Artistic and musical creativity thrived in the Venetian Republic between the early 16th century and the close of the 18th century. The city-state was known for its superb operas and splendid balls, and the acoustics of the architecture led to complex polyphony in musical composition. Accordingly, notable composers, including Antonio Vivaldi and Adrian Willaert, developed styles that were distinct from those of other Italian cultures. The Venetian music scene, in turn, influenced visual artists, inspiring paintings by artists such as Jacopo Bassano, Canaletto, Francesco Guardi, Pietro Longhi, Bernardo Strozzi, Giambattista and Domenico Tiepolo, Tintoretto, and Titian. Together, art and music served larger aims, whether social, ceremonial, or even political. Lavishly illustrated, Art and Music in Venice brings Venice's golden age to life through stunning images of paintings, drawings, prints, manuscripts, textbooks, illuminated choir books, musical scores and instruments, and period costumes. New scholarship into these objects by a team of distinguished experts gives a fresh perspective on the cultural life and creative output of the era. Distributed for Editions Hazan, Paris Exhibition Schedule: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (10/12/13-01/19/14) Portland Art Museum (03/07/14-06/18/14)

"A comprehensive and richly illustrated survey of Venetian Renaissance architecture, sculpture, and painting created between 1400 and 1600 addressed to students, travellers, and the general public. The works of art are analysed within Venice's cultural circumstances--political, economic, intellectual, and religious--and in terms of function, style, iconography, patronage, classical sources, gender, art theories, and artist's innovations, rivalries, and social status. The text has been divided into two parts--the fifteenth century and the sixteenth century--each part preceded by an introduction that recounts the history of Venice to 1500 and to 1600 respectively, including the city's founding, ideology, territorial expansion, social classes, governmental structure, economy, and religion. The twenty-six chapters have been organized to lead readers systematically through the major artistic developments within the three principal categories of art--governmental, ecclesiastic, and domestic--and have been arranged sequentially as follows: civic architecture and urbanism, churches, church decoration (ducal tombs and altarpieces), refectories and refectory decoration (section two only), confraternities (architecture and decoration), palaces, palace decoration (devotional works, portraits, secular painting, and halls of state), villas, and villa decoration. The conclusion offers an overview of the major types of Venetian art and architectural patronage and their funding sources"--Provided by publisher.

This book offers an overview of all facets of musical life in sixteenth-century Venice. It addresses the city’s institutions (churches, confraternities, and academies) against the background of public and private occasions of music making. Supported by a generous collection of archival, literary, and iconographical sources, it treats both ceremonial life in the Serenissima and private forms of patronage. The Companion also addresses the dense web of musical activity (from chapel masters and singers to instrumentalists and instrument makers to music printers and theorists) and the rich variety of styles and musical genres (the frottola, the madrigal, motets and masses, instrumental music, polychoral music, Venetian-language polyphony), broadening the geographical perspective beyond the Veneto to Istria and Dalmatia. Contributors are Rodolfo Baroncini, Sherri Bishop, Bonnie J. Blackburn, David Bryant, Ivano Cavallini, Paolo Da Col, Daniel Donnelly, Rebecca Edwards, Iain Fenlon, Jonathan Glixon, Don Harrán (†), Jeffrey Kurtzman, Giulio M. Ongaro, Francesco Passadore, Elena Quaranta, Katelijne Schiltz, Eleanor Selfridge-Field, and Giovanni Zanovello.

"The city of Venice has always provided an almost irresistible lure for both writers and artists. Henry James loved it, as did Ruskin, Browning, Pound, and Brodsky. For artists, it has been a compulsory magnet since the time of Bellini and Canaletto. By the nineteenth century there was hardly an artist of note -- Whistler and Turner, Sargent and Prendergast, Sickert and Bonington -- who was not seduced by the city's charms, history, and aesthetic heritage. For the depiction of Venice by artists, it's a high bar that s been set, but Adam Van Doren, grandson of the Pulitzer-prize-winning poet Mark Van Doren, convincingly confronts the competition in this charming memoir, a verbal and visual account of his love affair with the city. His story is personal; like all other artists, he sees the city with and through his own eyes, but he is also well-informed historically. He laces his tour with information, opinion, and citation. With Van Doren as guide, the reader's tour of the city is rich and convincing, filled with the presence of illustrious predecessors. With an informed preface by the scholar Theodore Rabb and a charming foreword by Simon Winchester, with 21 full-color drawings by the author/artist, and even six pages of commendably lucid "Notes" on the personalities and structures discussed, this is a book that will proudly take its place alongside the many others that have celebrated this city for centuries."--Publisher description.

A wildly entertaining and surprisingly educational dive into art history as you've never seen it before, from the host of the beloved ArtCurious podcast We're all familiar with the works of Claude Monet, thanks in no small part to the ubiquitous reproductions of his water lilies on umbrellas, handbags, scarves, and dorm-room posters. But did you also know that Monet and his cohort were trailblazing rebels whose works were originally deemed unbelievably ugly and vulgar? And while you probably know the tale of Vincent van Gogh's suicide, you may not be aware that there's pretty compelling evidence that the artist didn't die by his own hand but was accidentally killed--or even murdered. Or how about the fact that one of Andy Warhol's most enduring legacies involves Caroline Kennedy's moldy birthday cake and a collection of toenail clippings? ArtCurious is a colorful look at the world of art history, revealing some of the strangest, funniest, and most fascinating stories behind the world's great artists and masterpieces. Through these and other incredible, weird, and wonderful tales, ArtCurious presents an engaging look at why art history is, and continues to be, a riveting and relevant world to explore.

"As the sixteenth century opened, members of the patriciate were increasingly withdrawing from trade, desiring to be seen as "gentlemen in fact" as well as "gentlemen in name." The author considers why this was so and explores such wide-ranging themes as attitudes toward wealth and display, the articulation of family identity, the interplay between the public and the private, and the emergence of characteristically Venetian decorative practices and styles of art and architecture. Brown focuses new light on the visual culture of Venetian women - how they lived within, furnished, and decorated their homes; what spaces were allotted to them; what their roles and domestic tasks were; how they dressed; how they raised their children; and how they entertained. Bringing together both high arts and low, the book examines all aspects of Renaissance material culture."--BOOK JACKET.