The Intellectual Education of the Italian Renaissance Artist

This book explores the range of educational opportunities that were available to the Italian Renaissance artist.

Angela Dressen (Author)

9781108831321, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 2 September 2021

394 pages
25.9 x 18.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.98 kg

Scholars have traditionally viewed the Italian Renaissance artist as a gifted, but poorly educated craftsman whose complex and demanding works were created with the assistance of a more educated advisor. These assumptions are, in part, based on research that has focused primarily on the artist's social rank and workshop training. In this volume, Angela Dressen explores the range of educational opportunities that were available to the Italian Renaissance artist. Considering artistic formation within the history of education, Dressen focuses on the training of highly skilled, average artists, revealing a general level of learning that was much more substantial than has been assumed. She emphasizes the role of mediators who had a particular interest in augmenting artists' knowledge, and highlights how artists used Latin and vernacular texts to gain additional knowledge that they avidly sought. Dressen's volume brings new insights into a topic at the intersection of early modern intellectual, educational, and art history.

1. Mechanical arts versus liberal arts and recommendations for the artist's education
2. Educational places and opportunities
3. The meditating texts
4. Vitruvius and Pliny as sourcebooks, educational landmarks and intellectual challenge
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], European history [HBJD], Renaissance art [ACND], History of art & design styles: c 1400 to c 1600 [ACN]