Nichols - Renaissance Art: A Beginners Guide

Renaissance Art

A Beginners Guide

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A Oneworld Paperback Original

Published by Oneworld Publications 2010
This ebook edition published by Oneworld Publications 2012

Copyright Tom Nichols 2010

The moral right of Tom Nichols to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved
Copyright under Berne Convention
A CIP record for this title is available
from the British Library

ISBN 9781851687244
ebook ISBN 9781780741789

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To my parents

This Beginners Guide draws primarily on my experience as a teacher of Renaissance art at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Few of my students have studied much art history when they arrive at the University (it is little taught in British schools), let alone the Renaissance. But a good number of them have already experienced something of the excitement of Renaissance art on their visits to galleries and exhibitions or on foreign holidays. Readers of this introductory book may be in a similar position. They have visited Italy, perhaps, spending time in major artistic centres such as Florence, Rome, or Venice. They may have come away with vivid impressions of the Renaissance works they have seen. Or again, they may not have yet had the chance to see such famous works in the flesh, but are keen to get to grips with this key period in art history before making their pilgrimage. Other readers may already have a well developed interest in art, but know more about works from more recent periods, such as Impressionism or contemporary art. Some may have only just decided that art is of any interest to them at all.

This book has been written with this wide mixture of possible readers in mind. It aims to provide a new and accessible introduction to a famous and much written-about period of art, which still possesses a certain aura of quality and value (monetary as well as artistic!). I have tried to keep things relatively simple and have provided a short glossary of specialist terms, which are indicated in the text by italics. A full list of all the works discussed, with their dates and present locations, is also included, as is a map of the cities and towns from which my examples come, and a list of books for further reading about these particular works. A basic bibliography of the key works on the Renaissance is also included so that the interested reader can gain a fuller understanding of the topic. My book is based on the close discussion or reading of a small number of examples of Renaissance art (all of which are illustrated). Through close attention to these key examples, the reader will build a rich understanding of the central characteristics of a Renaissance work, and of the surrounding conditions that led to its creation.

Certain of the decisions that I have made in preparing this book need to be noted here, without making too many apologies. They have primarily been dictated by considerations of space: that is, by the need to make this a book of manageable size and scope, while also maintaining an interesting level of detail in the discussion. Renaissance architecture is not covered; and my examples date from the period roughly between 1400 and 1565. As far as architecture is concerned, this seems to me to be a vast subject in its own right, worthy of a whole other study, though it is certainly one closely related to the progress of the other arts in the Renaissance. As for the dates, arguments will long continue about when, exactly, the Renaissance started and ended, with many preferring dates of 13001600. But in my view its most salient features, and its best examples, only really appear in the period I cover.

Though I have been careful to give a sense of the wide geographical scope of Renaissance art, certain countries, such as France and Spain, are discussed only in passing, or in relation to works imported to them. But while these countries may have produced Renaissance works, these were, in my view, largely dependent on the more powerful examples from elsewhere discussed in the book. I must confess that my choices also reflect personal preferences. But my hope is that the decisions I have made have not weakened the account, allowing it something of the texture and fibre that grow out of real enthusiasm. I would like to thank my family, friends, and colleagues for their help and understanding during the course of the project.

Plates

Figures

Renaissance art: a familiar-sounding phrase. But what was the Renaissance and how do we identify its presence in art? Which works of art most clearly express its values? Where and when did it emerge, and how did it develop over the course of time? This introductory book has been written with these fundamental questions in mind. Each chapter focuses on major examples of Renaissance art from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and is arranged in a broadly chronological fashion. The discussion follows the progress of art in different parts of Europe, targeting those places (typically towns and cities) where a distinctively Renaissance approach was most developed. The chosen examples illustrate the wide variety of subjects, image types, and media that artists depicted and used, and also reveal the sheer visual range of works that can be described as Renaissance. Each example is carefully set into its historical and artistic context, but at the same time the close focus on specific works will help to build a wider picture of the Renaissance as a whole.