Raphael and the Redefinition of Art in Renaissance Italy

A comprehensive re-assessment of Raphael's artistic achievement and the ways in which it transformed the idea of what art is.

Robert Williams (Author)

9781107131507, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 April 2017

314 pages, 111 b/w illus.
28.7 x 22.3 x 1.8 cm, 1.1 kg

'… Williams's book is both monumental and important … [his] account of Raphael is stimulating and challenging … this is an important volume and one that will make Williams's voice heard for generations to come.' Christopher J. Nygren, Contemporaneity

Raphael was one of the most important artists of the Italian Renaissance and one of the most important and influential in the entire history of art. His practice of 'synthetic' or 'critical' imitation became a model of creative method; his engagement with the principle of decorum revealed its deeper expressive and philosophical significance and the operation of his workshop helped to redefine the nature of the work that artists do. Robert Williams draws upon the history of literature, philosophy, and religion, as well as upon economic history, to support his detailed and illuminating accounts of Raphael's major works. His analyses serve as the foundation for a set of hypotheses about the aims and aspirations of Italian Renaissance art in general and the nature of art-historical inquiry.

1. Universa pingendi ratio
2. The systematicity of representation
3. The rationalization of labor.

Subject Areas: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], Biography: historical, political & military [BGH], Biography: arts & entertainment [BGF], Individual artists, art monographs [AGB], Renaissance art [ACND]