Full Description
This book is both an introduction to fifteenth-century Italian painting, and a primer in how to read social history out of the style of pictures. It examines the commercial practice of the early Renaissance picture, trade in contracts, letters, and accounts; and it explains how the visual skills and habits evolved in the daily life of any society enter into its painters' style. Renaissance painting is related for instance to experience of such activities as preaching, dancing, and gauging barrels.
This second edition contains an appendix, the original Latin and Italian texts referred to throughout the book, giving the student access to all the relevant, authentic sources.
Contents
Part 1 Conditions of trade: Introduction; contracts and the client's control; art and matter; the value of skill; perception of skill. Part 2 The period eye: Relative perception; pictures and knowledge; the cognitive style; the function of images; "Istoria"; the body and its language; figure patterns; the value of colours; volumes; intervals and proportions; the moral eye. Part 3 Pictures and categories: Words and pictures; Giovanni Santi's twenty-five painters; Cristoforo Landino; categories, including nature, relief, purity, ease, perspective, grace, ornateness, variety, composition, colouring, design, difficulty, foreshortening, promptness, blitheness, devotion; conclusion. Texts and references. Index.
