Preface

Ames-Lewis, Francis

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Preface

Francis Ames-Lewis

The Intellectual Life of the Early Renaissance Artist

Early on in my academic career I tended to encourage in my students the view that early Renaissance painters and sculptors were essentially artisans in outlook. Painters were apprenticed, I suggested, and experienced in the craft practices commended by Cennino Cennini in his Craftsman’s Handbook. They had little time or inclination to engage with ideas that circulated in the world beyond the confines of their workshops. Indeed, the need, in Leon Battista Alberti’s view, for painters to be …

Author

Francis Ames-Lewis

PublisherYale University Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00147.002

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-13897

Preface

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Description: Feast of the Rose Garlands, detail by Dürer, Albrecht

1. Albrecht Dürer, Rosenkranzfest (1506), detail: self-portrait. Oil on panel.

Early on in my academic career I tended to encourage in my students the view that early Renaissance painters and sculptors were essentially artisans in outlook. Painters were apprenticed, I suggested, and experienced in the craft practices commended by Cennino Cennini in his Craftsman’s Handbook. They had little time or inclination to engage with ideas that circulated in the world beyond the confines of their workshops. Indeed, the need, in Leon Battista Alberti’s view, for painters to be exposed to such ideas was acknowledged in his attempt — in the vernacular translation in 1436 of his On Painting — to open their eyes to broader artistic issues. But, I suggested also, this attempt had only limited effect: in large measure, I argued (I now think mistakenly), painters and sculptors continued throughout the fifteenth century to aspire to be no more than high-quality craftsmen. A number of important publications during the past quarter-century have helped me towards revision of these views: I think, for example, of the work of Michael Baxandall and Martin Warnke, and of David Chambers’s and Creighton Gilbert’s invaluable collections of sources and documents. Books such as these help us to recognise that there was at least an élite group of early Renaissance painters and sculptors who had much higher aspirations. Maybe these men were the icing on the gingerbread, but they were of great importance in advancing the social status of the artist. During the course of the fifteenth century artists also engaged increasingly in the intellectual activities that are of especial interest here. As a result, they encouraged a wider recognition among their public of the validity of claims that painting and sculpture should be seen as liberal arts.

This book provides an overview of these ideas, a springboard for further discussion and reinterpretation of both texts and images of the early Renaissance period. In bringing the material together and ordering it in the way that I have chosen, I have gained much from the work of the scholars named above, and of many others whose publications I have quarried. I owe a large debt of gratitude to Peter Humfrey and Paul Joannides who offered good and valuable advice on the initial proposal, and who have since made many helpful suggestions and corrections. For better or worse I have not felt able to accept all these suggestions, but I have corrected the errors that they (and a third, anonymous reader) pointed out to me. I am conscious that not even they may have spotted other errors, and for these of course I alone am responsible. I am also very grateful to all my colleagues and students for their positive and constructively critical responses to ideas that I have raised with them both formally in seminar and informally in general conversation. I am grateful both to the British Academy Humanities Research Board and to Birkbeck College for grants that allowed me to carve periods of time from the increasing pressures of the everyday routine of the university teacher; to my colleagues in the College’s Department of History of Art who have been ready to shoulder extra burdens during my periods of study leave; and to my family for supporting me steadfastly while I completed this book. Delia Gaze proved to be an admirable copy-editor. Finally, Gillian Malpass has been characteristically enthusiastic and helpful throughout: like many other Yale University Press authors I am deeply indebted to her, to Sally Nicholls and to their colleagues at 23 Pond Street, for much assistance and encouragement.

January 1999

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