Book contents
- The Intellectual Education of the Italian Renaissance Artist
- The Intellectual Education of the Italian Renaissance Artist
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface
- Introduction
- One Mechanical Arts versus Liberal Arts and Recommendations for the Artist’s Education
- Two Educational Places and Opportunities
- Three The Mediating Texts
- Four Vitruvius and Pliny as Sourcebooks, Educational Landmarks, and Intellectual Challenge
- Conclusion
- Book part
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 August 2021
- The Intellectual Education of the Italian Renaissance Artist
- The Intellectual Education of the Italian Renaissance Artist
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface
- Introduction
- One Mechanical Arts versus Liberal Arts and Recommendations for the Artist’s Education
- Two Educational Places and Opportunities
- Three The Mediating Texts
- Four Vitruvius and Pliny as Sourcebooks, Educational Landmarks, and Intellectual Challenge
- Conclusion
- Book part
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Scholarship has often claimed that a complex and demanding work of art had been created by a minimally educated artist helped by a humanist advisor. Although this is occasionally true and documented, the majority of more demanding or literature-derived topics sprang out of the artist’s own invention. It is neither comprehensible that a humanist advisor was flanking the artist for an entire creation process, nor is it perceivable that an artist was intellectually gifted for one or two demanding works and otherwise little educated. This study aims to show how the educational process worked in the Renaissance in order to better understand and thereby judge the artist’s intellectual capacities and engagement. Participating in education was not as luxurious as we think today, and knowledge of Latin was also more widespread than is usually assumed. Also, the artists received help from a society that made significant efforts to bring learning to the populace. Ultimately relying probably on Aristotle’s Politics, the Renaissance had an open educational system that provided learning for different requirements.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021