Nicolas Poussin

"I’ve included one art-history book. It’s a terrific study of a magnificent painter, French by birth, who lived and worked in Rome. Poussin was from the generation that came along after Caravaggio, and he represents a kind of recuperation of classical values after the truly volcanic upheaval caused by Caravaggio’s art and life. He famously remarked that Caravaggio was born to destroy painting. Cropper and Dempsey’s book is a masterly study of Poussin’s art, thought and milieu, including his relation to the Stoic philosophers and the great French writer, Michel de Montaigne. But I also chose it because they were my colleagues at Johns Hopkins University for at least 20 years and I could never have written The Moment of Caravaggio without their friendship, teaching and support. Both have written brilliantly about Caravaggio. I dedicated my own book to them in recognition of the intellectual debt I owe them."