From the late 15th to the mid-16th century, an impressive corpus of architecture, sculpture, and painting was created to embellish monastic sites affiliated with the Benedictine Cassinese Congregation of Italy. A religious order of humanistically trained monks, the Cassinese engaged with the most eminent artists and architects of the early modern period, supporting the production of imagery and architecture that was often highly experimental in nature: from Raphael's Sistine Madonna in Piacenza to Andrea Riccio's Moses/Zeus Ammon, from Andrea Palladio's church of San Giorgio Maggiore (Venice) to the superbly crafted choirstalls of San Severino and Sossio (Naples). Applying a network framework to the congregation's infrastructure of monasteries makes clear that the circulation of sophisticated Renaissance art and architecture constituted only a segment of the monks' investment in the arts. Monks also served as custodians of an antique monumental heritage and popular votive images, assuring the survival of ancient buildings and artifacts of limited aesthetic value that supplied opportunities for early modern masters to confront an array of artworks for the reinvention of reformed Christian art and architecture. Text in English, Italian and German.

"My husband Jan finished me on 17 June 1439. . . . My age was 33 years." So speaks Margaret van Eyck from the frame of her portrait. This painted inscription honors its maker Jan van Eyck, even as it blurs the distinction between living subject and painted double. Frame Work, an in-depth study of paintings, sculpture, and manuscript illumination in their varied social settings, argues that frames and framing devices are central to how Renaissance images operate. In a period of rapid cultural change, framing began to secure the very notion of an independent "artwork," and reframings could regulate the meaning attached to works of art-a process that continues in the present day. Highlighting innovations in framing introduced by figures such as Donatello, Giovanni Bellini, and Jean Fouquet, this original book shows how the inventive character of Renaissance frames responds to broader sociopolitical and religious change. The frame emerges as a site of beauty, display, and persuasion, and as a mechanism of control.

More than ever before, the Renaissance stands as one of the defining moments in world history. Between 1400 and 1600, European perceptions of society, culture, politics and even humanity itself emerged in ways that continue to affect not only Europe but the entire world. This wide-ranging exploration of the Renaissance sees the period as a time of unprecedented intellectual excitement and cultural experimentation and interaction on a global scale, alongside a darker side of religion, intolerance, slavery, and massive inequality of wealth and status. It guides the reader through the key issues that defined the period, from its art, architecture, and literature, to advancements in the fields of science, trade, and travel. In its incisive account of the complexities of the political and religious upheavals of the period, the book argues that Europe's reciprocal relationship with its eastern neighbours offers us a timely perspective on the Renaissance that still has much to teach us today. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Made in gold and enamel and decorated with precious stones, the Holy Thorn Reliquary depicts the salvation of mankind through the sacrifice of Christ. It was commissioned around 1400-10 by Jean, duc de Berry, a member of the French royal family, to house a single thorn from the relic of Christs Crown of Thorns. Having left the dukes possession, it was recorded in Vienna from around 1544 until the 1860s, eventually being acquired by a member of the wealthy Rothschild family, with its true identity remaining undiscovered until the twentieth century. This book explores the meaning and history of this fascinating object, and tells the tale of its remarkable survival and eventual passage to the British Museum.

"Renaissance Art Reconsidered" showcases the aesthetic principles and the workaday practices guiding daily life through these years of extraordinary human achievement.
A major new anthology, bringing to life the places, works, media, and issues that define Renaissance art
Ideal for use on Renaissance studies courses and for reference by students of art history
Moves beyond the borders of Italy to consider European, Mediterranean, and post Byzantine art, widening the traditional focus of Renaissance art
Includes letters, treatises, contracts, inventories, and other public documents, many of which are translated into English for the first time in this volume
Showcases the aesthetic principles and the workaday practices guiding daily life through these years of extraordinary human achievement, providing crucial insight into the art and the context in which it was produced.

An illuminating look at a fundamental yet understudied aspect of Italian Renaissance painting The Italian Renaissance picture is renowned for its depiction of the human figure, from the dramatic foreshortening of the body to create depth to the subtle blending of tones and colors to achieve greater naturalism. Yet these techniques rely on a powerful compositional element that often goes overlooked. Groundwork provides the first in-depth examination of the complex relationship between figure and ground in Renaissance painting. "Ground" can refer to the preparation of a work's surface, the fictive floor or plane, or the background on which figuration occurs. In laying the material foundation, artists perform groundwork, opening the ground as a zone that can precede, penetrate, or fracture the figure. David Young Kim looks at the work of Gentile da Fabriano, Giovanni Bellini, Giovanni Battista Moroni, and Caravaggio, reconstructing each painter's methods to demonstrate the intricacies involved in laying ground layers whose translucency and polychromy permeate the surface. He charts significant transitions from gold ground painting in the Trecento to the darkened grounds in Baroque tenebrism, and offers close readings of period texts to shed new light on the significance of ground forms such as rock face, wall, and cave. This beautifully illustrated book reconceives the Renaissance picture, revealing the passion and mystery of groundwork and discovering figuration beyond the human figure.

The Griffoni Polyptych is regarded as one of the greatest masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance. Published for the exceptional reunification - after 300 years - of its constituent parts, this book offers the results of a new analysis carried out for this important occasion. Commissioned by Floriano Griffoni for the family chapel in the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna, the polyptych was painted by Francesco del Cossa and Ercole de 'Roberti between 1470 and 1472. The Ferrarese artists created a fundamental work in the search for a modern feeling of space and volumes, proposing a 'compositional mosaic' which can be considered an alternative to the contemporary works of Piero della Francesca or Andrea Mantegna. Dismantled in 1725 by the new owner of the chapel, the polyptych was never again reunited: the paintings that formed it entered the antiques markets and 16 pieces arrived in the nine museums that still preserve them today. This volume is the most complete monograph on this masterpiece.

In this masterly, Howard Hibbard relates Michelangelo's art to his life and to the times in which he lived, relying on the earliest biographies and the latest scholarly research as well as on Michelangelo's own letters and poems. What emerges is both a perspective appraisal of his work and a revealing life history of the man who was arguably the greatest artist of all time.

During the period 1000-1700 major transformations took place in material culture. Quite simply, more objects were manufactured and used than ever before and many objects travelled across geographic, political, religious, linguistic, class and cultural boundaries. By starting with a focus on past objects, this volume brings together essays from art historians, historians, archaeologists, literary scholars and museum curators to reveal the different disciplinary approaches and methods taken to the study of objects and what this can reveal about transformations in material culture 1000-1700. Contributors: Katherine A. Wilson, Leah R. Clark, Alison M. Leonard, Steven P. Ashby, Michael Lewis, Robert Maniura, Sarah Hinds, Christina Antenhofer, Alexandra van Dongen, Bettina Bildhauer, Julie De Groot, Jennifer Hillman, Ruth Whelan, Christopher Donaldson, Thomas Pickles.

A brilliant colorist and masterful storyteller, Dutch mannerist Joachim Wtewael (1566-1638) wielded a remarkably skilled brush and the technical ability to show it off in intricate compositions. He took inspiration from a wide range of biblical and mythological sources to create imaginative, often quite erotic scenes. While such pictures were prized in Wtewael's time, more recently they were hidden away--behind other paintings, in leather folders on bookshelves, and in the reserves of great museums. This richly illustrated volume brings together more than fifty of Wtewael's finest paintings and drawings, from a small jewel-like picture on copper depicting Mars and Venus to large-scale mannerist showpieces such as The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian and Perseus and Andromeda. A pillar of the Utrecht community, Wtewael was engaged in business, religion, and politics as well as art. He adopted the exotic mannerist style, full of artifice and inventive manipulation, and continued to be fascinated by the challenge of creating sophisticated variations well into his maturity, when other Dutch artists had turned to naturalism. This book explores Wtewael's amazingly refined and detailed paintings and drawings, shedding light on his reputation, his life, and the conflicted times--marked by iconoclasm and strife--in which he thrived. Exhibition schedule: *Centraal Museum Utrecht, February 21-May 25, 2015*National Gallery of Art, Washington, June 28-October 4, 2015* Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, November 1, 2015-January 31, 2016

In a major analysis of pictorial forms from the late Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, Christopher Braider argues that the painted image provides a metaphor and model for all other modes of expression in Western culture--particularly literature, philosophy, religion, and science. Because critics have conventionally explained visual images in terms of verbal texts (Scripture, heroic poetry, and myth), they have undervalued the impact of the pictorial naturalism practiced by painters from the fifteenth century onward and the fundamentally new conception of reality it conveys. By reinterpreting modern Western experience in light of northern "descriptive art," the author enriches our understanding of how both painted and written cultural texts shape our perceptions of the world at large. Throughout Braider draws on works by such painters as van der Weyden, Bruegel the Elder, Steen, Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Poussin, and addresses such topics as the Incarnation of the Word in Christ, the elegiac foundations of Enlightenment aesthetics, and the rivalry between northern and southern art. His goal is not only to reexamine important aesthetic issues but also to offer a new perspective on the general intellectual and cultural history of the modern West. Originally published in 1993. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Roston demonstrates that what emerges is not a fixed or monolithic pattern for each generation but a dynamic series of responses to shared challenges. The book relates leading English writers and literary modes to contemporary developments in architecture, painting, and sculpture, exploring by a close reading of the texts and the artistic works the insights such comparison offers.

Originally published in 1990.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This comprehensive new book is an essential volume for anyone who wants to learn more about Leonardo and to survey his greatest works in one beautifully illustrated collection. The first part contains a detailed exploration of Leonardo's life. It details his childhood, family life and education, and then explores his interests in architecture, engineering and science as well as his career as a painter. The second part of the book contains a gallery of over 300 of Leonardo's major paintings, drawings and designs. These superb reproductions are accompanied by thorough analysis of each artwork and its significance within the context of his life, his technique and his body of work as a whole.

A significant contribution to the understanding of sixteenth-century English art in an historical context, this study by Susan James represents an intensive rethinking and restructuring of the Tudor art world based on a broad, detailed survey of women's diverse creative roles within that world. Through an extensive analysis of original documents, James examines and clarifies many of the misperceptions upon which modern discussions of Tudor art are based. The new evidence she lays out allows for a fresh investigation of the economics of art production, particularly in the images of Elizabeth I; of strategies for influencing political situations by carefully planned programs of portraiture; of the seminal importance of extended clans of immigrant Flemish artists and of careers of artists Susanna Horenboult and Lievine Teerlinc and their impact on the development of the portrait miniature. Drawn principally from primary sources, this book presents important new research which examines the contributions of Tudor women in the formation, distribution and popularization of the visual arts, particularly portraiture and the portrait miniature. James highlights the involvement of women as patrons, consumers and creators of art in sixteenth-century England and their use of the painted image as a statement of cultural worth. She explores and analyzes the amount of time, money, effort and ingenuity which women across all social classes invested in the development of art, in the uses they found for it, and the surprising and unexpected ways in which they exploited it.

Renaissance Theory presents an animated conversation among art historians about the optimal ways of conceptualizing Renaissance art, and the links between Renaissance art and contemporary art and theory. This is the first discussion of its kind, involving not only questions within Renaissance scholarship, but issues of concern to art historians and critics in all fields. Organized as a virtual roundtable discussion, the contributors discuss rifts and disagreements about how to understand the Renaissance and debate the principal texts and authors of the last thirty years who have sought to reconceptualize the period. They then turn to the issue of the relation between modern art and the Renaissance: Why do modern art historians and critics so seldom refer to the Renaissance? Is the Renaissance our indispensable heritage, or are we cut off from it by the revolution of modernism? The volume includes an introduction by Rebecca Zorach and two final, synoptic essays, as well as contributions from some of the most prominent thinkers on Renaissance art including Stephen Campbell, Michael Cole, Frederika Jakobs, Frank Fehrenbach, Claire Farago, and Matt Kavaler.

In this vivid account Scott Nethersole examines the remarkable period of cultural, artistic and intellectual blossoming in Florence from ca.1400 to 1520 - the period traditionally known as the Early and High Renaissance. He looks at the city and its art with fresh eyes, presenting the well-known within a wider context of cultural reference. Key works of art - from painting, sculpture and architecture to illuminated manuscripts - by artists such as Michelangelo, Donatello, Botticelli and Brunelleschi are showcased alongside the unexpected and less familiar.

Through an interdisciplinary examination of sixteenth-century theatre, Visual Experiences in Cinquecento Theatrical Spaces studies the performative aspects of the early modern stage, paying special attention to the overlooked complexities of audience experience. Examining the period's philosophical and aesthetic ideas about space, place, and setting, the book shows how artists consciously moved away from traditional representations of real spaces on stage, instead providing their audiences with more imaginative and collaborative engagements that were untethered by strict definitions of naturalism. In this way, the book breaks with traditional interpretations of early modern staging techniques, arguing that the goal of artists in this period was not to cater to a single privileged viewer through the creation of a naturalistically unified stage but instead to offer up a complex multimedia experience that would captivate a diverse assembly of theatre-goers.

Crowning Glories integrates Louis XIV's propaganda campaigns, the transmission of Northern art into France, and the rise of empiricism in the eighteenth century - three historical touchstones - to examine what it would have meant for France's elite to experience the arts in France simultaneously with Netherlandish realist painting. In an expansive study of cultural life under the Sun King, Harriet Stone considers the monarchy's elaborate palace decors, the court's official records, and the classical theatre alongside Northern images of daily life in private homes, urban markets, and country fields. Stone argues that Netherlandish art assumes an unobtrusive yet, for the history of ideas, surprisingly dramatic role within the flourishing of the arts, both visual and textual, in France during Louis XIV's reign. Netherlandish realist art represented thinking about knowledge that challenged the monarchy's hold on the French imagination, and its efforts to impose the king's portrait as an ideal and proof of his authority. As objects appreciated for their aesthetic and market value, Northern realist paintings assumed an uncontroversial place in French royal and elite collections. Flemish and Dutch still lifes, genre paintings, and cityscapes, however, were not merely accoutrements of power, acquisitions made by those with influence and money. Crowning Glories reveals how the empirical orientation of Netherlandish realism exposed French court society to a radically different mode of thought, one that would gain full expression in the Encyclopedie of Diderot and d'Alembert.

This volume brings together new research by some of the world's leading experts, exploring the artistic production and cultural context of Renaissance sculpture from Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise to the small bronzes of Giambologna and his followers. The essays cover a range of sculptural materials and forms to cast fresh light on the artists, their creative and collaborative processes, and those who commissioned, owned and responded to their work. The papers were originally presented at a conference at the V&A in 2010 as part of the Robert H. Smith Renaissance Sculpture Programme.

'Study me reader, if you find delight in me...Come, O men, to see the miracles that such studies will disclose in nature.' Most of what we know about Leonardo da Vinci, we know because of his notebooks. Some 6,000 sheets of notes and drawings survive, which represent perhaps one-fifth of what he actually produced. In them he recorded everything that interested him in the world around him, and his study of how things work. With an artist's eye and a scientist's curiosity he studied the movement of water and the formation of rocks, the nature of flight and optics, anatomy, architecture, sculpture, and painting. He jotted down fables and letters and developed his belief in the sublime unity of nature and man. Through his notebooks we can get an insight into Leonardo's thoughts, and his approach to work and life. This selection offers a cross-section of his writings, organized around coherent themes. Fully updated, this new edition includes some 70 line drawings and a Preface by Martin Kemp, one of the world's leading authorities on Leonardo. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range 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, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Not rediscovered until the twentieth century, the works of Georges de La Tour retain an aura of mystery. At first sight, his paintings suggest a veritable celebration of light and the visible world, but this is deceptive. The familiarity of visual experience blinds the beholder to a deeper understanding of the meanings associated with vision and the visible in the early modern period. By exploring the representations of light, vision, and the visible in La Tour’s works, this interdisciplinary study examines the nature of painting and its artistic, religious, and philosophical implications. In the wake of iconoclastic outbreaks and consequent Catholic call for the revitalization of religious imagery, La Tour paints familiar objects of visible reality that also serve as emblems of an invisible, spiritual reality. Like the books in his paintings, asking to be read, La Tour’s paintings ask not just to be seen as visual depictions but to be deciphered as instruments of insight. In figuring faith as spiritual passion and illumination, La Tour’s paintings test the bounds of the pictorial image, attempting to depict what painting cannot ultimately show: words, hearing, time, movement, changes of heart. La Tour’s emphasis on spiritual insight opens up broader artistic, philosophical, and conceptual reflections on the conditions of possibility of the pictorial medium. By scrutinizing what is seen and how, and by questioning the position of the beholder, his works revitalize critical discussion of the nature of painting and its engagements with the visible world.

Over three decades, the painting of Anton Henning (*1964) has been both a challenge and an inspiration. For him, “even more modern” means showing the lasting significance of modernism for the present. The first volume of his large-scale catalogue of works of 2018 was a basic introduction to his work as a painter. “Vol. 2” now offers an unexpected shift of perspective to his in-depth examination of art history from the Renaissance to Romanticism. A rare interview with Anton Henning about his practice and his artistic self-image supplements the extensive picture section. Text in English, German, French, and Japanese.