From Library Journal
Among the key artists of the early Renaissance period, Piero created work with an abiding resonance for the modern sensibility. In his sumptuously illustrated text, art scholar Lightbown ( Botticelli , Abbeville, 1989) subjects the master's oeuvre to a profoundly rewarding scrutiny out of which emerges a wealth of original formal and iconographic observations and insights. Joining meticulous descriptive analysis to a masterful comprehension of the documentary evidence, the author provocatively reconsiders the chronology of some of the artist's most famous paintings, then explicates with equal originality Piero's employment of perspective. Lightbown makes critical observations about the placement, function, medium, and condition of the works. This close study does not, however, slight contextual problems of historical milieu, patronage, and sty listic influences. This is simply the best work on Piero in the English language.-Robert Cahn, Fashion Inst. of Technology, New YorkCopyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.





Language Notes
Text: Italian

FROM THE PUBLISHER

This elegant and definitive study of the great Renaissance painter laundches the quincentennial of Piero's life.

Powerful, contemplative, and serenly lucid, the paintings of Piero della Francesca rank among the great jewels of Renaissance art. Piero's exploration of perspective has been unequaled in its aesthetic eloquence and mathematical sophistication. Likewise, the monumental simplicity of his compositions and his use of light and shade testify to a rare talent.

Although the 15th century knew no more thoughtful or gifted an artist, it was not until the 20th century that Piero's genius was recognized. And while many modern scholars have attempted to understand the master, only now has the definitive study been published. Destined to become the standard reference, this lavish volume examines his paintings in detail and analyzes results of recent cleanings. It focuses as well on Piero's life and external influences, such as social, religious, and political forces, that ultimately worked to shape and define his art. With its graceful text and sparkling illustrations, Piero della Francesca will appeal to scholarly and general readers alike.

Other Details: 187 illustrations, 176 in full color 312 pages 11 x 11" Published 1992

seems, in any case, not to have given up all share in the family's mercantile transactions or in the steady acquisitions of land that eventually translated it in the sixteenth century into nobility and idleness.

We have no information about Piero's early apprenticeship, but his training is likely to have followed the methods and covered the techniques described in the Libro dell'Arte of Cennino Cennini, a pupil of Agnolo Gaddi, one of the leading artists of late-fourteenth-century Florence. Piero certainly knew and used this artist's handbook, written in the late 1390s, in later life. As indispensable for the painter, Cennini lists the practical techniques of grinding and tempering colors, laying gesso grounds, plain or in relief, applying red bolus and gold, the incision of outlines with an iron stylus, painting in colors and varnishing for pictures on panel, while for fresco he must be able to prepare the plaster ground, draw outlines, color in true fresco on the wet ground, and finish a secco on the dry.

Piero evidently mastered all these techniques in his youth, and probably used Cennini's method of learning how to draw. The first stage was to copy simple motifs from an esempio, or model, by a good or, if possible, great master, first drawing in the outlines faintly, then strengthening them and putting in the shadows, taking care to make the extremities darker. The apprentice ought to draw in a temperate light, which should fall from the left, since this was the conventional direction of lighting. He should give the lights and shadows that will give relief to his figures accordingly, or in practice, as determined by the real or best source of light. After a year's practice with the stylus, the student could begin drawing with a quill pen, adding washes; this technique would fix skill in drawing firmly in his mind. As an entry into the art of coloring, he should then practice drawing on tinted paper, which might be of various colors—pink, violet, green, pale blue, or gray—of which green was, in actuality, the color preferred. Copying from great masters was still essential, even at this stage, and Cennini recommends tracing from drawings, or even from panel paintings or frescoes, by reproducing the outlines on transparent paper with a thin brush. But over and above this, the student must draw from nature, which supplies better models than any artist, and this precept Piero, as we shall see, certainly put into practice. Underlying all his art, in fact, is the mixture of convention and naturalism that such a training would naturally form, but greatly developed and modified by his successive adaptations of the new pictorial discoveries of his age as they came to his notice. For Piero was to move from the late Gothic artist world of eastern Tuscany into the most innovative artistic circles of his time.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal