Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence - Softcover

Campbell, Thomas P.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 030020020X ISBN 13: 9780300200201

Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013

Synopsis

Tapestries were a principal aspect of the ostentatious "magnificence" used during the Renaissance by powerful religious and secular rulers to broadcast their wealth and their might. This sumptuously illustrated book presents the first major survey of tapestry production between 1460 and 1560, and it catalogues the first monographic loan exhibition of tapestries in the United States in twenty-five years. It highlights the finest tapestry cycles of the age as one of the greatest achievements of Renaissance art. Examples from many of the most important surviving set―which still dazzle today as they did five hundred years ago in the palaces and cathedrals of Europe―illustrate the contribution that the medium made to the art, liturgy, and propaganda of the time.

This study focuses on the stylistic evolution of tapestry design in the Netherlands beginning with the development by Netherlandish designers in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries of an aesthetic that emphasized narrative and decorative qualities. During the 1510s, 1520s, and 1530s, commissions by Pope Leo X and other Italian patrons resulted in the dispatch of tapestry cartoons by Italian artists―notably Raphael and his assistants―to Brussels, the main center of high-quality production, thus introducing Roman High Renaissance aesthetics to Northern tapestry design. Thereafter, Netherlandish artists like Bernaert van Orley and his followers melded this Italian influence with their local traditions of tapestry design to produce a rich aesthetic that was ideally suited to the medium. Smaller centers of tapestry production are also examined―particularly those set up under princely patronage in France (Fontainebleau) and Italy (Ferrara, Mantua, and Florence). Unrestrained by established practices of Netherlandish production, such artists as Tura, Mantegna, Bramantino, Bronzino, and Salviati invariably created tapestry designs that were much closer to the spirit of the Italian Renaissance than to those of their Northern counterparts. The strengths and distinctions of those contemporaneous developments and the cross-fertilization of ideas between northern Europe and Italy are fully explored in detailed essays and catalogue entries.

The secondary theme of this study is the important role that tapestry played in ceremonial and daily life and the extent to which the medium reflected the personal tastes and aspirations of its patrons. This book explores the circumstances in which these enormous works of art were conceived and the complex relationships that existed between contemporary patrons, the rich merchants who bankrolled the industry, and the artists and craftsmen who designed and wove the tapestries.

Many of the great tapestry cycles of the period are widely dispersed and challenging to photograph and thus little known outside a small scholarly community. In this book, the technical and artistic brilliance of these beautiful tapestries is illustrated in specially commissioned color photographs and detailed shots that reproduce them with a new vividness and immediacy. [This book was originally published in 2002 and has gone out of print. This edition is a print-on-demand version of the original book.] 

About this title

Review:

Often slighted by art historians, tapestries were actually the most widely commissioned figurative art form in Europe in the 1500s. In Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence, Thomas P. Campbell and other scholarly contributors survey the elaborate woven hangings produced primarily by Flemish workshops for the palaces and cathedrals of Italy and Northern Europe. The authors discuss the designers' careers, patrons' motives, symbolic meanings of the imagery, and stylistic features unique to the labor-intensive medium. Initially, the need to lessen skilled weavers' workloads led designers to arrange elaborately costumed figures in manageable rows. Raphael's cartoons (full-size drawings) for the monumental "Acts of the Apostles" tapestries, commissioned by Pope Leo X, moved the art form into a new era. Flemish designers incorporated Raphael's spatially persuasive treatment of the figure into sophisticated narratives full of anecdotal detail. The 250 color photographs, specially commissioned for this catalog for an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum in spring 2002, vividly illuminate the technical brilliance of these works. --Cathy Curtis

From the Publisher:

This exquisite book is the catalogue for an exhibition to be held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from March 14 to June 19, 2002.

About this edition

• Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 030020020X
• ISBN 13: 9780300200201
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 604