The significance of Alberti’s textbook on painting and simplified perspective, followed by Piero’s account of perspective, and Vasari’s new history of painting.
Piero
In Florence, stories told in paintings became increasingly secular, and ingeniously integrated multiple scenes from the single story into one painting.
How rendering of the surface texture of fabrics changed during the southern Renaissance, and new techniques were exported to the north.
It was the patrons who funded, enabled, and occasionally directed the movement towards realism and secular subjects, and developed the genres.
At the start of the 15th century, Italian easel paintings used egg tempera. By the end, Leonardo da Vinci was pushing the technical boundaries using oil paint.
Atlas, who bears the heavens on his shoulders. Prometheus, who deceived Zeus and was bound by chains as punishment, an eagle eating his liver each day. Epimetheus, who married Pandora.
Scenes from Perseus and Andromeda, and Orlando Furioso, by Veronese, Moreau, Burne-Jones, Vallotton and others.
Was a primordial deity, attendant at Aphrodite’s birth, or her son by Ares/Mars? When did he get his bow and arrows? Answered in fine paintings.
The first caused war between centaurs and humans, in the second many were turned into stone, and the third caused the Trojan War
In the Renaissance, the unicorn wasn’t legendary at all, but had appeared in classical accounts of natural history. It was as real as a rhinoceros.
