Only Connect – Art & the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance: Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance (Princeton Legacy Library, 5577) - Hardcover

Shearman, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691099723 ISBN 13: 9780691099729

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1992

Synopsis

John Shearman makes a plea for a more engaged reading of art works of the Italian Renaissance, one that will recognize the presuppositions of Renaissance artists about their viewers. His book constructs a history of Renaissance paintings and sculptures that are by design completed outside themselves in or by the spectator, that embrace the spectator into their narrative plot or aesthetic functioning, and that reposition the spectator imaginatively or in time and space.

About this title

Review:

Winner of the Charles Rufus Morey Award, College Art Association

One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 1993

"In guiding our concentrated attention to the action that unfolds in [a group of paintings by Raphael, Michelangelo, Pontormo, and others that represent the Entombment], the author has taught us to make the relevant connections and thus to see these deeply moving works with fresh eyes."--E. H. Gombrich, The New York Review of Books

"Shearman's six lectures contribute significantly to current debates about the interpretation of images, particularly in relation to their reception by the spectators."--Martin Kemp, The Times Literary Supplement

"As the author of a brilliant work on Mannerism, in which literature and music were employed to explain characteristic forms, Shearman is eminently qualified for his task. [He] weaves a brilliant account of poetry and painting immortalising the sitter."--Bruce Boucher, The Times (London)

". . . the author has taught us to make the relevant connections and thus to see these deeply moving works with fresh eyes."--E. H. Gombrich, The New York Review of Books

"[Shearman's] argument that the observer, in the artist's mind, was as carefully placed, posed and arranged as the content of the work is sustained by considerable intelligence and scholarship."--Robin Blake, Independent on Sunday

Synopsis:

John Shearman makes a plea for a more engaged reading of art works of the Italian Renaissance, one that recognizes the presuppositions of Renaissance artists about their viewers. This book attempts to construct a history of those Renaissance paintings and sculptures that are by design completed outside themselves or by the spectator, that embrace the spectator into their narrative plot or aesthetic functioning, and that reposition the spectator imaginatively in time and space. He takes his lead from texts and artists of the period, for these artists reveal themselves as spectators. Among modern historiographical techniques, reception theory is closest to the author's method, but Shearman's concern is mostly with anterior relationships with the viewer - that is, relationships conceived and constructed as part of the work's design, making and positioning. Shearman proposes unconventional ways in which works of art may be distinguished one from another, and enlarges the accepted field of artistic invention. Furthermore, his argument reflects on the Renaissance itself.

What is created in this period tends to be regarded as conventional, or inherent in the nature of painting and sculpture: he maintains that this is a careless, disengaged view that has overlooked the process of discovery by immensely inventive and visually intellectual artists.

About this edition

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0691099723
• ISBN 13: 9780691099729
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 300