This volume contains reproductions of 100 16th-century Master Drawings from the outstanding holding of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. It provides a broad view of drawing styles and functions in Tuscany ranging from High Renaissance to Early Baroque, and includes works by such artists as Fra Bartolommeo, Vasari, and Michelangelo. The authors provide descriptive accompanying entries throughout.
Focusing exclusively on examples from the 16th century, the great age of Italian drawing, this stunning volume, published to accompany an early-1994 exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, includes 124 prized works from The Metropolitan, the Pierpont Morgan Library, the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, and some 20 private collections in New York. The catalogue is organized by school and, within each section, chronologically by artist. Each drawing is illustrated and presented with a discussion that places it in the context of the artist's career and explores the purpose for which it was made. Paper edition (unseen), $35. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
The Uffizi Gallery in Florence holds a major collection of drawings and prints once owned by the Medici dynasty that ruled Florence for more than two centuries. Soon to be on loan at the Detroit Institute of Arts (October 16, 1988, to January 8, 1989), this group of 100 sixteenth-century Master Drawings represents the most extensive and distinguished collection of such works in the world. Written by Annamaria Petrioli Tofani, Director of the Uffizi, and art historian Graham Smith, this magnificent exhibition catalog offers a broad view of the development of drawing in the styles of Post-Renaissance Classicism, Early Mannerism, High Mannerism, Late Mannerism, and the Early Baroque. The exhibit will include the work of Florentine and Sienese artists, notably Andrea del Sarto, Angolo Bronzino, Fra Bartolommeo, Michelangelo, Pontormo, Rosso Fiorentino, Cigoli, and Vasari. It will also include drawings of high artistic quality by other artists, many of which have never been previously published. A scholarly entry including full references and exhibition history accompanies the four-color reproduction of each drawing.
Drawings by the great Italian Mannerist painter and poet Agnolo Bronzino (1503-1572) are extremely rare. This important and beautiful publication brings together for the first time nearly all of the sixty drawings attributed to this leading draftsman of the 16th century. Each drawing is illustrated in color, discussed in detail, and shown with many comparative photographs. Bronzino's technical virtuosity as a draftsman and his mastery of anatomy and perspective are vividly apparent in each stroke of the chalk, pen, or brush. The younger generations of Florentine artists particularly admired Bronzino for his technical virtuosity as a painter, and Giorgio Vasari praised him for his powers as a disegnatore (designer and draftsman).
Between 1512 and 1570, Florence underwent dramatic political transformations. As citizens jockeyed for prominence, portraits became an essential means not only of recording a likeness but also of conveying a sitter’s character, social position, and cultural ambitions. This fascinating book explores the ways that painters (including Jacopo Pontormo, Agnolo Bronzino, and Francesco Salviati), sculptors (such as Benvenuto Cellini), and artists in other media endowed their works with an erudite and self-consciously stylish character that made Florentine portraiture distinctive. The Medici family had ruled Florence without interruption between 1434 and 1494. Following their return to power in 1512, Cosimo I de’ Medici, who became the second Duke of Florence in 1537, demonstrated a particularly shrewd ability to wield culture as a political tool in order to transform Florence into a dynastic duchy and give Florentine art the central position it has held ever since. Featuring more than ninety remarkable paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and medals, this volume is written by a team of leading international authors and presents a sweeping, penetrating exploration of a crucial and vibrant period in Italian art.
The Getty Museum's collection of drawings was begun in 1981 with the purchase of a Rembrandt nude and has since become an important repository of European works from the fifteenth through the nineteenth century. As in the first volume devoted to the collection (published in 1988 in English and Italian editions), the text is here organized first by national school, then alphabetically by artist, with individual works arranged chronologically. For each drawing, the authors provide a discussion of the work's style, dating, iconography, and relationship to other works, as well as provenance and a complete bibliography.
In the sixteenth century, the humanist values and admiration for classical antiquity that marked the early Renaissance spread from Italy throughout the rest of the continent. Part of the "Art through the Centuries" series, this volume is divided into three sections that discuss the important people, concepts, and artistic centres of this period.
