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.
renaissance
From Leonardo’s abandoned Adoration of the Magi from 1482, his development of pyramidal form in composition influenced Raphael and many others.
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.
For over a century, Italian painters had strived to achieve coherent perspective projection, but it was until about 1420 that this was achieved. How essential was it?
Considers what exactly changed in painting in the Renaissance, and when we can establish as those dates, compared with literature, for example.
How the Tuscan city of Florence came to provide the right conditions for the Renaissance during the 14th century.
First in a new series looking at Renaissance painting from Italy, centred on Florence, shows some of the masterpieces of the ‘gap’ before the Gothic.
