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Author Colantuono, Anthony.

Title Guido Reni's Abduction of Helen : the politics and rhetoric of painting in seventeenth-century Europe / Anthony Colantuono
Published Cambridge [England] ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1997

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Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 WATERFT ART&ARCH  759.5 Col/Gra  AVAILABLE
Description xiv, 304 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 26 cm
Contents I. Origins and Early History -- II. A Message for Madrid -- III. The Construction of Fame -- IV. Seicentismo and Interpretation -- Appendix. Texts of the Encomia
Summary This study explores how Guido Reni's Abduction of Helen functioned as an instrument of political rhetoric in the context of diplomatic relations between Spain, France, and the Holy See during the Thirty Years War. The painting was commissioned for the king of Spain amid diplomatic negotiations between the Spanish monarchy and the papacy of Pope Urban VIII, but the papacy, the author argues, sought to control the artist's interpretation of his subject - the famous event that caused the Trojan War - by transforming it into a political metaphor for the war between France and the Habsburgs. Contemporary encomia on Guido's Abduction of Helen show that the painter's style was perceived as analogous to the literary manner of Seicentismo, which the Barberini papacy promoted as part of its cultural agenda
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 284-297) and index
Subject Helen, of Troy, Queen of Sparta -- Art.
Reni, Guido, 1575-1642. Abduction of Helen.
Barberini family -- Art patronage.
Helen, of Troy, Queen of Sparta -- Art.
SUBJECT Barberini family -- Art patronage
Subject Painting -- Political aspects -- Italy.
Painting, European -- 17th century.
Painting, Modern -- 17th century -- Europe.
Painting, Modern -- 18th century -- Europe.
Genre/Form Art.
LC no. 96026650
ISBN 0521563976 (hardback)
Other Titles Abduction of Helen