I 100 dipinti che sconvolsero il mondo

This volume looks at art history from an unusual point of view: instead of dwelling on the creators or reconstructing the history of cultural movements, according to the more usual approaches, it chooses to look at the works, presenting the 100 paintings that represented a turning point in the history of art. Starting with Giotto’s revolution, which marks the passage of the language of art history (as Vasari wrote) “from Greek into Latin,” the book unfolds a discourse that focuses on the power of the work of art, its ability to arouse feelings and give substance to the imagery of an era or civilization. The great seasons of European painting thus flow before the reader’s eyes, in a critical discourse that is based on the living concreteness of the paintings: in this way, every conquest of style – Renaissance perspective or use of Flemish oil paint, atmospheric sensuality of color in Giorgione and Titian or discovery of the real in Caravaggio and Velazquez, up to the linguistic revolutions of the early 20th century avant-gardes – is visibly and tangibly embodied in a painting, which thus becomes representative of a worldview.

BY
Flavio Caroli is one of the best known and most esteemed Italian art critics and historians. Author of numerous, successful books, which know how to unite scientific authoritativeness with a writ ture capable of addressing a wide audience, he has also curated important exhibitions in prestigious venues, serving among other things as scientific head of the exhibition activities of Palazzo Reale in Milan (1997-2004).