Book Description

Excerpt from The Old Masters, Vol. 1: One Hundred Examples of Their Work Chosen From European Galleries and Reproduced in Colour With Notes on the Pictures HE object of these volumes is, so far as may be possible, to bring some of the I great pictures of the world into our houses that we may have them always with us. That even the best photographs fail to do this is obvious; for while they serve well enough as reminders and give indeed the outline of the picture accurately enough, all the colour and atmosphere is lost, in the sombre brown or grey monotone into which some wonder full of sunshine has passed. Here at least something of that glory of colour has been kept with a really wonderful success, as in the marvellous triptych of Perugino or the Corryfeld of Constable. And whilst it remains impossible to reproduce an exact replica of any picture, it may safely be said that, so far as human ingenuity at present goes, the reproductions of the Old Masters here shown will be found to be as near the originals as it is possible to bring them. The whole series of a hundred pictures comprises a careful selection from the Picture Galleries of the world and from the work of all schools of Painting. Each volume contains fifty works, twenty of which are from paintings in the National Gallery, whilst others are from works at Rome, Florence, Paris, St Petersburg, Berlin, Dresden, Munich, and Vienna. We may add that every effort has been made to do the fullest justice possible to the Old Masters. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.