Baroque: 17th-century art in the SMK collections

Abstract

Baroque takes us back to seventeenth-century Europe and the period now known in art history as the Baroque. SMK--National Gallery of Denmark owns a rich collection of art from the era. Dutch and Flemish art is particularly well represented, and there are also many significant Italian, French and Spanish works to be found. Many pieces were once part of The Royal Danish Kunstkammer, founded in the mid-1600s with the introduction of absolute monarchy in Denmark. The Kunstkammer would become the starting point for the later national museums in Denmark, including SMK. In this book, the museum's own experts present familiar and rarely-seen Baroque works from the collections, offering their take on how they came into being and how we may understand them today.

Contents

Foreword / Mikkel Bogh -- Out of Darkness / Mikkel Bogh -- The Great Theatre of Pictures / Eva de la Fuente Pedersen -- The Miseries and Misfortunes of War, 1633 / Jacques Callot -- Grounds and Optics / Anne Haack Christensen & Troels Filtenborg -- Appendix.