"Any contemporary understanding of early Netherlandish paintings must take into account not only that historical data about them is fragmentary but also that art historians have used a variety of premises from which to study the works. This book, therefore, explores how the paintings of the period and the factual knowledge surrounding them have been assembled, analyzed, and interpreted from their rediscovery in the early nineteenth century to the present day." "Assembling these multiple perspectives in one volume, the editors underscore the common ground shared by their colleagues and intend thereby to advance the scholarly dialogue among them."--BOOK JACKET.

A fresh look at the early Renaissance, considering Florentine and Netherlandish art as a single phenomenon, at once deeply spiritual and entirely new. Adam and Eve are driven from the Garden of Eden into a rocky landscape, their naked bodies lit by a cold sun, their gestures and expressions a study in shame and anguish. A serious man, well attired, kneels in prayer before the Virgin and Child, close enough to touch them almost, his furrowed brow setting off the saintly perfection of their features. In fifteenth-century Florence and Flanders, painters were using an arsenal of new techniques—including perspective, anatomy, and the accurate treatment of light and shade—to present traditional religious subjects with an unprecedented immediacy and emotional power. Their art was the product of a shared Christian culture, and their patrons included not only nobles and churchmen but also the middle classes of these thriving commercial centers. Shirley Neilsen Blum offers a new synthesis of this remarkable period in Western art—between the refinements of the Gothic and the classicism of the High Renaissance—when the mystical was made to seem real. In the first part of her text, Blum traces the emergence of a new naturalism in the sculpture of Claus Sluter and Donatello, and then in the painting of Van Eyck and Masaccio. In the second part, she compares scenes from the Infancy and Passion of Christ as rendered by artists from North and South. Exploring both the images themselves and the theological concepts that lie behind them, she re-creates, as far as possible, the experience of the contemporary fifteenth-century viewer. Abundantly illustrated with color plates of masterworks by Fra Angelico, Botticelli, Rogier van der Weyden, and others, this thought-provoking volume will appeal equally to general readers and students of art history.

Making Art History is a collection of essays by contemporary scholars on the practice and theory of art history as it responds to institutions as diverse as art galleries and museums, publishing houses and universities, school boards and professional organizations, political parties and multinational corporations. The text is split into four thematic sections, each of which begins with a short introduction from the editor, the sections include: Border Patrols, addresses the artistic canon and its relationship to the ongoing 'war on terror', globalization, and the rise of the Belgian nationalist party. The Subjects of Art History, questions whether 'art' and 'history' are really what the discipline seeks to understand. Instituting Art History, concerns art history and its relation to the university and raises questions about the mission, habits, ethics and limits of university today. Old Master, New Institutions, shows how art history and the museum respond to nationalism, corporate management models and the 'culture wars'.

This fascinating study reconstructs the tradition of the Legend of the True Cross in text and image, from its tentative beginnings in 4th-century Jerusalem to the culminating expression of its multi-layered cosmic content in 14th and 15th-century monumental cycles in Germany and Italy.

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