Painting in Renaissance Florence, 1500-1550 / David Franklin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Franklin, David, 1961-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Painting, Italian--Italy--Florence--16th century.

Painting, Italian.

Italy--Florence.

Physical Description:

vi, 273 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 30 cm

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, [2001]

Summary:

This outstanding book overturns longstanding assumptions about the way art evolved in Renaissance Florence. David Franklin challenges the reliability and usefulness of the terms 'High Renaissance' and 'Mannerism', which have been used commonly to describe and define the extraordinary paintings of the Florentine Renaissance. Franklin offers instead a new perspective on the progress and development of art in Florence, structuring his discussion around the lives and works of twelve influential Italian painters of the era.

The book provides a detailed account of the critical period from about 1500, when Leonardo returned to Florence, to the publication in 1550 of Vasari's first edition of the Lives of the Artists. With penetrating analyses of careers, influences and specific paintings. Franklin isolates two main strands in Renaissance Florentine painting. He brings to light the passionate rivalry between a deeply localized attitude towards art exemplified by Michelangelo and Leonardo and climaxing in the work of Pontormo, and a style influenced by the Roman art of Raphael which Vasari tried with some success to import into Florence. For the former group, life drawing and expressive human form were at the heart of their enterprise, while for the latter, it was superficial narrative arranged for decorative effect. Franklin's unprecedented examination of Vasari's work as a painter in relation to his vastly better-known writings fully illuminates these dual strands in Florentine art and offers us a clearer understanding of sixteenth-century painting in Florence than ever before.

The volume focuses on twelve painters: Perugino, Leonardo da Vinci, Piero di Cosimo, Michelangelo, Fra Bartolomeo, Ridolfo Ghirlandaio. Andrea del Sarto, Franciabigio, Rosso Fiorentino, Jacopo da Pontormo, Francesco Salviati and Giorgio Vasari.

Contents:

1 Perugino and the Eclipse of Quattrocento Mannerism 5

2 Leonardo da Vinci and the Origins of a New Style 19

3 Piero di Cosimo: A Renaissance 'eccentric'? 41

4 Michelangelo the Florentine Painter 63

5 Fra Bartolomeo, the School of San Marco and the Dominican Manner 81

6 Ridolfo Ghirlandaio and the Retrospective Tradition in Painting 103

7 Andrea del Sarto: The Artist 'without errors' 127

8 The Critical Misfortunes of Franciabigio 153

9 Rosso Fiorentino and the Rejection of Florence 173

10 Jacopo da Pontormo: The Last Painter of the Florentine Renaissance 191

11 Francesco Salviati: Rome in Florence 213

12 The Life of Giorgio Vasari 229.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 250-260) and index.

ISBN:

0300083998

OCLC:

46793060