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Item Number: 129030
Title: Las Furias. Alegoria politica y desafio artistico
Author: Falomir, Miguel
Price: Not Available
ISBN: 9788484802822
Description: Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 2014. 28cm., pbk., 192pp. illus., most in color. Spanish-English text.

Summary: The "Furias" are four characters from classical mythology: Tityus, Sisyphus, Ixion and Tantalus, who were among the numerous condemned individuals in the Greco-Roman Hades. It was during the Renaissance period that they became associated as a group. They first appeared in works of art in the mid-16th century on the initiative of Mary of Hungary, the sister of Charles V and Governor of the Low Countries. In 1548 she commissioned Titian to paint four large canvases of these figures for her palace at Binche on the outskirts of Brussels. The choice of theme had a political motivation as the Furies, who endured eternal punishment for defying the gods, symbolised the German princes who rebelled against Charles V and were defeated in 1547.

As a group, the "Furias" became a popular iconography in the 150 years after their first appearance, taking on further meanings in addition to their original, political one. From the late 16th century, in both the Low Countries and Italy, this subject was considered highly appropriate for illustrating artists’ level of mastery, given that they are four monumental, muscular figures in complicated foreshortenings, while they also represent extreme suffering, which was a concept favoured in Baroque art.

The aim of this exhibition is to present the emergence, evolution and demise of this subject in western art between 1550 and 1700 through around twenty works by Italian, Flemish, Dutch and Spanish artists, including Titian, Michelangelo, Cornelis van Haarlem, Rubens, Ribera, Salvator Rosa and Langhetti. The works will be displayed around a copy of the Laocoön, the primary exemplum doloris and a declared source of inspiration for most of these artists.

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Michael Shamansky, Bookseller Inc.
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Phone: 845-331-8519
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Email: michael@artbooks.com

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