The Religious Paintings of Hendrick ter Brugghen: Reinventing Christian Painting after the Reformation in Utrecht - Visual Culture in Early Modernity (Hardback)

'In essence, Natasha Seaman's valuable book is the first comprehensive study of the fascinating religious art of Hendrick ter Brugghen that is not principally concerned with questions of connoisseurship. Seaman approaches ter Brugghen's paintings in terms of his dynamic engagement with the art of Caravaggio and that of earlier Northern European masters. In the process, she provides a much-needed corrective to the traditional view that the Dutch master was simply "borrowing" motifs and imagery that interested him.' Wayne Franits, Syracuse University, USA

'... this study is a groundbreaking analysis of this artist... Highly recommended.' Choice

'We know very little about Hendrik ter Brugghen. Although his oeuvre has been well described by Benedict Nicolson and, recently, Leonard J. Slatkes and Wayne Franits, the question of how he arrived at his idiosyncratic style and iconography has hardly been addressed. Several seasoned art historians have advanced theories about his enigmatic blend of Caravaggism and archaism, but Seaman is the first to devote a complete book to the cultural and artistic context of his work. She focuses on four major religious paintings made between 1620 and 1625, when the archaic tendencies in Ter Brugghen's art were most powerful and his engagement with Caravaggio's art was most explicit... What is most important, and the book makes this abundantly clear, is that Ter Brugghen was very ambitious in his attempts to renew religious painting.' Burlington Magazine

'Seaman discusses each [of the paintings] with exceptional clarity, historical depth and acute awareness of the theological cross-currents that pervaded both post-reformation Utrecht, and the artist himself, described by one contemporary as 'a man of profound but melancholy thoughts'.' Art & Christianity

'... The Religious Paintings of Hendrick ter Brugghen is a most welcome contribution to the field. A glowingly intelligent and original piece of scholarship, it is the first book to treat the two defining elements of Ter Brugghen's art, Caravaggism and archaism with the seriousness that they require, and one that goes a long way to making sense of them.' Historians of Netherlandish Art

'Natasha Seaman does a great service in bringing to the fore the role of overt archaism in early seventeenth-century Dutch religious painting for Catholic audiences.' Renaissance Quarterly

'Seaman's charting of Ter Brugghen's archaisms is excellent, and the numerous illustrations in this book clarify the inherently visual nature of her argument.' Sixteenth-Century Studies Journal