Commentators on Medieval Italian Sculpture (14th-19th c.)

Difficult to Make, Hard to Talk About

By (author) Luca Palozzi

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Extent: 300, 300 pages

Publisher: Harvey Miller

Subjects: Art & Art History, Medieval Studies

Series: Studies in Medieval and Early Renaissance Art History

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(December 2017)

ISBN: 9781909400405

Price: $158.00

Out of stock

There is a widespread belief in art historical studies that sculpture is a much more ‘difficult’ form of art than painting–difficult to make, but also hard to come to terms with, that is, hard to observe and to describe, talk and write about. As a matter of fact, both scholars and the general public have traditionally accorded their preferences to painters, not sculptors. But why is that? This book brings back to light an initial moment in the difficulty and resulting critical misfortune of sculpture in art historical writing by focusing on the early historiography of medieval Italian sculpture, from fourteenth-century writings to Leopoldo Cicognara’s Storia della scultura in Italia [History of Sculpture in Italy, 1812-1818], the first of its kind ever published. The difficulties, achievements, predilections, idiosyncrasies and methodological approach of each generation of commentators are analysed here with a fresh eye, with a particular focus on those aspects of this heritage that modern scholars have overlooked or hastily dismissed as outdated.

  • By (author) Luca Palozzi