A History Of Italian Painting

Published in two volumes, History of Italian Art provides a major history of Italian Art from antiquity to the present day. A distinguished group of cultural historians provide a comprehensive account of Italian "art" in the wider sense, examining not only painting and sculpture, but also photography and iconography, restorations and fakes, landscapes and writing.

This volume covers over four centuries of Italian painting, sculpture, and architecture. Revising author David G. Wilkins blends new scholarly discoveries with original author Hartt's emphasis on stylistic developments between the 12th and 16th centuries. offer a dynamic insight into the way Renaissance men and women experienced their art. Since the release of the fourth edition, many more works have been restored, including Michelangelo's Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel and Raphael's Stanze frescoes in the Vatican. Fresh views of renowned works are included with art commissioned or produced by women. Extended captions identify Renaissance patrons and provide details about historical context, emphasizing how art was created and why, while in-depth visual analysis clarifies the aesthetic developments that emerged in key artistic centers such as Florence, Rome, Venice, and Siena. New iconographic diagrams and computerized reconstructions add dimension to the meanings behind classical, secular, and sacred motifs.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1914.

Oscillating between the majesty of the Greco-Byzantine tradition and the modernity predicted by Giotto, Early Italian Painting addresses the first important aesthetic movement that would lead to the Renaissance, the Italian Primitives. Trying new mediums and techniques, these revolutionary artists no longer painted frescos on walls, but created the first mobile paintings on wooden panels. The faces of the figures were painted to shock the spectator in order to emphasise the divinity of the character being represented. The bright gold leafed backgrounds were used to highlight the godliness of the subject. The elegance of both line and colour were combined to reinforce specific symbolic choices. Ultimately the Early Italian artists wished to make the invisible visible. In this magnificent book, the authors emphasise the importance that the rivalry between the Sienese and Florentine schools played in the evolution of art history. The reader will discover how the sacred began to take a more human form through these forgotten masterworks, opening a discrete but definitive door through the use of anthropomorphism, a technique that would be cherished by the Renaissance.

This Lanzi's work features the history of painting in Italy from the period of the revival of the fine arts to the end of the 18th century. The method that the author applies in treating of each school is as follows: he first gives a general character of each school; then he distinguishes it into three, four, or more epochs, according as its style underwent changes with the change of taste. A few celebrated painters, who have swayed the public taste, and given a new tone to the art, are placed at the head of each epoch. He has also taken notice of some arts which are analogous to painting, and though they differ from it in the materials employed, or the manner of using them, may still be included in the art; for example, engraving of prints, inlaid and mosaic work, and embroidering tapestry. The author commences by treating in the two first volumes of that part of Italy, which, through the genius of Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Rafael, became first conspicuous, and first exhibited a decided character in painting. Those artists were the ornaments of the Florentine and Roman schools, from which he proceeds to two others, the Sienese and Neapolitan. About the same time Giorgione, Tiziano and Correggio, began to flourish in Italy; three artists, who as much advanced the art of coloring, as the former improved design; and of these luminaries of Upper Italy are treated in the third and fourth volumes. Then follows the school of Bologna, in which the attempt was made to unite the excellences of all the other schools: this commences the fifth volume; and on account of proximity it is succeeded by that of Ferrara, and Upper and Lower Romagna. The school of Genoa, which was late in acquiring celebrity, succeeds, and the book is concluded with that of Piedmont, which, though it cannot boast so long a succession of artists as those of the other states, has merits sufficient to entitle it to a place in a history of painting.