Imaging Heaven

In this compelling photographic journey Arthur Becker captures the intensity and power of the ceiling frescoes of the Renaissance and Baroque periods.

Vividly presented here in all of their diversity and splendor, these illusionistic ceilings, mainly located in the churches and palaces of sixteenth to early eighteenth-century Italy but also found in Austria, Germany, and Spain, are revealed as dazzling examples of Italian artistic imagination by some of the major figures of the period, including Mantegna, Melozzo da Forlì, Michelangelo, Correggio, Tintoretto, the Carracci, Caravaggio, Guercino, Guido Reni, Giovanni Battista Gaulli, Andrea Pozzo, Sebastiano Ricci, and the Tiepolo dynasty.

These images, many of which represent turning-points in the history of art, are accompanied by an in-depth introductory essay placing them in context by the art and architectural historian Daniel Sherer, who teaches at the Princeton University School of Architecture, and concise descriptions by Brian Kish, a well-known expert on Italian art and design. Bringing together in one place these remarkable frescoes for the first time, this book will be indispensable for art historians, connoisseurs of photography, and all those interested in Renaissance and Baroque art.