Renaissance Theory
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Book Description
Renaissance Theory presents an animated conversation among art historians about the optimal ways of conceptualizing Renaissance art, and the links between Renaissance art and contemporary art and theory. This is the first discussion of its kind, involving not only questions within Renaissance scholarship, but issues of concern to art historians and critics in all fields. Organized as a virtual roundtable discussion, the contributors discuss rifts and disagreements about how to understand the Renaissance and debate the principal texts and authors of the last thirty years who have sought to reconceptualize the period. They then turn to the issue of the relation between modern art and the Renaissance: Why do modern art historians and critics so seldom refer to the Renaissance? Is the Renaissance our indispensable heritage, or are we cut off from it by the revolution of modernism?
The volume includes an introduction by Rebecca Zorach and two final, synoptic essays, as well as contributions from some of the most prominent thinkers on Renaissance art including Stephen Campbell, Michael Cole, Frederika Jakobs, Claire Farago, and Matt Kavaler.
Table of Contents
Series Preface Section 1: Introduction by Rebecca Zorach Section Two: Starting Points Section Three: The Art Seminar, Participants: Stephen Campbell, Michael Cole, Frederika Jakobs, Claire Farago, and Matt Kavaler Section Four: Assessments Section Five: Afterwords Notes on Contributors Index
Editor(s)
Biography
James Elkins is E.C. Chadbourne Chair in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Head of History of Art at the University College Cork, Ireland. His many books include Pictures and Tears, How to Use Your Eyes, and What Painting Is, all published by Routledge.
Robert Williams is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His fields of specialty are Italian Renaissance art and the history of art theory. He is the author of Art, Theory, and Culture in Sixteenth-Century Italy (Cambridge, 1997) and Art Theory: An Historical Introduction (Blackwell, 2004).