Representing “from life” was first identified as an important topic several decades ago by scholars of early modern Netherlandish art, notably Joaneath Spicer and Svetlana Alpers. The questions this raises are fundamental and often perplexing. Why were depictions that were clearly based on popular prints sometimes designated using terms such as ad vivum or its vernacular cognates, which imply an origin in life or nature rather than in an antecedent image? Did period beholders distinguish between realistic, fictive, and idealizing modes of visual representation as readily as we do? What are we to make of Caravaggio, an artist who was criticized for his overreliance on real-world models, yet whose works manipulate and stylize those prototypes even while preserving their lifelike appearance?

Sheila McTighe's new book analyzes these issues in relation to artists working in Italy in the period ca. 1590–ca. 1650. Following a substantial introduction that discusses the existing historiography and the interpretive challenges posed by purportedly from-life depictions, the five main chapters explore a series of themes. Chapter 1 focuses on the connections between Caravaggio's use of human models and the discourse of physiognomy, and between his depictions of objects (fruit, flowers, books, and reflective vessels) and Northern still-life traditions.

The next two chapters offer political readings of works produced in the ambit of the Medici court in Florence by Jacques Callot and artists in his circle. Chapter 2 looks at how depictions of subjugated local and foreign territories, and of court-sponsored festivities (such as Callot's celebrated print The Fair at Impruneta), promoted the Medici's military aims and public image. Chapter 3 interprets Callot's etching series the Capricci as a visual mirror for princes that uses the fashionable mode of dal vivo depiction to convey ideas of good governance and dynastic continuity. Turning to Rome, chapter 4 brings Claude Lorrain's landscapes into dialogue with works by Pieter van Laer and other Dutch and Flemish artists in the city, identifying reciprocal influence in their topographical images of the countryside and urban periphery. Chapter 5 deals mainly with Michelangelo Cerquozzi's The Revolt of Masaniello, a painting that attracted notice as a convincing depiction of an event its creator apparently had not observed, and which thus achieves a similar kind of “absent eye-witnessing” (226) to that seen in certain siege prints that assert their origin in direct experience despite being based on prior images or verbal accounts.

A particularly valuable aspect of the book is its detailed discussion of the interactions that took place between Italian artists, critics, and patrons and foreigners like Callot and van Laer. In common with recent publications by Charlotte Guichard, Lia Markey, Carla Benzan, and José Beltrán, this extends the debate on representing from life beyond the Netherlands, demonstrating both its international character and what was distinctive about the situation in Italy. McTighe suggests that whereas achieving lifelikeness and working from the model were broadly accepted aims in Northern Europe, “to depict from life in Italy was nearly always a deliberate counter-current” (25), albeit one that had wider currency than the existing literature, with its fixation on Caravaggio, has recognized. McTighe also develops new arguments about the value of from-life depiction within court culture (a context of reception that has not previously been emphasized), and about its political and propagandistic uses, as seen in Callot's work for the Medici. There is an intriguing discussion of how representing from life was adapted to a sprezzatura-esque mode of self-effacing self-assertion, one that flattered both the artist and the erudite beholder, who was able to detect the subtle signs of human invention and wit in pictures so lifelike that they were seemingly authored by nature itself.

Whether the prestige of such depictions can be linked, not just to novel forms of subjectivity, but also to broader changes in Italian image culture, such as the increasing need for likenesses that promised direct access to the referent in empirical investigation, is a question that scholars building on McTighe's work could profitably investigate. Overall Representing from Life in Seventeenth-Century Italy contributes significantly to our understanding of a difficult and still underresearched subject. It can be recommended for undergraduates as well as specialists owing to its clarity of argument and sustained engagement with its visual materials.