cover image Painting and Illumination in Early Renaissance Florence, 1300-1450

Painting and Illumination in Early Renaissance Florence, 1300-1450

Pia Palladino, Laurence B. Kanter, Christa C. Mayer Thurman. Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, $51.6 (394pp) ISBN 978-0-8109-6488-4

This radiant survey of manuscript illumination, drawings, small panels, embroidery and paintings on glass presents an unconventional picture of the momentous emergence of a Renaissance style in Florence. Dominican monk Fra Angelico held illumination to be fully equal to any other art form in its expressive potential and aesthetic demands. For confirmation of that view, one need only look at Bartolomeo di Fruosino's cataclysmic rendition on parchment of Dante's descent into The Inferno; Lorenzo Monaco's stark, iconic narrative panel Lamentation Over the Dead Christ; or Fra Angelico's own meticulously rendered religious miniatures, windows onto a spiritual universe. Featuring erudite essays enhanced by 296 plates (120 in color), this catalogue of an exhibition at Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art documents a flourishing visual culture developed by artists equally adept at frescoes or small-scale works. (Apr.)