We know precious little about the painter’s life, and we know even less about his work’s meaning. A new book argues that the artist wanted it that way.
Renaissance
Posted inIn Brief
Raphael’s Tapestries Unite at Sistine Chapel for the First Time Since the Renaissance
The tapestries — made out of silk, wool, and gold and silver thread — have been restored over the past decade by conservationists at the Vatican Museum.
Posted inBooks
Living in a Renaissance Palace, an Art Historian Uncovers an Amazing Past
When an unexpected opportunity arose to spend her year living in the famed Palazzo Rucellai, Allison Levy seized on it.
Posted inArt
Gucci Runway Show Borrowed Beasts and Beheadings from Renaissance Art
Alessandro Michele, Gucci’s creative director, is obsessed with Renaissance art.
Posted inArt
Measuring the Worth of Renaissance Art in Cows
Relative Values: The Cost of Art in the Northern Renaissance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art uses the cost of a cow to consider the worth of 16th-century objects.
Posted inArt
Luxurious, Terrifying Visions of Death in Renaissance Memento Mori
The Bowdoin College Museum of Art is exhibiting memento mori objects from Renaissance Europe, often grotesquely designed to startle viewers into recognizing mortality.
Posted inArt
Sin Like It’s the 16th Century in a Game that Remixes Renaissance Art
Forgive me, for I have sinned. I peeped at a lady’s ankle through an open window and carved an idol in my own image.
Posted inArt
Discovering the Secrets of Venetian Glass
The finest glassware of the Renaissance was made by artisans on the Murano island in Venice, and their techniques were intensely guarded.
Posted inArt
The Evolution of the Watermelon, Captured in Still Lifes
The watermelons of our summers are not the watermelons of yesteryear, as demonstrated by a 17th-century painting by Italian artist Giovanni Stanchi.
Posted inArt
The Meaning of the Ring, from Memento Mori to Marriage
Rings are one of the most personal and oldest human adornments, evolving in complexity with metalwork techniques and the gemstone trade.
Posted inBooks
At the Morgan, a Master’s Minuscule Manuscripts
The Morgan Library & Museum over the last few years has added some small wonders to its collections, and now for the first time a sampling of these miniature books is on public view. Opened last month, Miracles in Miniature: The Art of the Master of Claude de France celebrates one of the last greats of the illuminated manuscript — who happened to work at a doll-size scale.
Posted inBooks
Renaissance Art of the End Times Revealed in Rediscovered Apocalyptic Book
In 1533, hundreds of dragons were reported to darken the skies over Bohemia, following a 1506 sighting of a blinding bright comet slicing over the sky. Were these foreboding occurrences signs of the apocalypse, or just a lot of Renaissance hearsay?