Luxury Arts Of The Renaissance

Издательство: J. Paul Getty Museum
Страниц: 280

Book DescriptionToday we associate Renaissance arts with painting, sculpture, and architecture. Yet gem-studded goldwork and richly embellished armor; splendid tapestries, embroideries, and textiles; ephemeral multimedia spectacles; and other opulent creations were consistently more celebrated by contemporaries. Thus, Isabella d'Este, Marchesa of Mantua, bequeathed to her children vases of semiprecious stones mounted in gold, engraved gems, ivories, antique bronzes, and marbles. Her favorite ladies-in-waiting, by contrast, received mere paintings! This distribution underscores Renaissance aesthetic preferences and cultural values: finely-wrought luxury artifacts were extolled for their exquisite craftsmanship and the symbolic capital of their components, while paintings and sculptures in modest materials were considered of lesser consequence. Luxury Arts of the Renaissance endeavors to return to the mainstream materials long overlooked due to historical and ideological biases. The...