Overview

"In the words of cultural historian Jacob Burkhardt, fifteenth-century Italy was ""the place where the notion of the individual was born."" In keeping with that idea, early Renaissance Italy was a key participant in the first great age of portraiture in Europe. As groundbreaking artists strove to evoke the identity or personality of their sitters—from heads of state and church, military commanders, and wealthy patrons to scholars, poets, and artists—they evolved daring new representational strategies that would profoundly influence the course of Western art. More than a mere likeness, the fifteenth-century Italian portrait was an attempt to wrest from the unpredictability of life and the shadow of mortality and image that could be passed down to future generations. The Renaissance Portrait, which accompanies a landmark exhibition at the Bode-Museum, Berlin, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, provides new research and insight into the early history of portraiture in Italy, examining in detail how its major art centers—Florence, the princely courts, and Venice—saw the rapid development of portraiture as closely linked to Renaissance society and politics, ideas of the individual, and concepts of beauty. Essays by leading scholars provide a thorough introduction to Renaissance portraiture, while individual catalogue entries illustrate and extensively discuss more than 160 magnificent examples of painting, drawing, manuscript illumination, sculpture, and medallic portraiture by such artists as Donatello, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Verrocchio, Ghirlandaio, Pisanello, Mantegna, Antonello da Messina, and Giovanni Bellini. With abundant style and visual ingenuity, these masters transformed the plain facts of observation into something beautiful to behold."

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9780300175912

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Reviews

Selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic 2012 Title for Fine Arts within the Humanities category.--Outstanding Academic Title Choice (05/22/2013)

Includes essays by all the stars of Italian Renaissance art history -Art Newspaper Art Newspaper The Renaissance Portrait is a beautiful book, accompanying what must be a stunning exhibition... analysis of the paintings in the exhibition is masterly. -Peter Lovegrove, History Teaching Review -- Peter Lovegrove History Teaching Review The essays in The Renaissance Portrait wear their learning lightly; and with admirable brevity explain how the portrait emerged in the Italian 15th century in response to the Renaissance's glorification of the individual. This volume is a splendid complement to a glorious show. -ARTnews ARTnews Outstanding Academic Title Award, 2012-Choice Choice Selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic 2012 Title for Fine Arts within the Humanities category. -- Outstanding Academic Title Choice

The Renaissance Portrait is a beautiful book, accompanying what must be a stunning exhibition... analysis of the paintings in the exhibition is masterly./i>--Peter Lovegrove History Teaching Review (05/01/2012)

Selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic 2012 Title for Fine Arts within the Humanities category. -- Outstanding Academic Title * Choice * Outstanding Academic Title Award, 2012-Choice * Choice * The essays in The Renaissance Portrait wear their learning lightly; and with admirable brevity explain how the portrait emerged in the Italian 15th century in response to the Renaissance's glorification of the individual. This volume is a splendid complement to a glorious show. -ARTnews * ARTnews * The Renaissance Portrait is a beautiful book, accompanying what must be a stunning exhibition... analysis of the paintings in the exhibition is masterly. -Peter Lovegrove, History Teaching Review -- Peter Lovegrove * History Teaching Review * Includes essays by all the stars of Italian Renaissance art history -Art Newspaper * Art Newspaper *

Author Information

Keith Christiansen is John Pope-Hennessy Chairman of European Paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Stefan Weppelmann is curator of early Italian and Spanish painting at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin.

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