Andrea Pozzo (1642-1709) was an extraordinarily versatile artist, an architect, decorator, painter, art theoretician, one of the most significant figures of Baroque Gesamtkunst. He entered the Jesuit order at an early age, and his artistic activity is also related to the order's enormous artistic enterprises.

His masterpiece, the decoration of Rome's Jesuit churches Il Gesu and San Ignazio, determined for several generations the style of internal decoration of Late Baroque churches in almost all Europe. His fresco in San Ignazio, with its perspective, space-enlarging illusory architecture and with the apparition of the heavenly assembly whirling above, offered an example which was copied in several Italian, Austrian and German churches of the Jesuit order. Pozzo even published his artistic ideas in a noted theoretical work entitled Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum (1693, 1698) illustrated with engravings.

On the invitation of Emperor Leopold I, in 1704 be moved to Vienna, where he worked for the sovereign, the court, Prince Johann Adam von Liechtenstein, various religious orders and churches.

The pages of the treatise construct perspective views of increasing complexity and difficulty. The demonstrations display convincing architectural spaces as evidence of the author's belief that beauty in representation originates from suitably proportioned architecture.

7 1/2” x 12”

Copperplate engravings from 1693-1698, Augsberg, Germany. From Perspectiva Pictorum et Architectorum. Conditon is over all very good to excellent impressions with margins on thin laid paper.

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