The drawings of Raphael and his circle offer a unique view into the creative processes of this renowned artist. Sixty-eight of his most discussed and controversial studies of form, movement and detail from the collection at the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, are examined here by a leading scholar. Works by Raphael's masters such as Perugino, and his pupils including Giulio Romano, Perino del Vaga and Polidoro da Caravaggio are considered together -- examining the development of workshop methods, style and techniques -- and as individual works of art.
In Tracing the Visual Language of Raphael’s Circle to 1527, Alexis Culotta examines how the Renaissance master’s style – one infused with borrowed visual quotations from other artists both past and present – proved influential in his relationship with associate Baldassare Peruzzi and in the development of the artists within his thriving workshop. Shedding new light on the important, yet often-overshadowed, figures within this network, this book calls upon key case studies to convincingly illustrate how this visual language and its recombination evolved during Raphael’s Roman career and subsequently served as a springboard for artistic innovation for these close associates as they collaborated in the years following Raphael’s death.
Evelyn Karet's in-depth study of the Antonio II Badile Album - the earliest known example of an art collection pasted onto the pages of a book - is both focused and broad in its appeal to those interested in the early modern era. The provenance of the album is traced from its assemblage to the seventeenth-century collection of Conte Lodovico Moscardo to its dismantling by the dealer Francis Matthiesen in the 1950s, establishing that the volume conserved in the Frits Lugt Collection is not an original but a replica produced by Matthiesen. Although Antonio II must be celebrated as the collector of the drawings, new paleographic analysis has identified the actual compiler of the album after Antonio?s death providing a terminus post quem in the late 1530s or early 1540s. Karet enlarges the focus from the album itself to the historic tradition of collecting drawings in northern Italy in the early modern era before Vasari, for which the album provides a new point of reference. Throughout the book, Karet discusses the Badile family, examines the individual drawings in the book, investigates the contacts between artists and humanists, their rich, diverse collections and the humanist mind-set that fostered the appreciation of drawings. She explores notable early drawing collections in northern Italy and the role of northern Italy as a center of collection in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The book concludes with two appendices: a reconstruction of the original album, including a discussion of the reconstruction process, suggestions about what the album originally looked like, and a page-by-page guide to its contents; and a detailed analysis of Francis Matthiesen's career. This book opens up new areas of inquiry into an overlooked subject.
More versatile and less idiosyncratic than Michelangelo, more prolific and accessible than his mentor Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, though he died at only thirty-seven, is considered the single most influential artist of the Renaissance. Here, art historian Paul Joannides explores the different social and regional contexts of Raphaels work and discusses all aspects of his artistic output. He traces Raphaels career from his origins in Urbino, through his altarpieces made in Umbria in the shadow of Perugino, to the first flowering of his genius in Florence where he painted a series of iconic Madonnas that are among the most beloved images in Western art. Raphaels employment by the dynamic and demanding Pope Julius II gave him opportunities without parallel and encouraged the full expansion of his genius. As a sophisticate entrepreneur, he dominated Romes artistic life and extended the range of his activities to that of architect, designer, pioneer archaeologist and theoretician. The foundation of Raphaels versatility and range was his supreme clarity of mind as a draughtsman. Knowledge of his drawings, on which Joannides is a leading expert, is central to understanding of his achievement, and they are thoroughly explored here.
"The papers show that the response to the new style was without exception a very conscious one. In Siena and Venice it was simply rejected, whereas in Pesaro, Mantua, Rome and Fontainebleau it was transformed or attempts were made even to surpass it. In other cases, Florence in particular, the answer to the new Raphaelesque style was found by proposing a conspicuously Michelangelesque one instead."--BOOK JACKET.
Scope: theology, philosophy, ethics of various religions and ethical systems and relevant portions of anthropology, mythology, folklore, biology, psychology, economics and sociology.
Thirteen specialists on the history of tapestry offer a detailed survey of the lives and works of the Flemish weavers and of their relations with foreign patrons and artists.
