Author(s): Eberhard Konig

General Art

This comprehensive, two-volume work presents the extraordinary panorama of Italian painting spanning the period from 1300 to 1610, including all the great masters and their most famous works. The first volume is devoted to the artists who dedicated themselves to lines and drawing, starting with famous fresco painters such as Giotto and Piero della Francesco and moving on to Botticelli, Perugino, Pinturicchio and Michelangelo, whose works are the culmination of the first volume. The second volume focuses on the work of the painters who developed their pictures through colour ("colore"), including Leonardo, Raphael, and the famous Venetians Tintoretto and Titian. Throughout both volumes, the texts are written in a lively style and convey a vivid impression of the artist's personalities, of the circumstances in which they worked and their social standing, and even the relationships of the painters among themselves in various artistic centres. The two volumes are rounded off by recent scholarly findings, an extensive appendix, tables summarizing information about the painters' lives and concurrent historical developments, and a bibliography.