Rethinking the Renaissance
Burgundian Arts across Europe

This study re-establishes the importance of the Burgundian court as a center of art production and patronage in early modern Europe.

Marina Belozerskaya (Author)

9781107605442, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 26 March 2012

384 pages, 87 b/w illus. 25 colour illus.
25.9 x 17.8 x 2.4 cm, 0.92 kg

Review of the hardback: 'This book is both original and thought-provoking in its approach to one of the most popular periods in European history.' Burlington Magazine

In this study, Marina Belozerskaya re-establishes the importance of the Burgundian court as a center of art production and patronage in early modern Europe. Beginning with a historiographical and theoretical overview, she offers an analysis of contemporary documents and patterns of patronage, demonstrating that Renaissance tastes were formed through a fusion of international currents and art works in a variety of media. Among the most prestigious were those emanating out of the Burgundian court, which embodied prevailing contemporary values: magnificence in appearance, ceremony and surroundings, chivalry inspired by Greco-Roman antiquity, and power manifested through ingenious ensembles of luxury arts. The potency of this 'Burgundian mode' fostered a pan-European demand for its arts and their creators, with rulers in England, Germany, Spain and Italy itself eagerly acquiring Burgundian art works. This interdisciplinary study of the Burgundian arts provides a new paradigm for further inquiry into the pluralism and cosmopolitanism of the Renaissance.

1. The legacy of Vasari
2. Through fifteenth-century eyes: the Burgundian dukes on the international arena
3. Perceiving value: the hierarchy of the arts and their uses
4. The politics of desire: Burgundian arts across Europe
5. Economics of consumption: art for the masses.

Subject Areas: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], European history [HBJD], Art forms [AF]