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Description
Art historian Laurie Schneider Adams brings to students a vibrant and engaging presentation of Renaissance art history that is supported by up-to-date scholarship and methodology. The text opens with the late Byzantine work of Cimabue and concludes with the transition to Mannerism. The author’s focus is on the most important and innovative artists and their principal works, with a clear emphasis on selectivity and understanding.
Italian Renaissance Art also focuses on style and iconography, and on art and artists, incorporating different methodological approaches to create a wider understanding and appreciation of the art. Distinguishing features of this text include:
- Over 400 illustrations, with 215 in full color, are integrated with the text, and large enough to properly view.
- In depth coverage on the most important and innovative artists and their principle works throughout Italy.
- Side boxes that provide additional material on techniques, biographical data, descriptions of artistic media, as well as necessary background information are used in every chapter.
- “Controversy” boxes introduce some of the ongoing scholarly quarrels among Renaissance art historians.
- Maps, plans, and diagrams are included throughout. A historical chronology, a full glossary of art-historical terms, and a select bibliography are also included at the end of the text.
About the Author
Laurie Schneider Adams teaches undergraduate and graduate students at John Jay College, CUNY and the Graduate Center. She has previously taught at Sarah Lawrence College, University of Florida, Columbia University, and Mount Holyoke College. She is the author of Art Across Time, The Methodologies of Art, A History of Western Art, Art and Psychoanalysis, Art on Trial, and editor of Giotto in Perspective. She is the editor or the quarterly journal Source: Notes in the History of Art.
"A clearly written, straightforward account of the story of Italian Renaissance art from its origins to Mannerism. The bulk of the material centers around central Italian painting, as it should, but other important, smaller centers are also included. The discussion of the various art forms is nicely balanced…. I especially liked the sidebars which add necessary material—historical, literary, technical and so forth—to the text without encumbering it…. This is a very good book which should furnish us with the new and useable text we have been waiting for. I would certainly use it in my classroom."
— Bruce Cole, Distinguished Professor, Chairman, department of the history of art, Indiana University
”This sensibly selective and well-written introduction to Italian Renaissance art covers the main centers throughout Italy and describes the major artists and their works from different critical and methodological points of view. The large-format illustrations make this text particularly useful.”
— James Beck, Professor of Art History, Columbia University
Part One: Precursors of the Renaissance
Chapter One: The Thirteenth Century
- The Context
- The Stylistic Background
- Vasari’s Lives and the “Framing” of the Renaissance
- Cimabue
- Saints Dominic and Francis: Mendicant Friars
- Nicola and Giovanni Pisano
- Duccio di Buoninsegna:
- Siena and Florence in 1300
- Giotto: The Santa Maria Novella Crucifix
Chapter Two: Trecento Precursors
- Giotto di Bondone
- Sienese Painting in the Fourteenth Century
- Ambrogio Lorenzetti:
- 1348: The Black Death
- Andrea da Firenze:
- Andrea di Cione (Orcagna)
Part Two: The Quattrocento
Chapter Three: Architecture and Sculpture in Florence
- The Competition of 1401
- Ghiberti’s
- Public Sculpture: The Exterior of Florence Cathedral
- Donatello’s
- The Architecture of Brunelleschi
- Late Work: Santa Maria degli Angeli and the
- Ideal of the Circular Plan
- Or San Michele: The Exterior Niches
Chapter Four: Painting in Florence: 1400–1430
- Lorenzo Monaco’s
- Gentile da Fabriano’s
- Masaccio
- The Brancacci Chapel Frescoes
Chapter Five: Painting in Florence: 1430–1460
- Leon Battista Alberti: Fra Angelico
- Filippo Lippi
Chapter Six: Painting in Florence, II: 1430–1460
- Paolo Uccello
- Domenico Veneziano
- Andrea del Castagno
Chapter Seven: Sculpture and Architecture in Florence: 1430s-1460s
- Bruni’s Humanist Tomb
- Alberti’s Self-Portrait Plaque: An Iconographic Puzzle
- Donatello in the Mid-Fifteenth Century
- Ghiberti’s East Doors
- Palace Architecture
- The Façade of Santa Maria Novella
Chapter Eight: Developments in Siena, Rimini, and Pienza: 1400–1460
Chapter Nine: Developments in Umbria, the Marches, and Naples: 1400s–1460s
- Alfonso I of Naples
- Piero della Francesca
- The Montefeltro Court in Urbino
- Federico’s Dynastic Iconography
Chapter Ten: Sculpture and Architecture in Florence after 1450
Chapter Eleven: Painting in Florence after 1450
- Benozzo Gozzoli: The Medici Chapel Frescoes
- Pollaiuolo
- Botticelli
- Filippino Lippi: Ghirlandaio
Chapter Twelve: Fifteenth-Century Developments in Verona, Ferrara, and Mantua
- Pisanello in Verona
- Pisanello and the Este of Ferrara
- Developments in Mantua
- Andrea Mantegna
- Mantegna and the Gonzaga of Mantua
Chapter Thirteen: Developments in Late Fifteenth- and Early Sixteenth-Century Venice
- Jacopo Bellini
- Gentile Bellini
- Carpaccio’s
- Antonello da Messina
- Giovanni Bellini
- Part Three: The Cinquecento
Chapter Fourteen: Leonardo and Bramante: Late Fifteenth- and Early Sixteenth-Century Developments in Florence and Milan
- Leonardo da Vinci: Florence
- Leonardo and Bramante in Milan
- Leonardo’s Later Work
Chapter Fifteen: Michelangelo and Raphael
- The Late Fifteenth Century to 1505
- Michelangelo: Florence and Rome
- Raphael: Urbino, Perugia, and Florence
Chapter Sixteen: Bramante, Michelangelo, Raphael: Developments in Rome to 1520
- Bramante in Rome
- The Patronage of Julius II
- Raphael After 1511
- Domestic Architecture
Chapter Seventeen: Venice in the Sixteenth Century
- Giorgione da Castelfranco
- Titian
- Later Sixteenth-Century Developments and Mannerist Trends
Chapter Eighteen: Michelangelo after 1520 and the Transition to Mannerism
- Michelangelo: The Medici Chapel
- Michelangelo’s Later Architecture
- Towards Mannerism
Timeline
Glossary of Art-Historical and Stylistic Terms
Select Bibliography
Notes
Picture Credits
Index
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