Product Description

This innovative book presents a fresh view of fifteenth-century Netherlandish art and the significance of its contributions to contemporary Italian art, notably in such areas as oil painting, landscape and portraiture. Focusing on Florence, a prime centre of renaissance culture, the book explores for the first time the profound impact of Netherlandish works on Italian painters, including Leonardo, Perugino and Ghirlandaio. Paula Nuttall discusses Italian ownership of Netherlandish paintings in the fifteenth century and the shared artistic concerns of Florentine and Netherlandish painters. She examines in depth the various means by which artistic contact occurred, the growth in demand for Netherlandish art in Florence, and the holdings of the Medici and other collectors. With particular emphasis on the period 1460-1500 when the vogue for Netherlandish painting was at its height, the author shows that the consequences of Italian exposure to Netherlandish art were far more sweeping than has been previously understood.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #70727 in Books
• Published on: 2004-08-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

The Art Book, August 2006
'This is a very good book indeed... There are many excellent
insights.'

About the Author
Paula Nuttall is an independent scholar. She teaches at the Victoria and Albert Museum and at other UK institutions. She is a specialist on relationships between Netherlandish painting and Italy, and has published widely in this area.

Customer Reviews

An excellent book
It is such a pleasure to read a book that finally points out that the Florentine painters were not the leaders-of-the-painting-world they have mistakenly believed to be, since Vasari's Florentine-propaganda book, The Lives of the Artists. The quattrocento Florentines themselves were the first to say that they were trying, unsuccessfully, to emulate the Flemish painters: compare Masaccio and van Eyck; the paintings are virtually contemporary. The book is beautifully made and very well written. I recommend it highly.

Exquisite and most stimulating
Nuttall makes a great job of close analyses of Netherlandish and Florentine artworks and artistic trends between 1400 and 1500.

The book offers four parts: Contexts, Contacts, Ownership, and Influence. These parts cover most aspects of the artistic outputs of the selected period, with explaining the dynamics of the market, of patronage, the movements and travels of artists, the technical and iconographic dimensions.

On top of the excellent scholarship, the excellent printing with lavish colour illustrations (with some regrettable black and white illustrations) makes this book a great gift idea for people into Renaissance art.

Beautiful
The is a most beautiful book: for the ideas, which are illuminating; for the way it transports you into the world of the 15th century art world; and not least, for the printing.