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.On Painting (Classics)
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by: Leon Battista Alberti

February 28, 1991
This is effectively a textbook for Renaissance artists. It is split into three sections, the first dealing predominantly with issues of composition and perspective, the second with light and shade, colour and the artist's duty to his art and his public, and the third predominantly with what qualities one must bring to the job of being an artist.

If you are only loosely interested in art as a pragmatic practice, and you don't have some mathematical knowledge which will steer you through the first section it may be rather impenetrable in places. I am one of these people and found myself really struggling with the first section.

It is however fascinating as a glimpse into the mindset of a humanist scholar and as someone ... Read More:
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.Art in Renaissance Italy
City Travel Guides > Books > Bestsellers
by: John T. Paolettii, Gary M. Radke

August 01, 2005
Anyone interested in Renaissance Italian Art should buy this book! It really is wonderful value because it has the clearest explanations that one could wish for. This is where the authors score, because every page is interesting and the short detours into perspective, the way frescoes were executed, bronzes cast, cathedrals planned etc., etc are fascinating.
The illustrations are consistently of the highest quality, many of them full page and in colour.You can return to this book time after time as something to be read for pleasure, and I commend the authors for their consistent clarity of exposition.
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.Palladio and Palladianism (World of Art)
City Travel Guides > Books > Bestsellers
by: Robert Tavernor

April 02, 1991
Andrea Palladio, probably the most famous architect in the western world, stands at the beginning of the movement called Palladianism. So successful was the Palladian formula that it was consciously revived outside of Italy and in other times, first by Inigo Jones at the court of Charles I in the early 17th century, by Colen Campbell and Lord Burlington in the early 18th century, and by Thomas Jefferson and others in the New World. In each case, what was appealing about Palladianism was more than a matter of style: it was the fact that it expressed a way of life and a humanist philosophy, deriving ultimately from ancient Rome but enriched by the thinkers of the Renaissance and the Augustan Age.

Sir John Summerson, reviewing the ... Read More:
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.The Da Vinci Notebooks
City Travel Guides > Books > Bestsellers
by: Leonardo da Vinci

August 04, 2005
I read and loved the Da Vinci Code and then saw this book in a bookshop. The Da Vinci Code had really fuelled my interest in Da Vinci so I immediatly bought it. I found it to be stimulating and informative. It is remarkable to see what went on in the mind of a genius!
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.The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance (World of Art)
City Travel Guides > Books > Bestsellers
by: Peter Murray

1969-11
I have many books on the Italian Renaissance (60+) and this ranks near the top. Concise, authoritative and with innumerable insights not found in many much longer and more expensive books.

Cannot recommend it too highly. I have immediately ordered the companion volume on art in the renaissance.

Buy it.
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.Giotto to Durer: Early Renaissance Painting in The National Gallery: Early European Painting in the National Gallery (National Gallery of London (Paperback))
City Travel Guides > Books > Bestsellers
by: J Dunkerton

July 01, 1991
This is a beautiful, sumptuous book, crammed with detail and excellent colour reproductions. Other readers mightn't go for all the technical information but I can't get enough of it. I also prefer the discussions of individual works which occupy a large part of this volume -- its companion, 'Dürer to Veronese', takes a more synoptic view, which tends to obscure the fact that these are surveys of a collection.

That's my only quibble, and it isn't really with the book, which is about as accomplished at it could be -- so good, in fact, that it's tempting to read it as a textbook of the whole period. Much of the material is of general relevance, of course; but don't forget that many of the major works from this period aren't in galleries at ... Read More:
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.The Lives of the Artists (Oxford World's Classics)
City Travel Guides > Books > Bestsellers
by: Giorgio Vasari

August 14, 2008
This is a beautiful, sumptuous book, crammed with detail and excellent colour reproductions. Other readers mightn't go for all the technical information but I can't get enough of it. I also prefer the discussions of individual works which occupy a large part of this volume -- its companion, 'Dürer to Veronese', takes a more synoptic view, which tends to obscure the fact that these are surveys of a collection.

That's my only quibble, and it isn't really with the book, which is about as accomplished at it could be -- so good, in fact, that it's tempting to read it as a textbook of the whole period. Much of the material is of general relevance, of course; but don't forget that many of the major works from this period aren't in galleries at ... Read More:
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.The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry (Oxford World's Classics)
City Travel Guides > Books > Bestsellers
by: Walter Pater

July 02, 1998
With this slim collection of essays, Walter Pater defined the scope of British Aestheticism. It was described by Oscar Wilde as 'my golden book, the very flower of decadence', and it profoundly influenced his aesthetics as well as those of Arthur Symons, Yeats, etc. Having said this, it's well to remember that Pater is no Wilde: his spidery sentences often confound the senses first time round and one may give up amidst the, perhaps, unfamiliar textures of Ancient philosophy and Renaissance art. This is not for the faint-hearted. It is difficult in style and aesthetic philosophy, but stick with him! It is a pity that people only really seem to come to Pater out of compulsion, forced by undergraduate courses, because Pater is not only speaking of dry ... Read More:
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.Northern Renaissance Art (Oxford History of Art)
City Travel Guides > Books > Bestsellers
by: Susie Nash

2008-11
With this slim collection of essays, Walter Pater defined the scope of British Aestheticism. It was described by Oscar Wilde as 'my golden book, the very flower of decadence', and it profoundly influenced his aesthetics as well as those of Arthur Symons, Yeats, etc. Having said this, it's well to remember that Pater is no Wilde: his spidery sentences often confound the senses first time round and one may give up amidst the, perhaps, unfamiliar textures of Ancient philosophy and Renaissance art. This is not for the faint-hearted. It is difficult in style and aesthetic philosophy, but stick with him! It is a pity that people only really seem to come to Pater out of compulsion, forced by undergraduate courses, because Pater is not only speaking of dry ... Read More:
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.Leonardo (Taschen 25th Anniversary)
City Travel Guides > Books > Bestsellers
by: Frank Zollner, Johannes Nathan

October 05, 2007
With this slim collection of essays, Walter Pater defined the scope of British Aestheticism. It was described by Oscar Wilde as 'my golden book, the very flower of decadence', and it profoundly influenced his aesthetics as well as those of Arthur Symons, Yeats, etc. Having said this, it's well to remember that Pater is no Wilde: his spidery sentences often confound the senses first time round and one may give up amidst the, perhaps, unfamiliar textures of Ancient philosophy and Renaissance art. This is not for the faint-hearted. It is difficult in style and aesthetic philosophy, but stick with him! It is a pity that people only really seem to come to Pater out of compulsion, forced by undergraduate courses, because Pater is not only speaking of dry ... Read More:
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