Product Description

Piero della Francesca, one of the greatest painters of the fifteenth century, was also an accomplished mathematician. This book—the first combined study of Piero’s work as a mathematician and as a painter—explores the connections between these two activities and thus enhances our understanding of both his paintings and his writings.

J. V. Field begins by describing Piero’s education, family background, and training as a painter. The book then examines the strong sense of three-dimensional form shown in his art and the abstract solid geometry discussed in his writings. Field next considers Piero’s treatise on perspective and paintings that exemplify the prescriptions it provides and assesses the optical or pictorial “rules” Piero followed as a painter. Piero is identified as a figure of some intellectual weight—as a learned craftsman. The book concludes by considering the historical significance of the tradition to which he belonged and its connections with the Scientific Revolution.

J. V. Field is honorary visiting research fellow at Birkbeck College, University of London.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1041831 in Books
• Published on: 2005-08-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

About the Author

Customer Reviews

Serene or Stolid? Otherworldly or Dehumanized?
There's usually no mistaking a painting or fresco by Piero della Francesca for the work of any other artist of the Italian Renaissance. The absolute stillness and monumentality of his figures, erect and impassive, must strike the viewer as either strangely intentional or curiously inept. Often one makes a journey from the latter to the former perception as one stares for any length of time at the real thing, the frescos intact in their church-architectural context. Or perhaps another impresson will develop, of Piero as a precursor of such modern impersonalized, monumental figure painters as the Italian Futurists, or Botero, or Diego Rivera.

Piero, like Leonardo, was no simple guild craftsman. Rather he was a subtle mathematician, whose comprehension of perspective in painting was surely based on his manipulation of numbers. This interesting book, with some 32 color plates, turns the tools of historical scholarship on the interactive of Piero's mathematical humanism with his identity as a painter of religious iconography. There are many more of Piero's paintings to look at than of Leonardo's, and if anything the hidden codes - both the iconography and the clues about his patrons and their desires - are more baffling. This might be the kind of book to read in preparation for your next trip to Italy, if ever the dollar returns to a level to make such a project feasible.

Historian Carlo Ginzburg - author of The Worm and the Cheese - has written an even more stimulating "detective-novel" biography of Piero, "The Enigma of Piero", but it has no comparable color plates.

A Mathematician's Art
It is quite amazing to stop and consider that in today's world almost anything - and I mean literally anything - if marketed properly and able to be sold for profit in a gallery (regardless of quality or creator's intelligence) is too often pawned off as fine art. Once sold those one trick ponies are ultimately meaningless, and worthless.

There was a time when art meant something. Having either a context of social or political meaning, an item of spirituality and beauty or even ugliness, art once stood for solid ideological principles which could always be backed by the creator's talent of hand, eye, and certainly mind. One of the greatest artists of the early Italian Renaissance, an accomplished mathematician, Piero della Francesca painted religious works that are marked by their simple serenity and clarity and by the pure virtue of his genius; he certainly ranks among one of the greatest men who ever created fine art.

Often in great works there are interesting connections between mathematics and art and Piero della Francesca - A Mathematician's Art clearly outlines that the work of della Francesca shows no exception to that connection. The book leaves the reader with an enhanced and enlightened understanding of his paintings and writings. A painter of the fifteenth century, della Francesca`s skills and talents are explored in this the first combined study of his career as both a mathematician, and as a painter.

Author J. V. Field is an honorary visiting research fellow at Birkbeck College, University of London. Field has done a stunning job of describing della Francesca's background as well as the artists interests and constant ability to create outstanding works of lasting artistic significance. Field goes in-depth into della Francesca's training as an artist and examines the powerful sense of his 3D forms, his abstraction abilities, and the often-solid geometry of his writings. Field also outlines della Francesca's treatise on perspective and paintings examining the all-important optical "rules" the artist followed in his pictorial placement.

The book concludes with an important consideration of the historical significance of della Francesca's tradition and connections to the Scientific Revolution. Through the art and Field's text Piero della Francesca is rightfully described as a man of intellectual strength. The book at 420 pages is beautifully illustrated with 32 color illustrations and 50 black and white.

Highly recommended.