A Companion to Renaissance and Baroque Art

Through the masterpieces produced by artists ranging from Michelangelo and Leonardo to Rembrandt, Rubens, and Vermeer, Europe’s Renaissance and Baroque period grew into one of the most creative times in world history. A Companion to Renaissance and Baroque Art presents a comprehensive collection of interdisciplinary essays that address major aspects of European visual arts produced from approximately 1300 to 1700, a period of artistic flourishing that many consider the beginning of modern history. These essays, however, transcend the traditional period labels of “Renaissance” and “Baroque” by addressing works from Duccio and Chaucer to Velazquez and Newton as a single continuum, inclusive in terms of both disciplinary and geographical boundaries, as an era best characterized as “early modern.” Featuring original contributions by an international roster of scholars from various disciplines, writings are grouped by concept in five sections that spotlight the varied components and processes that constitute the world of the visual arts and the variety of interpretive methods and ideas that can be, and have been, brought to bear on art objects. Essays explore how art interacts with the cultural paradigms of this explosive time: the interface between art and religion, art and science, and gender and sexuality to name a few. Combining an unprecedented breadth of coverage and depth of scholarship with lucid and accessible writing, A Companion to Renaissance and Baroque Art represents the most comprehensive reference on the study of Renaissance and Baroque visual arts available today.

Preface/Acknowledgments Introduction Babette Bohn and James M. Saslow, Co–Editors Part 1.  The Context: Social–Historical Factors in Artistic Production 1. A Taxonomy of Art Patronage in Renaissance Italy Sheryl Reiss 2. Judaism and the Arts in Early Modern Europe: Jewish and Christian Encounters Shelley Perlove 3. Religion, Politics and Art in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy Julia I. Miller 4. Europe′s Global Vision Larry Silver 5. Italian Art and the North: Exchanges, Critical Reception, and Identity, 1400–1700 Amy Golahny 6. The Desiring Eye: Gender, Sexuality, and Visual Art James M. Saslow Part 2.  The Artist: Creative Process and Social Stature 7. The Artist as Genius William E. Wallace 8. Drawing in Renaissance Italy Mary Vaccaro 9. Self–portraiture 1400–1700 H. Perry Chapman 10. Recasting the Role of the Italian Sculptor: Sculptors, Patrons, Materials, and Principles for the New Early Modern Age     Elinor Richter 11. From Oxymoron to Virile Paintbrush: Women Artists in Early Modern Europe Babette Bohn Part 3.  The Object: Art as Material Culture 12. The Birth of Mass Media: Printmaking in Early Modern Europe Alison Stewart 13. The Material Culture of Family Life in Italy and Beyond Jacqueline Marie Musacchio 14. Tapestry: Luxurious Art, Collaborative Industry Koenraad Brosens   15. The New Sciences and the Visual Arts   Eileen Reeves 16. Seeing Through Renaissance and Baroque Paintings: Case Studies Claire Barry Part 4.  The Message: Subjects and Meanings 17. Iconography in Renaissance and Baroque Art Mark Zucker 18. Renaissance Landscapes: Discovering the World and Human Nature Lawrence O. Goedde 19. The Nude Figure in Renaissance Art Thomas Martin 20. Genre painting in Seventeenth–century Europe Wayne Franits 21. The Meaning of the European Painted Portrait, 1400–1650 Joanna Woods–Marsden 22. All the World′s a Stage: The Theater Conceit in Early Modern Italy Inge Reist 23. Intensity and Orthodoxy in Iberian and Hispanic Art of the Tridentine Era, 1550–1700    Marcus Burke Part 5.  The Viewer, the Critic, and the Historian: Reception and Interpretation as Cultural Discourse 24. Historians of Northern European Art: from Johann Neudörfer and Karel Van Mander to the Rembrandt Research Project Jeffrey Chipps Smith 25. Artistic Biography in Italy: Vasari to Malvasia  David Cast 26. With a Critical Eye: Painting and Theory in France, 1600–1643. The Case of Simon Vouet and Nicolas Poussin Joseph L. Forte 27. The Double Life of the Italian Piazza: Between Art Historical Monument and Social Phenomenon Niall Atkinson 28.  Building in Theory and Practice: Writing about Architecture in the Renaissance Carolyn Yerkes

Babette Bohn is Professor of Art History at Texas Christian University. Her publications include two books on Italian prints, Agostino Carracci (1995) and Italian Masters of the Sixteenth Century (1996), and two on the drawings of Ludovico Carracci (2004) and Guido Reni (2008). James M. Saslow is Professor of Art History, Theatre, and Renaissance Studies at Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. His most recent book, Pictures and Passions: A History of Homosexuality in the Visual Arts (1999), received two awards from the Lambda Literary Foundation.

“The comprehensive collection of essays addresses major aspects of European visual arts produced in 1300–1700. This book offers developments in the sphere of theory and criticism with the changing tastes, attitudes, and goals among patrons and artists.”  ( NeoPopRealism Journal , 1 August 2013) "Provides a fuller context for students to understand the confluence of ideas related to art production and allows students an opportunity to examine several examples of methodological principles behind art historical research ... Summing Up : Recommended. Lower–level undergraduates through graduate students." ( Choice , 1 September 2013)