Perfection

Perfection PDF Author: Lorenzo Pericolo
Publisher: Brepols Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Whether a painting, a sculpture, or a building, works of art in early modern Europe must achieve the highest degree of perfection. If in the Middle Ages perfection is mostly perceived as a technical quality inherent in craftsmanship--a quality that can be judged according to often unspoken criteria agreed upon by the members of a guild--from the fifteenth century onwards perfection comes to incorporate a set of rhetorical and literary qualities originally extraneous to art making. Furthermore, perfection becomes a transcendent quality: something that cannot be measured only in terms of craftsmanship. In the Baroque period, perfection turns into obsession as a result of the emergence of historical models of artistic evolution in which perfection is already historically embodied--in the first place, Vasari's investiture of Michelangelo as a universal canon for painting, sculpture, and architecture. This book aims to define, analyze, and reassess the concept of perfection in the arts and architecture of early modern Europe. What is perfection? What makes a work of art unique, emblematic, or irreplaceable? Does perfection necessarily relate to individuality? Is the perfect work connate with or independent from its author? Can perfection be reproduced or represented? How do artists react to perfection? How do post-Vasarian models of art history come to terms with perfection? To what extent perfection in early modern Europe is the matter of rhetoric, literary theories, theology, and even scientific observation?

Perfection

Perfection PDF Author: Lorenzo Pericolo
Publisher: Brepols Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 348

Get Book Here

Book Description
Whether a painting, a sculpture, or a building, works of art in early modern Europe must achieve the highest degree of perfection. If in the Middle Ages perfection is mostly perceived as a technical quality inherent in craftsmanship--a quality that can be judged according to often unspoken criteria agreed upon by the members of a guild--from the fifteenth century onwards perfection comes to incorporate a set of rhetorical and literary qualities originally extraneous to art making. Furthermore, perfection becomes a transcendent quality: something that cannot be measured only in terms of craftsmanship. In the Baroque period, perfection turns into obsession as a result of the emergence of historical models of artistic evolution in which perfection is already historically embodied--in the first place, Vasari's investiture of Michelangelo as a universal canon for painting, sculpture, and architecture. This book aims to define, analyze, and reassess the concept of perfection in the arts and architecture of early modern Europe. What is perfection? What makes a work of art unique, emblematic, or irreplaceable? Does perfection necessarily relate to individuality? Is the perfect work connate with or independent from its author? Can perfection be reproduced or represented? How do artists react to perfection? How do post-Vasarian models of art history come to terms with perfection? To what extent perfection in early modern Europe is the matter of rhetoric, literary theories, theology, and even scientific observation?

Stealing from the Saracens

Stealing from the Saracens PDF Author: Diana Darke
Publisher: Hurst & Company
ISBN: 1787383059
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Book Description
Europeans are in denial. Against a backdrop of Islamophobia, they are increasingly distancing themselves from their cultural debt to the Muslim world. But while the legacy of Islam and the Middle East is in danger of being airbrushed out of Western history, its traces can still be detected in some of Europe's most recognisable monuments, from Notre-Dame to St Paul's Cathedral. In this comprehensively illustrated book, Diana Darke sets out to redress the balance, revealing the Arab and Islamic roots of Europe's architectural heritage. She tracks the transmission of key innovations from the great capitals of Islam's early empires, Damascus and Baghdad, via Muslim Spain and Sicily into Europe. Medieval crusaders, pilgrims and merchants from Europe later encountered Arab Muslim culture in journeys to the Holy Land. In more recent centuries, that same route through modern-day Turkey connected Ottoman culture with the West, leading Sir Christopher Wren himself to believe that Gothic architecture should more rightly be called 'the Saracen style', because of its Islamic origins. Recovering this overlooked story within the West's long history of borrowing from the Islamic world, Darke sheds new light on Europe's buildings and offers rich insights into the possibilities of cultural exchange.

An Outline of European Architecture

An Outline of European Architecture PDF Author: Nikolaus Pevsner
Publisher: Baltimore, Penguin
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 762

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Book Description


European Art of the Fifteenth Century

European Art of the Fifteenth Century PDF Author: Stefano Zuffi
Publisher: Getty Publications
ISBN: 9780892368310
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
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.

Modern Architecture

Modern Architecture PDF Author: Alan Colquhoun
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191592641
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
This new account of international modernism explores the complex motivations behind this revolutionary movement and assesses its triumphs and failures. The work of the main architects of the movement such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Adolf Loos, Le Corbusier, and Mies van der Rohe is re-examined shedding new light on their roles as acknowledged masters. Alan Colquhoun explores the evolution of the movement fron Art Nouveau in the 1890s to the megastructures of the 1960s, revealing the often contradictory demands of form, function, social engagement, modernity and tradition.

Renaissance Gothic

Renaissance Gothic PDF Author: Ethan Matt Kavaler
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780300167924
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
This compelling book offers a new paradigm for the periodization of the arts, one that counters a prevailing Italianate bias among historians of northern Europe of this era. The years after 1500 brought the construction of several iconic Late Gothic monuments, including the transept facades of Beauvais cathedral in northern France, much of King's College in Cambridge, England, and the parish church at Annaberg in Saxony. Most designers and patrons preferred this elite Gothic style, which was considered fashionable and highly refined, to alternative Italianate styles. Ethan Matt Kavaler connects Gothic architecture to related developments in painting and other media, and considers the consequences of the breakdown of the Gothic system in the early 16th century. Late Gothic architecture is recognized for its sensuous and abundant ornament. Its visually rich surfaces signify wealth and magnificence, and its flamboyant geometric designs portray a system of perfect and essential forms that convey spiritual authority, while often serving as signs of personal or corporate identity. Renaissance Gothic presents a groundbreaking and detailed study of the Gothic architecture of the late 15th and 16th centuries across Europe.

Art That Changed the World

Art That Changed the World PDF Author: DK
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1465421203
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
Experience the uplifting power of art on this breathtaking visual tour of 2,500 paintings and sculptures created by more than 700 artists from Michelangelo to Damien Hirst. This beautiful book brings you the very best of world art from cave paintings to Neoexpressionism. Enjoy iconic must-see works, such as Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper and Monet's Waterlilies and discover less familiar artists and genres from all parts of the globe. Art That Changed the World covers the full sweep of world art, including the Ming era in China, and Japanese, Hindu, and Indigenous Australian art. It analyses recurring themes such as love and religion, explaining key genres from Romanesque to Conceptual art. Art That Changed the World explores each artist's key works and vision, showing details of their technique, such as Leonardo's use of light and shade. It tells the story of avant-garde works like Manet's Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe (Lunch on the Grass), which scandalized society, and traces how one genre informed another - showing how the Impressionists were inspired by Gustave Courbet, for example, and how Van Gogh was influenced by Japanese prints. Lavishly illustrated throughout, look no further for your essential guide to the pantheon of world art.

The Art and Architecture of Islam 1250-1800

The Art and Architecture of Islam 1250-1800 PDF Author: Sheila S. Blair
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300064650
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
They discuss, for example, how the universal caliphs of the first six centuries gave way to regional rulers and how, in this new world order, Iranian forms, techniques, and motifs played a dominant role in the artistic life of most of the Muslim world; the one exception was the Maghrib, an area protected from the full brunt of the Mongol invasions, where traditional models continued to inspire artists and patrons. By the sixteenth century, say the authors, the eastern Mediterranean under the Ottomans and the area of northern India under the Mughals had become more powerful, and the Iranian models of early Ottoman and Mughal art gradually gave way to distinct regional and imperial styles.

Architectural Styles

Architectural Styles PDF Author: Owen Hopkins
Publisher: Laurence King Publishing
ISBN: 1780676387
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
Have you ever wondered what the difference is between Gothic and Gothic Revival, or how to distinguish between Baroque and Neoclassical? This guide makes extensive use of photographs to identify and explain the characteristic features of nearly 300 buildings. The result is a clear and easy-to-navigate guide to identifying the key styles of western architecture from the classical age to the present day.

Art and Architecture of the Middle Ages

Art and Architecture of the Middle Ages PDF Author: Jill Caskey
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781501702822
Category : Architecture, Medieval
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
"Dismantles the religious, political, and geographic walls that have separated medieval art and architecture and treats not only western Europe but also the Byzantine Empire and the Islamicate world from ca. 200 CE to ca. 1450 CE. Includes a wide variety of art forms, from large architectural complexes to small amulets printed on paper"--