Renaissance Faces Hardback Catalogue

£40.00

This comprehensive survey traces the development of portrait painting in Northern and Southern Europe during the Renaissance, when the genre first flourished.

Both regions developed their own distinct styles and techniques but each was influenced by the other.

Focusing on the relationship between artists of the north and south, renowned specialists analyse the notion of likeness – at that time based not only on accurate reference to posterity, but incorporating all aspects of human life, including propaganda, power, courtship, love, family, ambition and hierarchy.

Essays and individual catalogue entries present new research on works by some of the greatest portraitists of the period, including Giovanni Bellini, Sandro Botticelli, Lucas Cranach, Albrecht Dürer, Jan van Eyck, Hans Holbein and Titian, all magnificently illustrated.

This beautiful book is rich in information about portrait types, styles, techniques and iconographies, the function of portraits, and the connections between painting, sculpture and portrait medals.

The authors provide a fascinating account of the relationships of patrons, artists and sitters, as well as the process of making portraits, while also exploring complex notions of beauty, spiritual belief, and the portrait as a mirror of the soul.

• Published to accompany the major exhibition Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck to Titian at the National Gallery, London (15 October 2008–18 January 2009)

• Brand new scholarship focuses on the relation between Northern and Southern European painting

There is a German language hardback edition of this catalogue available from www.belser-verlag.de

    CONTENTS:
  Witnessing Faces, Remembering Souls, Luke Syson
  The Making of Portraits, Lorne Campbell
  Functions, Uses and Display, Jennifer Fletcher
  The Court Portrait, Miguel Falomir

    About the authors:
  Lorne Campbell is Beaumont Senior Research Curator
  Luke Syson is curator of Italian paintings 1460–1500 at the National Gallery, London.
  Miguel Falomir is head curator of Italian Renaissance painting at the Museo Nacional del Prado.
  Jennifer Fletcher was until recently senior lecturer at the Courtauld Institute.