Artistic Theory in Italy, 1450-1600

by Anthony Blunt

Hardcover, 1940

Status

Available

Publication

Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1940.

Description

This book seeks to broaden the comprehension of the student of Italian Renaissance painting by concentrating not on the works of art themselves, but on the various artistic theories which influenced them or were expressed by them. Taking Alberti's treatises as his starting-point, Anthony Blunt traces the development of artistic theory from Humanism to Mannerism. He discusses the writings of Leonardo, Savonarola, Michelangelo, and Vasari, examines the effect of the Council of Trent onreligious art, and chronicles the successful struggle of the painters and sculptors themselves to elevate their status from craftsmen to creative artists.

User reviews

LibraryThing member mattmcg
By all means this is the most awful book on artistic theory I've found. It's packed with hoary old long-discredited generalizations about the medieval and renaissance worldviews. The man was a raving ignoramus. It's positively painful reading.

It's no coincidence, perhaps, that the author, a
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sometime art historian to Queen Elizabeth, was also a spy for the Soviet union throughout World War II and much of the Cold War. His knighthood was stripped in 1979.

Thus, Anthony Blunt was not only a master of the bone-headed cliché, he was also a lousy art historian, and a mincing little commie, to boot. He gets half a star, however, for not writing in crayon.
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LibraryThing member Nicole_VanK
The book is mediocre, and I'm being kind now. Unlike my esteemed fellow reviewer, I don't see how him having been a spy has any bearing on that though.

Language

Local notes

Robert Motherwell's copy with his ownership signature, NYC 1941
non-circulating
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