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Books > Arts & Architecture > History of art / art & design styles > 1400 to 1600
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The Lives of the Artists
(Paperback)
Giorgio Vasari; Translated by Julia Conaway Bondanella, Peter Bondanella
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R349
R288
Discovery Miles 2 880
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These biographies of the great quattrocento artists have long been
considered among the most important of contemporary sources on
Italian Renaissance art. Vasari, who invented the term
"Renaissance," was the first to outline the influential theory of
Renaissance art that traces a progression through Giotto,
Brunelleschi, and finally the titanic figures of Michaelangelo, Da
Vinci, and Raphael.
This new translation, specially commissioned for the Oxford World's
Classics series, contains thirty-six of the most important lives.
Fully annotated and with a brand new package, Lives of the Artists
is an invaluable classic to add to your collection.
About the Series For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has
made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the
globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to
scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of
other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading
authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date
bibliographies for further study, and much more.
The untold story of Michelangelo's final decades-and his
transformation into one of the greatest architects of the Italian
Renaissance As he entered his seventies, the great Italian
Renaissance artist Michelangelo despaired that his productive years
were past. Anguished by the death of friends and discouraged by the
loss of commissions to younger artists, this supreme painter and
sculptor began carving his own tomb. It was at this unlikely moment
that fate intervened to task Michelangelo with the most ambitious
and daunting project of his long creative life. Michelangelo, God's
Architect is the first book to tell the full story of
Michelangelo's final two decades, when the peerless artist
refashioned himself into the master architect of St. Peter's
Basilica and other major buildings. When the Pope handed
Michelangelo control of the St. Peter's project in 1546, it was a
study in architectural mismanagement, plagued by flawed design and
faulty engineering. Assessing the situation with his uncompromising
eye and razor-sharp intellect, Michelangelo overcame the furious
resistance of Church officials to persuade the Pope that it was
time to start over. In this richly illustrated book, leading
Michelangelo expert William Wallace sheds new light on this least
familiar part of Michelangelo's biography, revealing a creative
genius who was also a skilled engineer and enterprising
businessman. The challenge of building St. Peter's deepened
Michelangelo's faith, Wallace shows. Fighting the intrigues of
Church politics and his own declining health, Michelangelo became
convinced that he was destined to build the largest and most
magnificent church ever conceived. And he was determined to live
long enough that no other architect could alter his design.
The fifteenth-century Italian artist Piero della Francesca painted
a familiar world. Roads wind through hilly landscapes, run past
farms, sheds, barns, and villages. This is the world in which Piero
lived. At the same time, Piero's paintings depict a world that is
distant. The subjects of his pictures are often Christian and that
means that their setting is the Holy Land, a place Piero had never
visited. The Realism of Piero della Francesca studies this
paradoxical aspect of Piero's art. It tells the story of an artist
who could think of the local churches, palaces, and landscapes in
and around his hometown of Sansepolcro as miraculously built
replicas of the monuments of Jerusalem. Piero's application of
perspective, to which he devoted a long treatise, was meant to
convince his contemporaries that his paintings report on things
that Piero actually observed. Piero's methodical way of painting
seems to have offered no room for his own fantasy. His art looks
deliberately styleless. This book uncovers a world in which
painting needed to validate itself by cultivating the illusion that
it reported on things observed instead of things imagined by the
artist. Piero's painting claimed truth in a world of increasing
uncertainties.
A Cultural History of Color in the Renaissance covers the period
1400 to 1650, a time of change, conflict, and transformation.
Innovations in color production transformed the material world of
the Renaissance, especially in ceramics, cloth, and paint.
Collectors across Europe prized colorful objects such as feathers
and gemstones as material illustrations of foreign lands. The
advances in technology and the increasing global circulation of
colors led to new color terms enriching language. Color shapes an
individual's experience of the world and also how society gives
particular spaces, objects, and moments meaning. The 6 volume set
of the Cultural History of Color examines how color has been
created, traded, used, and interpreted over the last 5000 years.
The themes covered in each volume are color philosophy and science;
color technology and trade; power and identity; religion and
ritual; body and clothing; language and psychology; literature and
the performing arts; art; architecture and interiors; and
artefacts. Amy Buono is Assistant Professor at the Wilkinson
College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Chapman
University , USA. Sven Dupre is Professor of History of Art,
Science and Technology at Utrecht University and the University of
Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Volume 3 in the Cultural History of
Color set. General Editors: Carole P. Biggam and Kirsten Wolf
Old St Peter's Basilica in Rome stood for over eleven centuries
until it was demolished to make room for today's church on the same
Vatican site. Its last eyewitness, Maffeo Vegio, explained to the
Roman hierarchy how revival of the papacy, whose prestige after the
exile to Avignon had been diminished, was inseparable from a
renewed awareness of the primacy of Peter's Church. To make his
case, Vegio wrote a history founded on credible written and visual
evidence. The text guides us through the building's true story in
its material reality, undistorted by medieval guides. This was its
living memory and a visualization of the continuity of Roman
history into modern times. This volume makes available the first
complete English translation of Vegio's text. Accompanied by
full-color digital reconstructions of the Basilica as it appeared
in Vegio's day.
Jacopo Tintoretto (1518/19-1594) was among the most distinctive
artists of the Italian Renaissance. Yet, although his bold
paintings are immediately recognizable, his drawings remain
unfamiliar even to many scholars. Drawing in Tintoretto's Venice
offers a complete overview of Tintoretto as a draftsman. It begins
with a look at drawings by Tintoretto's precedents and
contemporaries, a discussion intended to illuminate Tintoretto's
sources as well as his originality, and also to explore the
historiographical and critical questions that have framed all
previous discussion of Tintoretto's graphic work. Subsequent
chapters explore Tintoretto's evolution as a draftsman and the role
that drawings played in his artistic practice-both preparatory
drawings for his paintings and the many studies after sculptures by
Michelangelo and others-thus examining the use of drawings within
the studio as well as teaching practices in the workshop. Later
chapters focus on the changes to Tintoretto's style as he undertook
ever larger commissions and accordingly began to manage a growing
number of assistants, with special attention paid to Domenico
Tintoretto, Palma Giovane, and other artists whose drawing style
was infl uenced by their time working with the master. The book is
published in conjunction with the exhibition Drawing in
Tintoretto's Venice, opening at the Morgan Library& Museum, New
York, in 2018 and travelling to the National Gallery of Art,
Washington, in early 2019. All of the drawings in the exhibition
are discussed and illustrated, and a checklist of the exhibition is
also included in the volume, but the book is a far more widely
ranging account of Tintoretto's drawings and a comprehensive
account of his work as a draftsman.
This volume explores the late medieval and early modern periods
from the perspective of objects. While the agency of things has
been studied in anthropology and archaeology, it is an innovative
approach for art historical investigations. Each contributor takes
as a point of departure active things: objects that were collected,
exchanged, held in hand, carried on a body, assembled, cared for or
pawned. Through a series of case studies set in various geographic
locations, this volume examines a rich variety of systems
throughout Europe and beyond. The Open Access version of this book,
available at
http://www.taylorfrancis.com/doi/view/10.4324/9781315401867, has
been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non
Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license
Mater Misericordiae-Mother of Mercy-emerged as one of the most
prolific subjects in central Italian art from the late thirteenth
through the sixteenth centuries. With iconographic origins in
Marian cult relics brought from Palestine to Constantinople in the
fifth century, the amalgam of attributes coalesced in Armenian
Cilicia then morphed as it spread to Cyprus. An early concept of
Mary of Mercy-the Virgin standing with outstretched arms and a wide
mantle under which kneel or stand devotees-entered the Italian
peninsula at the ports of Bari and Venice during the Crusades,
eventually converging in central Italy. The mendicant orders
adopted the image as an easily recognizable symbol for mercy and
aided in its diffusion. In this study, the author's primary goals
are to explore the iconographic origins of the Madonna della
Misericordia as a devotional image by identifying and analyzing key
attributes; to consider circumstances for its eventual overlapping
function as a secular symbol used by lay confraternities; and to
discuss its diaspora throughout the Italian peninsula, Western
Europe, and eastward into Russia and Ukraine. With over 100
illustrations, the book presents an array of works of art as
examples, including altarpieces, frescoes, oil paintings,
manuscript illuminations, metallurgy, glazed terracotta, stained
glass, architectural relief sculpture, and processional banners.
ART AND ARCHITECTURE OF IRELAND is an authoritative and fully
illustrated survey that encompasses the period from the early
Middle Ages to the end of the 20th century. The five volumes
explore all aspects of Irish art - from high crosses to
installation art, from illuminated manuscripts to Georgian houses
and Modernist churches, from tapestries and sculptures to oil
paintings, photographs and video art. This monumental project
provides new insights into every facet of the strength, depth and
variety of Ireland's artistic and architectural heritage. MEDIEVAL
c. 400-c. 1600 An unrivalled account of all aspects of the rich and
varied visual culture of Ireland in the Middle Ages. Based on
decades of original research, the book contains over 300 lively and
informative essays and is magnificently illustrated. Readers will
enjoy expanding their knowledge of medieval Ireland through
explorations of the objects and buildings produced there and the
people who created them. Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for
Studies in British Art in association with the Royal Irish Academy
Some 500 years ago, Sandro Botticelli, a painter of humble origin,
created work of unearthly beauty. An intimate associate of
Florence’s unofficial rulers, the Medici, he was commissioned by
a member of their family to execute a near-impossible project: to
illustrate all 100 cantos of The Divine Comedy by the city’s
greatest poet, Dante Alighieri. A powerful encounter between poet
and artist, sacred and secular, earthly and evanescent, these
drawings produced a wealth of stunning images but were never
finished. Botticelli declined into poverty and obscurity, and his
illustrations went missing for 400 years. The nineteenth-century
rediscovery of Botticelli’s Dante drawings brought scholars to
their knees: this work embodied everything the Renaissance had come
to mean. Today, Botticelli’s Primavera adorns household objects
of every kind. This book is essential to explain not only how and
why this artist became iconic, but why we need still need his
work—and the spirit of the Renaissance—today. A New Yorker Best
Book of 2022
16th-century Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder redefined how
people perceived human nature. Bruegel turned his critical eye to
mankind’s labours and pleasures, its foibles and rituals of daily
life. Portraying landscapes, peasant life and biblical scenes in
startling detail, Bruegel questioned how well we really know
ourselves and also how we know, or visually read, others. This
superbly illustrated volume, now in paperback, examines how
Bruegel’s art and ideas enabled people to ponder what it meant to
be human. It will appeal to all those interested in art and
philosophy, the Renaissance and the painting of the Dutch Golden
Age.
Are there miscarriages of justice in art history? Neil MacGregor
believes there are. However great an artist, if his name is lost he
will not receive a fair verdict from posterity. No exhibition will
be devoted to his work; no books will be written about him; he will
not even figure in indexes. Among these neglected geniuses is the
15th-century painter known only as the Master of the Saint
Bartholomew Altarpiece. He may have been Netherlandish or German;
he may or may not have been a monk. On stylistic grounds an oeuvre
of half a dozen paintings, three of them large altarpieces, are
attributed to him, and from them a vivid, if hypothetical,
personality can be built up: emotional, compassionate, observant,
original, humorous. All that is certain is that he was a great
painter whose name, if known, would rank with Botticelli or
Holbein. In A Victim of Anonymity, the Director of the National
Gallery, London, corrects the judgment of history by demonstrating
the power of this unacknowledged master. MacGregor makes us look
closely at works that are all too easily passed over, showing us a
peerless artist whose paintings derive their fame from nothing but
their own superlative merits.
The first book-length study of household servants and slaves,
exploring a visual history over 400 years and four continents The
first book-length study of both images of ordinary household
workers and their material culture, Household Servants and Slaves:
A Visual History, 1300-1700 covers four hundred years and four
continents, facilitating a better understanding of the changes in
service that occurred as Europe developed a monetary economy,
global trade, and colonialism. Diane Wolfthal presents new
interpretations of artists including the Limbourg brothers,
Albrecht Durer, Paolo Veronese, and Diego Velazquez, but also
explores numerous long-neglected objects, including independent
portraits of ordinary servants, servant dolls and their miniature
cleaning utensils, and dummy boards, candlesticks, and tablestands
in the form of servants and slaves. Wolfthal analyzes the
intersection of class, race, and gender while also interrogating
the ideology of service, investigating both the material conditions
of household workers' lives and the immaterial qualities with which
they were associated. If images repeatedly relegated servants to
the background, then this book does the reverse: it foregrounds
these figures in order to better understand the ideological and
aesthetic functions that they served.
Printed artworks were often ephemeral, but in the early modern
period, exchanges between print and other media were common,
setting off chain reactions of images and objects that endured.
Paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, musical or scientific
instruments, and armor exerted their own influence on prints, while
prints provided artists with paper veneers, templates, and sources
of adaptable images. This interdisciplinary collection unites
scholars from different fields of art history who elucidate the
agency of prints on more traditionally valued media, and
vice-versa. Contributors explore how, after translations across
traditional geographic, temporal, and material boundaries, original
'meanings' may be lost, reconfigured, or subverted in surprising
ways, whether a Netherlandish motif graces a cabinet in Italy or
the print itself, colored or copied, is integrated into the
calligraphic scheme of a Persian royal album. These intertwined
relationships yield unexpected yet surprisingly prevalent modes of
perception. Andrea Mantegna's 1470/1500 Battle of the Sea Gods, an
engraving that emulates the properties of sculpted relief, was in
fact reborn as relief sculpture, and fabrics based on print designs
were reapplied to prints, returning color and tactility to the very
objects from which the derived. Together, the essays in this volume
witness a methodological shift in the study of print, from
examining the printed image as an index of an absent invention in
another medium - a painting, sculpture, or drawing - to considering
its role as a generative, active agent driving modes of invention
and perception far beyond the locus of its production.
No city but Florence contains such an intense concentration of art
produced in such a short span of time. The sheer number and
proximity of works of painting, sculpture, and architecture in
Florence can be so overwhelming that Florentine hospitals treat
hundreds of visitors each year for symptoms brought on by trying to
see them all, an illness famously identified with the French author
Stendhal. While most guidebooks offer only brief descriptions of a
large number of works, with little discussion of the historical
background, Judith Testa gives a fresh perspective on the rich and
brilliant art of the Florentine Renaissance in An Art Lover's Guide
to Florence. Concentrating on a number of the greatest works, by
such masters as Botticelli and Michelangelo, Testa explains each
piece in terms of what it meant to the people who produced it and
for whom they made it, deftly treating the complex interplay of
politics, sex, and religion that were involved in the creation of
those works. With Testa as a guide, armchair travelers and tourists
alike will delight in the fascinating world of Florentine art and
history.
Painting Life uniquely conveys the relevance of the paintings of
the old Flemish master Pieter Bruegel, ""The Elder"" (1520/5-1590)
for modern audiences. Based on extensive research and first-hand
observation, Robert L. Bonn guides the reader through the scenes
depicted in these remarkable works of art, including the
""something more"" so often imbedded in them - the social context
in which they were painted, and how they relate to our lives today.
Bonn clearly explains why Bruegel's paintings brilliantly capture
the universal conditions of conflict, work, play, folly, and chaos,
as well as innumerable pieces of biblical and folk wisdom. His
paintings can be found in collections all over the world, including
Madrid, Vienna, Brussels, Rome, and Prague, to name a few.
In this authoritative study, Alison Cole explores the distinctive
uses of art at the five great secular courts of Naples, Urbino,
Ferrara, Mantua and Milan. The princes who ruled these city-states,
vying with each other and with the great European courts, relied on
artistic patronage to promote their legitimacy and authority. Major
artists and architects, from Mantegna and Pisanello to Bramante and
Leonardo da Vinci, were commissioned to design, paint and sculpt,
but also to oversee the court's building projects and
entertainments. Bronze medallions, illuminated manuscripts and rich
tapestries, inspired by sources as varied as Roman coins, Byzantine
ivories and French chivalric romances, were treasured and traded.
Palaces were decorated, extravagant public spectacles were staged
and whole cities were redesigned, to bring honour, but also solace
and pleasure. The 'courtly' styles that emerged from this intricate
landscape are examined in detail, as are the complex motivations of
ruling lords, consorts, nobles and their artists. Drawing on the
most recent scholarship, Cole presents a vivid picture of the art
of this extraordinary period.
Long obfuscated by modern definitions of historical evidence and
art patronage, Lucrezia Tornabuoni de' Medici's impact on the
visual world of her time comes to light in this book, the first
full-length scholarly argument for a lay woman's contributions to
the visual arts of fifteenth-century Florence. This focused
investigation of the Medici family's domestic altarpiece, Filippo
Lippi's Adoration of the Christ Child, is broad in its
ramifications. Mapping out the cultural network of gender, piety,
and power in which Lippi's painting was originally embedded, author
Stefanie Solum challenges the received wisdom that women played
little part in actively shaping visual culture during the
Florentine Quattrocento. She uses visual evidence never before
brought to bear on the topic to reveal that Lucrezia Tornabuoni -
shrewd power-broker, pious poetess, and mother of the 'Magnificent'
Lorenzo de' Medici - also had a profound impact on the visual arts.
Lucrezia emerges as a fascinating key to understanding the ways in
which female lay religiosity created the visual world of
Renaissance Florence. The Medici case study establishes, at long
last, a robust historical basis for the assertion of women's agency
and patronage in the deeply patriarchal and artistically dynamic
society of Quattrocento Florence. As such, it offers a new paradigm
for the understanding, and future study, of female patronage during
this period.
An intimate portrait, based on newly discovered archival sources,
of one of the most famous Jewish artists of the Italian Renaissance
who, charged with a scandalous crime, renounced his faith and
converted to Catholicism. In 1491 the renowned goldsmith Salomone
da Sesso converted to Catholicism. Born in the mid-fifteenth
century to a Jewish family in Florence, Salomone later settled in
Ferrara, where he was regarded as a virtuoso artist whose exquisite
jewelry and lavishly engraved swords were prized by Italy's ruling
elite. But rumors circulated about Salomone's behavior,
scandalizing the Jewish community, who turned him over to the civil
authorities. Charged with sodomy, Salomone was sentenced to die but
agreed to renounce Judaism to save his life. He was baptized,
taking the name Ercole "de' Fedeli" ("One of the Faithful"). With
the help of powerful patrons like Duchess Eleonora of Aragon and
Duke Ercole d'Este, his namesake, Ercole lived as a practicing
Catholic for three more decades. Drawing on newly discovered
archival sources, Tamar Herzig traces the dramatic story of his
life, half a century before ecclesiastical authorities made Jewish
conversion a priority of the Catholic Church. A Convert's Tale
explores the Jewish world in which Salomone was born and raised;
the glittering objects he crafted, and their status as courtly
hallmarks; and Ercole's relations with his wealthy patrons. Herzig
also examines homosexuality in Renaissance Italy, the response of
Jewish communities and Christian authorities to allegations of
sexual crimes, and attitudes toward homosexual acts among
Christians and Jews. In Salomone/Ercole's story we see how
precarious life was for converts from Judaism, and how contested
was the meaning of conversion for both the apostates' former
coreligionists and those tasked with welcoming them to their new
faith.
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