Product Description

Few artists of the fifteenth century are as revered today as Piero della Francesca (c.1413-92). The 'favourite artist' of many painters and sculptors of our own time, he is admired especially for the balance of his compositions, the geometric perfection of his forms and the emotional coolness of his style. The secret of these qualities lies in part in Piero's achievements as a mathematician - one of the greatest of his age who wrote three treatises on the subject. Yet most of his paintings were commissioned to serve a religious function and were appreciated by his contemporaries for their spiritual value.

In this comprehensive survey, which benefits from superlative new photography of recently cleaned frescos, Marilyn Aronberg Lavin offers detailed analyses of all of Piero's surviving works. Situating his paintings within the context of early Renaissance art, religion and politics, she skilfully links past and present to offer an understanding of the artist's timeless appeal.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #447032 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

From Library Journal
Known for his sculptural use of light, Piero della Francesca created works that are a perfect confluence of the underpinnings of the RenaissanceAby someone who helped invent it. Calvesi presents up-to-date scholarship in the reassessment of Piero based on recent archive discoveries and restorations of paintings, including the Arezzo Frescoes. He provides careful descriptive analysis of the major works with attention to biography and development, achievement, historical circumstance, philosophy, and influences on and by the artist. The second section contains full color plates and is insightful for its portrayal of iconographic images in such works as the "Misericordia Polyptych," reproducing this important work in its entirety. The catalog of works preceding the final extensive bibliography illustrates each painting in black and white with references to previous scholarship and description of the condition of each piece. This beautiful, inviting book should appeal to Renaissance scholars and students of Italian art; recommended for special, research, and large public collections.AEllen Bates, New York
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Language Notes
Text: English, French, German, Italian

About the Author
Marilyn Aronberg Lavin is a well-known and respected scholar who has written and taught extensively on Piero della Francesca and the history of fresco painting. She has been a professor at Princeton University since 1975. Her publications include Piero della Francesca: The Flagellation (rev edn 1990), Piero della Francesca's Baptism of Christ (1981), The Place of Narrative: Mural Decoration in Italian Churches 431 - 1600 (1994) and Piero della Francesca: San Francesco, Arezzo (1996). Author's residence: Princeton, New Jersey, USA

Customer Reviews

A lavish treatment of a fascinating painter
Piero's ouevre has never seen such handsome representation in book form. Razor-sharp, large-format illustrations, including details printed at full-bleed on forearm-wide pages, permit intimate inspection of works which even in person can sometimes only be viewed distantly in dim church-light.

Quibbles include some tenuous conjectures about the development of the artist's thinking (which, if the author is taken at face value, includes the Zohar). It's too bad that more progress hadn't been made on the newly-restored Arezzo frescoes at the time of publication. But these aside, this is as definitive and gorgeous of a presentation of Piero as one could fairly ask for. Simply a beautiful book.

Rich in text
This book seems to be more for reading than for looking at the art.
While I can't argue with the other reviewers about the writing quality (which they love, and I have yet to get into) I wish there were more images... and more close-ups, to study brushwork (for artists' sake).
At any rate, to be fair, obviously this is not the goal of the author, so oh well... maybe I'll appreciate it more as time goes on.