The Baroque Woodcut

Woodcut in its classic form achieved a final triumph in the Baroque era when painters of exceptional caliber chose it as a dramatic means for expressing the energy and refinement of their draftsmanship. The woodcut offered wide variation in scale and the advantage of printing in colors, and inves... Read more

Woodcut in its classic form achieved a final triumph in the Baroque era when painters of exceptional caliber chose it as a dramatic means for expressing the energy and refinement of their draftsmanship. The woodcut offered wide variation in scale and the advantage of printing in colors, and invested a bold element of abstraction into a painterly art of illusion. Most of these works result from close collaboration between a painter and a master block cutter. At their best they reflect a perfect fusion of skill and imagination. Titian, Albrecht Dürer, Giuseppe Scolari, Peter Paul Rubens, Jan Lievens, Christoffel Jegher, Guido Reni, and Bartolomeo Coriolano are represented among the 65 works.