As part of our noble and continuing effort to extend the reach of Abbevillian style into all possible media, we are proud to announce the launch of “Abbevideo” on our new website. As the elegantly attired host explains in this first episode, Abbevideo is a series designed to give you, our readers and viewers, an in-depth look inside your favorite Abbeville titles. This week’s installment profiles Steffi Roettgen’s Italian Frescoes: The Baroque Era, 1600-1800, the fifth and final volume in Abbeville’s monumental study of the great Italian fresco cycles.
As you watch, look at the close-ups of the book illustrations. Notice how well the static images translate to video format: there’s something cinematic about the richness of the colors, the drama of the poses, the narrative quality of the scenes with their huge casts of characters. Hundreds of years before the moving image, it was paintings like these—so spectacular, so dynamic, so, well, baroque—that emerged as the first true blockbusters.
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