Looking at Italian Renaissance Sculpture offers provocative insights into Italian Renaissance sculpture.

Italian art, starting with its origins in the Middle Ages, has developed by the multiplicity of its artists and in the autonomy of its styles that for centuries now have been a constant point of reference for the whole Western World. This magnificent volume, illustrated with nearly 500 works of art, presents a portfolio of the artists who best represent the genesis and development of art in Italy from the twelfth to the nineteenth centuries. With clear and concise narrative, each historical period is brought to life in a way which will both enlighten and entertain the reader. Biographies of the artists featured add an extra dimension to the book.

"The collection of Italian medieval sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Cloisters began with the acquisition in 1908 of a Romanesque column statue; today the Museum's holdings comprise more than seventy works dating from the ninth to the late fifteenth century ... The birthplaces of these works range from Sicily to Venice; some typify local styles, others illustrate the intense artistic exchanges taking place within Italy and between Italy and the wider world ... Technological advances of the last decades have made it possible to determine more precisely the materials and techniques from which works of art are made, the history of their alteration, and the mechanisms of their deterioration. Using such techniques, scholars have been able to ascertain, for example, that sculptures previously thought to be modern works carved in the medieval manner were in fact completely authentic. This innovative volume represents a watershed in the study of sculpture: a collaborative dialogue between an art historian and a conservator—between art history and art science—that deepens our understanding of the object we see, while illuminating its elusive, enigmatic history"--From publisher's description.

From the WORLD OF ART series, a survey of the artistic achievements of the Renaissance sculptors from Nicola Pisano through Brunelleschi and Donatello to Michelangelo and Cellini.

Text on the latest research. While his central focus is on the work of Donatello, he also illuminates the beginnings of Renaissance sculpture in Florence, its further development in Tuscany and the rest of Italy, the new artistic goals and their theoretical formulation, and the relationships between patron and artist, convention and artistic freedom. The invaluable documentary section includes all the work of Donatello, as well as that of Ghiberti. Other important.

Frame Work explores how framing devices in the art of Renaissance Italy respond, and appeal, to viewers in their social, religious, and political context.

Fifteenth-century Italy witnessed sweeping innovations in the art of sculpture. Sculptors rediscovered new types of images from classical antiquity and invented new ones, devised novel ways to finish surfaces, and pushed the limits of their materials to new expressive extremes. The Art of Sculpture in Fifteenth-Century Italy surveys the sculptural production created by a range of artists throughout the peninsula. It offers a comprehensive overview of Italian sculpture during a century of intense creativity and development. Here, nineteen historians of Quattrocento Italian sculpture chart the many competing forces that led makers, patrons, and viewers to invest sculpture with such heightened importance in this time and place. Methodologically wide-ranging, the essays, specially commissioned for this volume, explore the vast range of techniques and media (stone, metal, wood, terracotta, and stucco) used to fashion works of sculpture. They also examine how viewers encountered those objects, discuss varying approaches to narrative, and ponder the increasing contemporary interest in the relationship between sculpture and history.

This volume explores how Italian institutions, dealers, critics, and artists constructed a modern national identity for Italy by exporting – literally and figuratively – contemporary art to the United States in key moments between 1929 and 1969. From artist Fortunato Depero opening his Futurist House in New York City to critic Germano Celant launching Arte Povera in the United States, Raffaele Bedarida examines the thick web of individuals and cultural environments beyond the two more canonical movements that shaped this project. By interrogating standard narratives of Italian Fascist propaganda on the one hand and American Cold War imperialism on the other, this book establishes a more nuanced transnational approach. The central thesis is that, beyond the immediate aims of political propaganda and conquering a new market for Italian art, these art exhibitions, publications, and the critical discourse aimed at American audiences all reflected back on their makers: they forced and helped Italians define their own modernity in relation to the world’s new dominant cultural and economic power. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, social history, exhibition history, and Italian studies.