Italian Renaissance Art - Understanding Its Meaning by Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier - Book review

Italian Renaissance Art

Understanding its Meaning

By: Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier

Published: March 4, 2013
Format: Paperback, 288 pages
ISBN-10: 1118306112
ISBN-13: 978-1118306116
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell











"We may even discover that there were two 'Renaissances.' One, very small, was the true Renaissance that was centered on rational construction, and the other, much larger, represented the continuation of much older ideas and methods in which the various parts of any given work were not rationally interlocked", writes internationally known art historian and lecturer Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier, in her insightful and revolutionary idea based book Italian Renaissance Art: Understanding its Meaning. The author describes how the historical period known as the Renaissance was really two separate movements, one based on rationality and the other on intuition, that is demonstrated clearly in the works of the artists, sculptors, and architects of the time.

Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier recognizes that the standard interpretation of Renaissance Italy, in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, includes all of the artists, sculptors, and architects creating during that time period. The author provides a fresh interpretation of the meaning of the Italian Renaissance, that moves beyond a mere time based analysis, to one that examines the very nature of the creative processes at work.

For Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier, the basic concept of the Renaissance was the rebirth of the classical concerns with nature, and with expressing artistic endeavors through observation and mathematical means. As a result, very few artists of the period were part of this redefined Renaissance. The majority of the artists were maintaining a conservative style that represented a continuation of medieval styles in the creative arts.



Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier (photo left) understands that the Renaissance was two very separate events, and that they took place at widely different times in various places. Some cities in Italy never experienced a Renaissance as defined by the author.

Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier traces the revised meaning of the Renaissance through the fifteenth and early sixteenth century, across the various cities of Italy, and to its inevitable ending as an artistic style.

Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier considers the following areas of study for how the Renaissance affected each city and time:

* The Italian Renaissance as an idea rather than a period
* What a difference a hundred years makes
* How it all started: Florence and Umbria
* What happened next in Florence
* Searching for the Renaissance: Siena and southward to Sicily
* Searching for the Renaissance: From northern Italy back to Umbria
* Triumph of the intellectual vanguard: The High Renaissance
* The Swan song of Renaissance art
* The break and the new avant-garde: Early Mannerism
* What was the Italian Renaissance: Conclusions in the bigger picture

For me, the power of the book is how Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier transforms the overall examination of the Italian Renaissance from one of time and place, to one of an idea. The author presents a very solid case, complete with visual evidence, that the Renaissance was a more limited concept than has usually been considered by historians.

The author follows the progenitors of the Renaissance, from the artist Masacciothe architect Brunelleschi, and the sculptor Donatello, through to the masters of the High Renaissance Raphael, Michelangelo, and Da Vinci. Their devotion to creating natural and observational based creations formed the Renaissance as an idea.

At the same time, the conservative artists continued with their medieval and Gothic styles, with little or no interest in perspective or naturalism. Indeed, their opposition to naturalism was grounded in their preference for intuition, leading to themselves becoming the avant-garde of the later Mannerism style.

Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier augments her study through a deeper understanding of the political and social background in each of the Italian cities, and describes how and why the Renaissance as an idea either gained ground or made no impact on the artistic community. The book also features a strong set of photographs featuring examples of both the Renaissance and the conservative styles of art. These photographs add a powerful visual element to better understanding the author's main thesis.

I highly recommend the very important and fascinating book Italian Renaissance Art: Understanding its Meaning by Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier, to any historians, art critics, art history and Renaissance history students and academics, and to anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the real meaning and currents that were present in Renaissance Italy. This book will transform how you view the art and the artists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Italy, and guide you toward thinking of the Renaissance as an important idea and not as a time period.