Playful Pictures by Chriscinda Henry


ISBN
9780271089119
Published
Binding
Hardcover
Pages
280
Dimensions
203 x 254 x 24mm

In Playful Pictures, Chriscinda Henry explores the rise of private art collection in Renaissance Venice as a diporto, or pastime, practiced within a kaleidoscopic matrix of domestic leisure that encompassed the recitation of poetry and tales, games, music making, amateur theatrical activity, and the conversational arts.

Between around 1490 and 1550, a new class of pictures emerged in Venice. These images-primarily paintings but also drawings, prints, book illustrations, and historiated architectural elements-feature quotidian, festive, allusive, and performative subjects that catered to the cultural and intellectual interests of avant-garde patrons and collectors. Several generations of Venetian artists, including Vittore Carpaccio, Giorgione, Titian, Sebastiano del Piombo, Giovanni Cariani, Bernardino Licinio, and Paris Bordon, rose to meet the demand of modern collectors seeking entertaining artworks that could speak to their personal values and taste. Playful Pictures connects painting and the graphic arts with other art forms engaged in the home: vernacular literature and the novella tradition; pastoral music, verse, and theater; urban dialect comedies; and carnival and ludic culture. Taking an interdisciplinary approach that treats these pursuits as linked forms of creative practice, Henry argues that they served as dynamic forms of personal and collective expression for patrons, collectors, artists, and other virtuosi seeking to express a new set of secular values and a contingent notion of selfhood.

Incorporating fresh evidence from archival sources, this book expands the discourse on Renaissance art by situating it within the growing, and increasingly nuanced, scholarly understanding of Renaissance leisure and entertainment culture.
EOFY 2025 Book Frenzy
164.89
RRP: $193.99
15% off RRP


This product is unable to be ordered online. Please check in-store availability.
Instore Price: $193.99
Enter your Postcode or Suburb to view availability and delivery times.

You might also like

Perspectives
34.99
29.74
15% Off

RRP refers to the Recommended Retail Price as set out by the original publisher at time of release.
The RRP set by overseas publishers may vary to those set by local publishers due to exchange rates and shipping costs.
Due to our competitive pricing, we may have not sold all products at their original RRP.