Old Master

"Old Master" (or "old master") refers to any painter of skill who worked in Europe before about 1800, or a painting by such an artist. An "old master print" is an original print (for example an engraving or etching) made by an artist in the same period. Likewise an "old master drawing".

In theory an Old Master should be an artist who was fully trained, was a Master of his local artists' guild, and worked independently, but in practice paintings considered to be produced by pupils or workshops will be included in the scope of the term. Therefore, beyond a certain level of competence, date rather than quality is the criterion for using the term.

Period covered

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the term often had a starting date of perhaps 1450 or 1470; paintings made before that were "primitives"; but this distinction is no longer made. The original OED from the beginning of the 20th century, defines the term as "a 'master' who lived before the period accounted 'modern', chiefly applied to painters from the 13th to the 16th or 17th century." Rather surprisingly, the first quotation they give is from a popular encyclopedia of 1840: "As a painter of animals, Edwin Landseer far surpasses any of the old masters". There are comparable terms in Dutch, French and German; the Dutch may have been the first to make use of the term, in the 18th century, when it mostly meant painters of the Dutch Golden Age of the previous century. Les Maitres d'autrefois of 1876 by Eugene Fromentin may have helped to popularize the concept, although "vieux maitres" is also used in French. The famous collection in Dresden at the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister is one of the few museums to include the term in its actual name, although many more use it in the title of departments or sections. The collection in the Dresden museum essentially stops at the Baroque period.

Old Masters (novel)

Old Masters (subtitled A Comedy) is a novel by the Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard, first published in 1985. It tells of the life and opinions of Reger, a 'musical philosopher', through the voice of his acquaintance Atzbacher, a 'private academic'.

Plot summary

The book is set in Vienna on one day around the year of its publication, 1985. (p. 193) Reger is an 82-year-old music critic who writes pieces for The Times. For over thirty years he has sat on the same bench in front of Tintoretto's White-bearded Man in the Bordone Room of the Kunsthistorisches Museum for four or five hours of the morning of every second day. He finds this environment the one in which he can do his best thinking. He is aided in this habit by the gallery attendant Irrsigler, who prevents other visitors from using the bench when Reger requires it.

The book is narrated entirely by Atzbacher, who met Reger in the museum the day before and with whom Reger then arranged to meet again in the museum on this day - thus, exceptionally, visiting the museum on two consecutive days. They had arranged to meet in the Bordone Room at 11.30, but they both arrive early, and the first 170 pages of the book consist of Atzbacher's thoughts and recollections as he surreptitiously watches Reger in his usual position. These are dominated by Reger's thoughts and recollections, as previously related to Atzbacher. Atzbacher tells of the deaths of Reger's wife and sister, and of his contempt for various aspects of Austrian and occasionally German society, including Stifter, Bruckner and Heidegger, the state and "state artists" in general, and the sanitary condition of Viennese toilets. Reger considers the idea of a supposed "perfect" work of art to be unbearable, and so seeks to render them bearable by finding flaws within them.

Old Masters (disambiguation)

Old Masters are European painters of skill who worked before about 1800.

Old Masters may also refer to: