Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy

Description

This book is both an introduction to fifteenth century Italian painting, and a primer in how to read social history out of the style of pictures. It examines the commercial practice of the early Renaissance picture trade in contracts, letters, and accounts; and it explains how the visual skills and habits evolved in the daily life of any society enter into its painters’ style.

Renaissance painting is related for instance to experience of such activities as preaching, dancing and gauging barrels. Sixteen concepts used by a contemporary critic of painting are defined and illustrated, and in this way a basic fifteenth-century equipment for looking at pictures is assembled.

Michael Baxandall is Lecturer in Renaissance Studies at the Warburg Institute, University of London; and author of Giotto and the Orators (Clarendon Press, 1971).