemic - ends with an annotated gazetteer for travellers, listing those Tiepolo paintings that can still be seen in the places and conditions for which he painted them.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300068174/?tag=2022091-20
( "The art historian after Erwin Panofsky and Ernst Gombr...)
"The art historian after Erwin Panofsky and Ernst Gombrich is not only participating in an activity of great intellectual excitement; he is raising and exploring issues which lie very much at the centre of psychology, of the sciences and of history itself. Svetlana Alpers's study of 17th-century Dutch painting is a splendid example of this excitement and of the centrality of art history among current disciples. Professor Alpers puts forward a vividly argued thesis. There is, she says, a truly fundamental dichotomy between the art of the Italian Renaissance and that of the Dutch masters. . . . Italian art is the primary expression of a 'textual culture,' this is to say of a culture which seeks emblematic, allegorical or philosophical meanings in a serious painting. Alberti, Vasari and the many other theoreticians of the Italian Renaissance teach us to 'read' a painting, and to read it in depth so as to elicit and construe its several levels of signification. The world of Dutch art, by the contrast, arises from and enacts a truly 'visual culture.' It serves and energises a system of values in which meaning is not 'read' but 'seen,' in which new knowledge is visually recorded."—George Steiner, Sunday Times "There is no doubt that thanks to Alpers's highly original book the study of the Dutch masters of the seventeenth century will be thoroughly reformed and rejuvenated. . . . She herself has the verve, the knowledge, and the sensitivity to make us see familiar sights in a new light."—E. H. Gombrich, New York Review of Books
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226015130/?tag=2022091-20
(Tiepolo is an example of the specifically pictorial intel...)
Tiepolo is an example of the specifically pictorial intelligence. This book is both a study of his art and an argument for fuller recognition of the peculiarities of the painters' representational medium. Svetlana Alpers and Michael Baxandall locate distinctive modes of Tiepolo's representation of the world and human action; follow his process of invention from first pen drawings through small oil-sketches to great frescoes; and analyze his best and biggest painting, the "Four Continents", in the Stairway Hall of the Prince-Bishop's Residence at Wurzburg, which is illustrated with photographs specially taken for the book. The topics taken up include: painting's resistance to enacted narrative drama, its engagement with indeterminacies and repetitions, the senses in which painters may "perform" both past art and themselves, the constructive roles of gestural drawing, the exploitation of shifts of scale between design and finished work, the dialogue between the changing natural site lighting and in-picture lighting, contributions made by the beholder's own mobility, the expressive scope of tensions between two and three dimensions, the deep rationale of rococo formal structure, and the sources of the moral force of pictures that lack an explicit moral. The book - both art criticism and a practical polemic - ends with an annotated gazetteer for travellers, listing those Tiepolo paintings that can still be seen in the places and conditions for which he painted them.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300059787/?tag=2022091-20
(After discussing details of the commission, the author co...)
After discussing details of the commission, the author compares the series with the tradition of illustrated editions of Ovid's Metamorphoses, dealing with the same subjects. Next Professor Alpers attempts to reconstruct the assemblage of the works constituting the decoration of the hunting lodge and draws attention to the Ovidian myths. A 'Catalogue raisonne' concludes the work.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0714814032/?tag=2022091-20
("The art historian after Erwin Panofsky and Ernst Gombric...)
"The art historian after Erwin Panofsky and Ernst Gombrich is not only participating in an activity of great intellectual excitement; he is raising and exploring issues which lie very much at the centre of psychology, of the sciences and of history itself. Svetlana Alpers's study of 17th-century Dutch painting is a splendid example of this excitement and of the centrality of art history among curr...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000OOT0B2/?tag=2022091-20
Alpers, Svetlana Leontief was born on February 10, 1936 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Daughter of Wassily W. Leontief and Estelle Marks Leontief.
Bachelor, Radcliffe College, 1957. Doctor of Philosophy, Harvard University, 1965.
From instructor to associate professor University California, Berkeley, 1962—1975, professor art history, 1975—1994. Visiting research professor department fine arts New York University, New York City, since 1999. Advisory board Women's Caucus for Art, 1974—1977.
Co-chair Representations, 1983—1993. Advisory board History of the Human Sciences. Member United States National Committee on History of Art, 1975—1990.
Representative of the visual arts Renaissance Society of America, 1976—1979. Member museum and history organizations panel National Endowment of the Humanities. Consultant National Public Radio, 1976—1980.
Publications committee Jean Paul Getty Trust, 1984—1987, member senior fellowships committee, 1987—1990. Member board of advisors Center Advanced Studies in Visual Arts, 1989—1993. Advisory board Science in Context, —.
Visitor Ecoles des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, 1991.
( "The art historian after Erwin Panofsky and Ernst Gombr...)
("The art historian after Erwin Panofsky and Ernst Gombric...)
(After discussing details of the commission, the author co...)
(Reconsiders the concensus on Rubens as a successful, prol...)
(Tiepolo is a brilliant example of the specifically pictor...)
(Tiepolo is an example of the specifically pictorial intel...)
Fellow: American Association for the Advancement of Science. Member: Phi Beta Kappa.
Married Paul Joel Alpers, January 31, 1958 (divorced ). Children: Benjamin, Nicholas.