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Books > Arts & Architecture > History of art / art & design styles > 1400 to 1600 > Renaissance art > General
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.
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.
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.
A comprehensive survey of the work of this most influential
Florentine artist and teacher Andrea del Verrocchio (c. 1435-1488)
was one of the most versatile and inventive artists of the Italian
Renaissance. He created art across media, from his spectacular
sculptures and paintings to his work in goldsmithing, architecture,
and engineering. His expressive, confident drawings provide a key
point of contact between sculpture and painting. He led a vibrant
workshop where he taught young artists who later became some of the
greatest painters of the period, including Leonardo da Vinci,
Sandro Botticelli, Lorenzo di Credi, and Domenico Ghirlandaio. This
beautifully illustrated book presents a comprehensive survey of
Verrocchio's art, spanning his entire career and featuring some
fifty sculptures, paintings, and drawings, in addition to works he
created with his students. Through incisive scholarly essays,
in-depth catalog entries, and breathtaking illustrations, this
volume draws on the latest research in art history to show why
Verrocchio was one of the most innovative and influential of all
Florentine artists. Published in association with the National
Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
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
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.
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.
Taking the Noli me tangere and Doubting Thomas episodes as a focal
point, this study examines how visual representations of two of the
most compelling and related Christian stories engaged with changing
devotional and cultural ideals in Renaissance and Baroque Italy.
This book reconsiders depictions of the ambiguous encounter of Mary
Magdalene and Christ in the garden (John 20:11-19, known as the
Noli me tangere) and that of Christ's post-Resurrection appearance
to Thomas (John 20:24-29, the Doubting Thomas) as manifestations of
complex theological and art theoretical milieus. By focusing on key
artistic monuments of the Italian Renaissance and Baroque periods,
the authors demonstrate a relationship between the rise of
skeptical philosophy and empirical science, and the efficacy of the
senses in the construction of belief. Further, the authors
elucidate the differing representational strategies employed by
artists to depict touch, and the ways in which these strategies
were shaped by gender, social class, and educational level. Indeed,
over time St. Thomas became an increasingly public--and therefore
masculine--symbol of devotional verification, juridical inquiry,
and empirical investigation, while St. Mary Magdalene provided a
more private model for pious women, celebrating, mostly behind
closed doors, the privileged and active participation of women in
the faith. The authors rely on primary source material--paintings,
sculptures, religious tracts, hagiography, popular sermons, and new
documentary evidence. By reuniting their visual examples with
important, often little-known textual sources, the authors reveal a
complex relationship between visual imagery, the senses,
contemporary attitudes toward gender, and the shaping of belief.
Further, they add greater nuance to our understanding of the
relationship between popular piety and the visual culture of the
period.
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Cambridge II
(Paperback)
Ann Eljenholm Nichols, Holly James - Maddocks
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R2,765
Discovery Miles 27 650
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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The fifteenth century saw the evolution of a distinct and
powerfully influential European artistic culture. But what does the
familiar phrase Renaissance Art actually refer to? Through engaging
discussion of timeless works by artists such as Jan van Eyck,
Leonardo da Vinci, and Michelangelo, and supported by illustrations
including colour plates, Tom Nichols offers a masterpiece of his
own as he explores the truly original and diverse character of the
art of the Renaissance.
The brightly colored tin-enameled earthenware called maiolica was
among the major accomplishments of decorative arts in 16th-century
Italy. This in-depth look at the history of maiolica, told through
140 exemplary pieces from the world-class collection at the
Metropolitan Museum, offers a new perspective on a major aspect of
Italian Renaissance art. Most of the works have never been
published and all are newly photographed. The ceramics are featured
alongside detailed descriptions of production techniques and a
consideration of the social and cultural context, making this an
invaluable resource for scholars and collectors. The imaginatively
decorated works include an eight-figure group of the Lamentation,
the largest and most ambitious piece of sculpture produced in a
Renaissance maiolica workshop; pharmacy jars; bella donna plates;
and more. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art / Distributed
by Yale University Press Exhibition Schedule: The Metropolitan
Museum of Art (08/29/16-02/26/17)
The archetypal artist of the High Renaissance, Raphael is regarded
as one of the greatest painters of all time. Particularly noted for
his paintings of Madonna and Child, his art spanned religious and
classical subjects and included a number of portraits and frescoes
that are renowned for the excellent skill and grandeur they convey.
This beautifully illustrated new book discusses Raphael's life as
well as the themes, styles and techniques of his art, along with
examples of his most famous works like The School of Athens,
Sistine Madonna, The Triumph of Galatea and Transfiguration.
The Italian Renaissance was a golden age for bronze sculpture, both
on a grand scale-such as Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise, or Cellini's
Perseus-and more intimate statuettes and small-scale functional
objects. Bronze, being both costly and luxurious, embodied power,
authority, and eternity and emulated the classical past. Yet it was
one of the easiest materials to recycle, especially at a time when
the need for artillery was ever-present. Drawing on the latest
research, and including some 200 superb images, The Culture of
Bronze explores the material and making of bronzes and the
interrelationships and collaboration between sculptor, foundry, and
owner. Encompassing works made for domestic, religious, and civic
environments, the book studies the symbolism of bronze, and the
bronzes themselves, within their broader societal context. Features
works from sculptors including Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacoisi
(Antico), Benvenuto Cellini, Donatello, Adriano Fiorentino, Lorenzo
Ghiberti, Giambologna, Bertoldo di Giovanni, Leone Leoni,
Barthelemy Prieur, Benedetto da Rovezzano, Adriaen de Vries and
Agostino Zoppo
This lavishly illustrated book records the high profile restoration
of Rembrandt van Rijn's 17th century masterpiece, The Night Watch,
one of the world's most famous paintings. Many questions about the
creation of this work have been answered by extensive technical
studies done in conjunction with the restoration. The popular Dutch
TV program The Secret of the Master has documented the restoration
of The Night Watch in four episodes, assisted in this by various
external specialists. This book, by the producer of that series,
reveals the many secrets of this fascinating and important work.
Winner of the 2022 Prose Award (Art History & Criticism) from
the Association of American Publishers This groundbreaking book
seeks to explain why women artists were far more numerous, diverse,
and successful in early modern Bologna than elsewhere in Italy.
They worked as painters, sculptors, printmakers, and embroiderers;
many obtained public commissions and expanded beyond the portrait
subjects to which women were traditionally confined. Babette Bohn
asks why that was the case in this particular place and at this
particular time. Drawing on extensive archival research, Bohn
investigates an astonishing sixty-eight women artists, including
Elisabetta Sirani and Lavinia Fontana. The book identifies and
explores the factors that facilitated their success, including
local biographers who celebrated women artists in new ways, an
unusually diverse system of artistic patronage that included
citizens from all classes, the impact of Bologna’s venerable
university, an abundance of women writers, and the frequency of
self-portraits and signed paintings by many women artists. In
tracing the evolution of Bologna’s female artists from
nun-painters to working professionals, Bohn proposes new
attributions and interpretations of their works, some of which are
reproduced here for the first time. Featuring original
methodological models, innovative and historically grounded
insights, and new documentation, this book will be a crucial
resource for art historians, historians, and women’s studies
scholars and students.
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