About the Italian Masters of the Met Walk in New York
Drawing on our deep network of art historians and educators, Context organizes several thematic walks of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, including this one focused on the Italian galleries. Many of our docents are also curators at the Met, and thus are able to give this survey of five centuries of Italian art an in-depth twist.
We begin with the work of Duccio and Giotto, two artists who revolutionized painting in the 14th century. They were responsible for revitalizing the Byzantine tradition and moving towards naturalism, reflecting the new humanity required in sacred art by the recently formed preaching orders, the Franciscans and Dominicans. We will examine the impact of this shift towards representing believable form and space on a flat surface in order to convey a clear and convincing narrative as it developed in the following centuries in the work of artists like Fra Carnevale, Andrea Mantegna, Fra Filippo Lippi and his pupil Botticelli.
By the first quarter of the 16th centur
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Drawing on our deep network of art historians and educators, Context organizes several thematic walks of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, including this one focused on the Italian galleries. Many of our docents are also curators at the Met, and thus are able to give this survey of five centuries of Italian art an in-depth twist.
We begin with the work of Duccio and Giotto, two artists who revolutionized painting in the 14th century. They were responsible for revitalizing the Byzantine tradition and moving towards naturalism, reflecting the new humanity required in sacred art by the recently formed preaching orders, the Franciscans and Dominicans. We will examine the impact of this shift towards representing believable form and space on a flat surface in order to convey a clear and convincing narrative as it developed in the following centuries in the work of artists like Fra Carnevale, Andrea Mantegna, Fra Filippo Lippi and his pupil Botticelli.
By the first quarter of the 16th century, generally referred to as the High Renaissance, the leading artists had sufficient technical expertise to achieve almost any naturalistic effect they wished. We will explore the paintings from traditional centers of Florence and Rome, but also works commissioned by wealthy families and religious orders in other the important artistic centers of Mantua, Milan, Urbino, Parma, and Ferrara, including masterpieces by Raphael and Correggio. The Venetian School had its own High Renaissance style, one that emphasized color over line, as seen in the work Giovanni Bellini, Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto.
The walk continues by exploring the evolution of Renaissance painting into what is commonly called the period of Mannerism in the second half of the century, led by artists such as Bronzino and Parmigianino. In the last decade of the century, though, the excesses of Mannerism were brought to an end by the naturalism of Caravaggio and the revised classicism of Annibale Caracci, the leading protagonists of the early Baroque. We will explore the development of the Baroque style in the work of their pupils and successors over the 17th century with the work of artists like Guercino, Reni, and Luca Giordano, whose rich colors and fluid technique paved the way for the development of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's jubilant Rococo style in the 18th century.
