Caravaggio

"Hibbard has answered a serious need...with remarkable thoroughness, critical balance...with an offering of original insights, and with an enviable clarity and ease in presentation. The book is well illustrated and indexed, and contains transcriptions and translations of early biographies of Caravaggio and a section of notes on the illustrations that could almost be called a catalogue raisonne. Everyone interested in Caravaggio, at any level, will prize it. Highly recommended." -- "Choice" "Admirable.... This seems bound to remain the standard book on a great and enthralling artist. It is hard to imagine a better one, though it is sure to stimulate fresh and perhaps antagonistic interpretations. The painting of Caravaggio is studied in relation to its historical background, artistic sources, patronage, and his own temperament. Psychoanalytical hypotheses are suggested when plausible but never pressed too hard." -- Francis Haskell, "New York Review of Books" "This is the one book on Caravaggio that no one will be able to do without.... There are splendid things in Hibbard's book, perceptive and moving, quite apart from close and illuminating reading of the biographical evidence.... Nothing else in the literature is so continuously enjoyable as well as useful." -- Lawrence Gowing, "Times Literary Supplement" "The best general monograph.... As in his earlier studies on Michelangelo and Bernini, Hibbard set out to evaluate the work of a great master for a wide audience, without compromising scholarly standards.... Hibbard's corpus of authentic works is consistently convincing." -- Richard Spear, "The Burlington Magazine"