Luca Signorelli

Cruttwell, MaudProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 230K words
Chapters: 24

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Luca Signorelli by Maud CruttwellAuthor: Cruttwell, Maud,Language: English, Class: ND: Fine Arts: Painting, Release Date: Jan 9, 2009

Editor's review

This is Maud Cruttwell's monograph on Luca Signorelli, whose original English edition is publicly available via Project Gutenberg. Signorelli was a Renaissance painter known for his command of human anatomy and movement, and this book offers a critical account of his life and works, making it a typical example of early art-historical writing. Its strength lies in its narrative tracing of the painter's creative development and in its judgments on the formal qualities of his major works, allowing readers to see how an early twentieth-century art historian evaluated this painter. The discussion rests on close observation of the works and on documentary evidence, and the book serves well as supplementary introductory reading on Italian Renaissance painting. Because it was written long ago, some of its attributions and conclusions may have been revised by later scholarship; readers should keep this in mind and treat it as one scholar's critical biography rather than a final verdict.

Who it's for

A good fit for

General art lovers interested in Italian Renaissance painting
Art history students who need to understand how early monographic critical biographies were written
Readers with reasonable English who wish to expand their reading of individual painters
Museum or gallery docents seeking background knowledge

Not a good fit for

Specialist researchers who need the latest scholarship and high-quality comparative plates
Readers with no knowledge of the Renaissance who want to begin with a general history
Readers who only want picture books and prefer not to read critical commentary

Reading tips

Before reading, look up images of Signorelli's major works to form a visual impression, then turn to the critical text.
Read in the order of the chapters on life and works, noting the evidence behind the author's judgments on specific paintings.
After finishing, compare with more recent art-historical studies and mark viewpoints that have since been revised.
Read alongside other monographs on Renaissance painters in the same series to compare different authors' perspectives.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book illustrated? Can it be used as a picture book?

This is a critical biography in text form, focused on narrating the life and discussing the works; it cannot replace a picture book. Readers are advised to find high-quality images of Signorelli's works separately for comparison, so as to better understand the book's discussion of composition and figures in motion.

Are the art-historical views in this book still credible today?

The book was written long ago and is an early monographic critical biography; some attributions and dating judgments may have been revised by later scholarship. Its value lies in presenting a particular evaluative perspective and mode of writing. It should be read in comparison with more recent research, and its conclusions should not be taken as final.

Can I read it without knowing anything about the Renaissance?

Yes, but it is advisable to first acquire some basic background in Renaissance painting; otherwise the contemporary painters and works alluded to in the book will be hard to follow. If you only want a preliminary understanding of Signorelli, start with chapters in general histories, then return to this book for closer reading.

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About the author

Cruttwell, Maud Author · British

Maud Cruttwell was a British art historian. Public information about her dates of birth and death and her education is limited, and the library currently holds only one of her works. She focused on Italian Renaissance painting, and her representative work, Luca Signorelli, is a dedicated study of the life and paintings of this Renaissance artist. She also wrote a guide to Florentine painting. Judging from her extant works, her writing combines specialized study with accessible, guide-like narration, attending to individual paintings and the urban artistic environment in order to introduce painters and schools, and offering English-language readers a useful reference for understanding Signorelli and the tradition of Florentine painting.