The Renaissance Portrait: From Donatello to Bellini
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism
The Renaissance Portrait: From Donatello to Bellini Details
From Booklist *Starred Review* This excellent, sumptuously illustrated book accompanied the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York that ran from December 2011 to March 2012. It has six introductory essays and analyzes 138 portraits in painted panels, pencil drawings, marble sculpture, and bronze medals. In time, Flemish realism brilliantly fused with Italian humanism to create a new sense of the value of the individual personality and to place a correspondingly high value on the portrait itself. This innovative art justified Hans Holbein’s proud inscription on his portrait of Derich Born, who lacked only breath to seem truly alive and responsive: “Add but the voice and you have his whole self, that you may doubt whether the painter or the father has made him.” These Renaissance artists explored their ideal of beauty—women with blonde hair, high foreheads, fair complexions, and long necks—and also sought to reveal virtue, the inward character, through the subject’s outward appearance. Techniques of portraiture evolved from the simple to the complex forms that have endured to the present day. In about 1425, subjects were depicted in stark profile or as dual portraits against a dark background. Later they were presented full face, establishing eye contact with the observer, set against a deeper space and an open window with an expansive background. Subjects might have a suggestive gaze or gesture, accompanied by symbolic animals and attributes, and a three-quarter pose that turned reflectively away from the viewer. These magnificent portraits justify Leon Alberti’s claim that they bestowed eternal life and fame by preserving the memory and virtues of the subject: “Painting possesses a truly divine power in that not only does it make the absent present, but it also represents the dead to the living many centuries later, so they are recognized by spectators with pleasure and deep admiration for the artist.” --Jeffrey Meyers Read more Review “Includes essays by all the stars of Italian Renaissance art history”—Art Newspaper (Art Newspaper)"The Renaissance Portrait is a beautiful book, accompanying what must be a stunning exhibition… analysis of the paintings in the exhibition is masterly."—Peter Lovegrove, History Teaching Review (Peter Lovegrove History Teaching Review 2012-05-01)“The essays in The Renaissance Portrait wear their learning lightly; and with admirable brevity explain how the portrait emerged in the Italian 15th century in response to the Renaissance's glorification of the individual. This volume is a splendid complement to a glorious show.”—ARTnews (ARTnews) Outstanding Academic Title Award, 2012—Choice (Choice) Selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic 2012 Title for Fine Arts within the Humanities category. (Outstanding Academic Title Choice 2013-05-22) Read more See all Editorial Reviews
Reviews
This is another blockbuster catalogue from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It accompanied the exhibition of the same name mounted first at the Bode-Museum in Berlin in August 2011 and continuing in New York until March 2012. It is a magnificent volume and has justly proved so much in demand that a second printing was necessary, causing a temporary hiatus in its availability. Anyone interested in Renaissance art or in the history of portraiture would be well advised to acquire it now at its original publication price, because it is an absolute must-have and, at 420 pages, is likely to remain the definitive study for some time. Five very informative introductory essays by eminent art historians introduce and discuss the major issues involved in considering the art. These are followed by a catalogue of 168 excellent reproductions, each expertly commented by a specialist in the field and accompanied by full historical provenance and a list of selected references (and there is also an excellent index and general bibliography). The scholarship is so up-to-date that I encountered at least one reference to an article published just a few months before the catalogue itself.The scope is broad, and although the emphasis is on painting, all the other major media--bronze, brass, marble, terra-cotta and the all-important portrait medal (pride of the aristocracy because of its durability and ease of reproduction and transportation)--are also fully considered. And although the great majority of the artists presented are Italian, some Northerners like Rogier van der Weyden and his pupil Hans Memling are also discussed in terms of their relationship with Italian patrons. The organization of the material follows a geographical distribution from Florence through the central Italian courts (Ferrara, Mantua, Rome, etc.) to Venice and the Veneto, so that, as one essayist puts it, what emerges is a "geography of likeness" (9), enabling us to appreciate the differences in regional styles. But the historical trajectory is equally important, and it is fascinating to follow the career of the portrait from Donatello's reliquary bust of Saint Rossore (ca. 1425 and technically not a "portrait" at all) to the emergence of more modern autonomous likenesses toward the end of the century. This is a major comprehensive study, and as the book itself is manufactured to the highest production standards, it is a physical, intellectual, and aesthetic delight.
