European Art of the Fifteenth Century

Art Through the Centuries #2

by Stefano Zuffi

Influenced by a revival of interest in Greco-Roman ideals and sponsored by a newly prosperous merchant class, fifteenth-century artists produced works of astonishingly innovative content and technique. The International Gothic style of painting, still popular at the beginning of the century,
was giving way to the influence of Early Netherlandish Flemish masters such as Jan van Eyck, who emphasized narrative and the complex use of light for symbolic meaning. Patrons favored paintings in oil and on wooden panels for works ranging from large, hinged altarpieces to small, increasingly
lifelike portraits.
In the Italian city-states of Florence, Venice, and Mantua, artists and architects alike perfected existing techniques and developed new ones. The painter Masaccio mastered linear perspective; the sculptor Donatello produced anatomically correct but idealized figures such as his bronze nude of
David; and the brilliant architect and engineer Brunelleschi integrated Gothic and Renaissance elements to build the self-supporting dome of the Florence Cathedral.
This beautifully illustrated guide analyzes the most important people, places, and concepts of this early Renaissance period, whose explosion of creativity was to spread throughout Europe in the sixteenth century

Genres: Art History, Art, History, Nonfiction

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Stefano Zuffi (Milano, 24 maggio 1961) è uno storico dell'arte italiano.

Laureato alla Statale di Milano, è autore di numerosi volumi di divulgazione culturale, legati alla storia dell'arte soprattutto rinascimentale e barocca. Consulente editoriale per la casa editrice Electa, è stato responsabile di alcune collane di successo al grande pubblico, come gli Artbook e, dal 2002, I dizionari dell'arte.

Tra le sue pubblicazioni, una monografia su Dürer, Il Grande Atlante della Pittura (Electa) e il saggio Rinascimento (Mondadori): tradotte in più lingue, hanno raggiunto una tiratura di oltre un milione e mezzo di copie vendute in tutto il mondo.

Ha partecipato alla trasmissione Riguardiamoli condotta da Salvatore Maria Fares su RETEDUE della Radio Svizzera Italiana, curando una rubrica dedicata all' arte e alle mostre.

Ricopre l'incarico di responsabile culturale dell'Associazione Amici di Brera ed è presidente dell'Associazione Amici del Poldi Pezzoli.

È inoltre curatore della Pinacoteca Podesti di Ancona.

Reviews

[AndrewP]

DNF.
Subject is very interesting but the presentation is so bad that I couldn't get more then 20 pages into it. Just pictures with callout text to interesting features. Looks like it may have originally published as a larger coffee table book and tat would have been better. This small format has text so small that it's a chore to read and it's impossible not to break the spine when reading the arts close to the binding.

[Johnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a reference book I found this very good. It's visually very rich almost like a Eyewitness travel guide. Unfortunatley the language is academic and fairly stilted as a result of translation from the original Italian to English. Only mentions significant paintings in essays which are then not shown in the book.

[Andreas Schmidt · Rating 1 out of 5]

I soliti problemi
I problemi sono i medesimi di tutta questa collana: immagini formato francobollo, argomenti sparpagliati in ordine arbitrario, descrizioni telegrafiche.