During the nineteenth century, Albrecht Dürer's art, piety, and personal character were held up as models to inspire contemporary artists and--it was hoped--to return Germany to international artistic eminence. In this book, Jeffrey Chipps Smith explores Dürer's complex posthumous reception during the great century of museum building in Europe, with a particular focus on the artist's role as a creative and moral exemplar for German artists and museum visitors. In an era when museums were emerging as symbols of civic, regional, and national identity, dozens of new national, princely, and civic museums began to feature portraits of Dürer in their elaborate decorative programs embellishing the facades, grand staircases, galleries, and ceremonial spaces. Most of these arose in Germany and Austria, though examples can be seen as far away as St. Petersburg, Stockholm, London, and New York City. Probing the cultural, political, and educational aspirations and rivalries of these museums and their patrons, Smith traces how Dürer was painted, sculpted, and prominently placed to accommodate the era's diverse needs and aspirations. He investigates what these portraits can tell us about the rise of a distinct canon of famous Renaissance and Baroque artists--addressing the question of why Dürer was so often paired with Raphael, who was considered to embody the greatness of Italian art--and why, with the rise of German nationalism, Hans Holbein the Younger often replaced Raphael as Dürer's partner. Accessibly written and comprehensive in scope, this book sheds new light on museum building in the nineteenth century and the rise of art history as a discipline. It will appeal to specialists in nineteenth-century and early modern art, the history of museums and collecting, and art historiography.

Albrecht Dürer and the Embodiment of Genius: Decorating Museums in the Nineteenth Century

Arts & Photography

Smith, Jeffrey Chipps

History & Criticism

Penn State University Press

Announcing the new Kimbell Masterpiece Series. These beautifully illustrated books by leading experts focus on major paintings, sculptures, and objects from the Kimbell’s outstanding permanent collection. Each volume presents the latest advances in scholarship and new insights of interest both to specialists and to the wider public. Virtually unknown until recently, the Kimbell Virgin and Child (1486) is arguably the finest surviving example of the silver religious statuary so prized in pre-Reformation Germany, where patrons valued the art of the goldsmith even above painting and sculpture. Made for Wilhelm von Reichenau, a powerful Franconian bishop of Eichstätt, the statuette came onto the market when church property was secularized in the early 19th century and was long owned by the Rothschild family. This handsome book is the first to examine this exquisite object and its fascinating history. Distinguished scholar Jeffrey Chipps Smith looks at the creation of the statuette in Augsburg, its place in the context of other works of art in Eichstätt, and the compelling story of Bishop Reichenau and his intense devotion to the Virgin Mary.

The Art of the Goldsmith in Late Fifteenth-Century Germany: The Kimbell Virgin and Her Bishop (Kimbell Masterpiece Series)

Religion & Spirituality

Kimbell Art Museum

During the Reformation, statues and carvings of saints, once commonly revered as aids to salvation, were condemned by increasing numbers of Protestants as fearsome idols. Moral doubts coupled with widespread acts of iconoclasm meant potential ruin for hundreds of German sculptors whose economic livelihood depended traditionally on church commissions. Focusing on how sculptors adjusted to this cultural tumult, Jeffrey Chipps Smith offers the first comprehensive examination of the artistic response to the challenge of the Reformation in German lands. In so doing he exposes the years leading up to the Counter-Reformation as a period of surprising artistic vibrance.
Using paradigmatic case studies, Smith explores the reshaping of German sculpture. From the ashes of iconoclasm emerges a nascent Protestant art with dynamic new production centers, such as Dresden; an introspective Catholic renovatio occurs in which art presents a tangible means of reestablishing spiritual bonds with the pre-Reformation church. Smith reveals the diversity and ingenuity of a generation of sculptors whose productions range from magnificent tombs, intricate fountains, and other architectural carvings articulating princely and civic aspirations, to intimate carved portraits, bronze statuettes, and finely cut stone reliefs intended to grace a patrician home. The volume comprises a biographical catalog of forty-four of the most important sculptors from the period.

German Sculpture of the Later Renaissance, c. 1520-1580

Princeton University Press

When the Jesuits entered Germany in the 1540s, the Protestant Reformation was on the verge of obliterating a Catholic Church already in tatters. Yet the seemingly imminent collapse never happened, and Catholicism recovered dramatically. This extensively illustrated book explores a key reason why German Catholicism survived and flourished. It provides the first comprehensive treatment of the Jesuits' poorly understood but remarkable revitalization of German religious art and culture--an accomplishment that would guide the direction of both religious life and subsequent German baroque art.
 Jeffrey Chipps Smith describes how the Jesuits, partly through their rich contributions to art, catalyzed the re-formation of German Catholic religious identities. Their diverse missions included the erection or renovation of over thirty major churches between 1570 and 1648. Aided by wealthy benefactors and bringing in artists from across Europe, the Jesuits built imposing and beautifully appointed churches, including St. Michael's in Munich and Mariä Himmelfahrt's in Cologne. Designed to impress and to teach, these structures reflect Jesuit commitments to the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola, who emphasized individual responsibility for salvation. Jesuit churches triumphantly celebrated fundamental Catholic beliefs, while providing a setting for the worshipper's spiritual maturation.
 The Jesuits embraced the affective potential of art to transform the individual by stimulating the senses to promote memory, intellect, and will. Sensuous Worship shows how, by doing so, they revived German Catholicism and had lasting effects on German art.

Sensuous Worship: Jesuits and the Art of the Early Catholic Reformation in Germany

An up-to-date survey of this dynamic period of artistic innovation.

The Northern Renaissance A&I (Art and Ideas)

Phaidon Press

Examines the life and artistic process of the artist, looking at his works in the context of the historical and cultural ferment of pre- and post- Reformation Europe.

Dürer (Art & Ideas)

Exquisitely illustrated, the first thorough history of these astonishing Early Modern cabinets of curiosities.\nKunstkammer, art and curiosity cabinets housed in a dedicated room or suite of chambers, were often filled with thousands of diverse and sometimes shocking objects reflecting the bounty of nature and human creativity. These could range from a cherry pit carved with dozens of faces to an intricate drinking cup fashioned from a rhinoceros horn. Whether as a setting for personal contemplation or as a manifestation of the wealth and prestige of its owners, these proto-museums dazzled visitors of the time. This book offers the first in-depth comparative examination of the history, theory, organization, and character of the major Kunstkammern in the Holy Roman Empire.

Kunstkammer: Early Modern Art and Curiosity Cabinets in the Holy Roman Empire

Reaktion Books

Albrecht Dü rer (1471-1528) enjoyed European-wide fame during his lifetime. Dü rer was not only a brilliant painter, but also a pioneering printmaker, experimental draughtsman, book publisher, first German art theoretician and amateur poet. His art was avidly collected, repeatedly copied in diverse media, and often forged. Then, with his death, the posthumous Dü rers were born. This book addresses his afterlife or, more correctly, afterlives. Beginning with the heartfelt eulogies of his friends and the creation of contemporary portraits of the Nuremberg master, Dü rer' s person, his likenesses, and his art have been celebrated for over five hundred years. Our contemporary Dü rer is the subject of intense scholarly discussions on the one hand and of social and commercial popularization on the other hand.

Albrecht Dürer's Afterlife (Northern Lights)

Lund Humphries

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Smith, Jeffrey Chipps. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Smith, Jeffrey Chipps