The Portrait in the Renaissance (Bollingen Series) - Hardcover

John Pope-Hennessy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 069109795X ISBN 13: 9780691097954

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1979

Synopsis

This major work by one of the twentieth century's most eminent art historians is available again in paperback through Princeton University Press. Here John Pope-Hennessy takes as his subject two centuries of experiment in portraiture during the Renaissance. He shows how the Renaissance cult of individuality brought with it a demand that the features of the individual be perpetuated. This concept was first manifested in the portraits that fill the great Florentine fresco cycles and led, later in the fifteenth century, to the creation of the independent portrait by such artists as Botticelli, Antonio Pollaiuolo, Giovanni Bellini, and Antonello da Messina. The author goes on to describe the process by which Titian and the great artists of the High Renaissance transformed the portrait from a record of appearance into an analysis of character.

About this title

About the Author

John Pope-Hennessy (1913-1994) was Consultative Chairman of the Department of European Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Professor of Fine Arts at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. He had also been Slade Professor of Fine Art at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

Review

"[An] elegant, erudite, and very readable book.... By concentrating on the stylistic morphology of the portrait and [by] drawing on the whole range of spiritual, cultural, and aesthetic forces that determined its development in these glorious centuries, Mr. Pope-Hennessy is able to show us these artists in a fresh light.... [The] book is animated by an admirable intelligence and a fine clarity."---Hilton Kramer, The New York Times Book Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1979
• ISBN 10: 069109795X
• ISBN 13: 9780691097954
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 382