Lost Battles: Leonardo, Michelangelo and the Artistic Duel that Defined the Renaissance - Brossura

Jones, Jonathan

Brossura

ISBN 10: 1416526056 ISBN 13: 9781416526056

Casa editrice: Simon & Schuster UK, 2011

Riassunto

Michelangelo and Leonardo lived five centuries ago, but their works still obsess our culture, with a popular and universal quality that nothing else matches. They have been equally revered and famous since their lifetimes, but our admiration for them exists mostly in isolation of each other. But in 1504 they competed with each other directly, to paint the walls of a room in Florence's Palazzo Vecchio. It is remarkable enough that the same city had produced two such geniuses in the same century -- let alone that they met and exhibited together. But this competition, perhaps the most important event in the history of Renaissance art, the moment at which individual style came to command its own value, has been largely forgotten because the rival works did not survive. This great artistic clash, Jonathan Jones argues in this riveting account, marks the true beginning of the High Renaissance. Re-creating sixteenth-century Florence with astonishing verve and aplomb, THE LOST BATTLES not only sheds new light on the making of the modern world but, in its portrait of two cultural titans going toe to toe, rewires our understanding of the personalities of the Renaissance's greatest icons.

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Recensione:

‘Battle of the Renaissance geniuses. Is it possible to decide who was the greater artist, Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo? A close look at their two masterpieces offers clues – but in fact the truth had already been established in an extraordinary competition’
Extract, Guardian 30/3
‘Early in the 16th century, in a little Florentine piazza, a heated exchange took place. On the receiving end was Leonardo da Vinci, painter, engineer, inventor, anatomist, lutenist and man about town... Doing the tongue-lashing was his younger compatriot Michelangelo Buonarotti. Michelangelo’s beef with Leonardo, who was more than two decades his senior, was that the latter, though praised as a painter (his Mona Lisa was the talk of the town), had failed to excel in what Michelangelo thought was the more demanding art of sculpture...There’s a nice riff contrasting a frumpy pair of pixie boots worn by Michelangelo at various stages in his long life with Leonard’s fabulous, foppish wardrobe. This is, craftily, made to support Leonardo’s observation in the notebooks that painting is better than sculpture because you can dress up elegantly while doing the former but you get covered in dust while doing the latter...The result is perhaps less reliable than a conventional art history, but it’s considerably more gripping’
The Sunday Times 11/4

'Reanimates the giddy heights of the Renaissance through its evocation of a mighty scrap between Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo...It’s 1504, Italy is gripped by a patchwork of city-states gripped by magical thinking and the Florentine republic has long been mired in an intractable war with Pisa. The Head of State’s chief adviser, one Niccolo Machiavelli, wants to abandon a technocratic approach to warfare and rouse a citizen militia; he decides to inspired the people into patriotism – and perhaps influence the gods – by inviting the two greatest artists in the city (and the world) to paint murals depicting previous Florentine victories in the Great council Hall...For all that the Lost Battles impressively smuggles seriousness into a populist format, what comes through most strongly is an irrepressible yearning; to live in times when art was expected to engage the populace, and when colossi walked the Earth'
Sunday Telegraph 10/4
‘The idea of Leonardo and Michelangelo competing against each other for a commission sounds like a great idea for a historical novel but in fact did happen... Jones argues their competitiveness kick started the High Renaissance, leading to the greatest flowering of Western Art and an opportunity for high grade historical speculation.’
Belfast Telegraph 10/4
‘Going at it hammer and brass thongs: A superb account of two of the Renaissance’s greatest geniuses reveals the rivalrous passions that drove their work.’
Observer 25/4
Brushes at Dawn
‘The characters alone are a gift to the writer. In the red corner: painter, inventor, dandy, courtier, the rose-velvet-clad Leonardo da Vinci. In the blue: sculptor, painter, architect-to-be, broken-nosed, unwashed and smelly Michelangelo Buonarroti. The not-exactly referee is Piero Soderini, the first elected-for-life Gonfaloniere of the Republic of Florence. Such a confrontation calls out for a story of rivalry, political intrigue and conspiracy, and Jonathan Jones certainly gives us that...the book is beguilingly written’
Guardian 22/5
‘In any form of art, the idea of Homeric rivals going head to head in a clash of skill and daring is almost irresistible...Jonathan Jones weaves a rich and intricate story...The Lost Battles is full of colourful incident and detail, both historical and artistic...Jonathan Jones, an art critic for the Guardian, writes with engaging passion about the art that Leonardo and Michelangelo did complete’
RA Magazine, Summer 2010
'This engaging story from The Guardian critic Jonathan Jones reveals the insults, egos and formal competitions that separated these two giants of the 16th century art world'
Artists & Illustrators Magazine June Issue
‘Jonathan Jones weaves a rich and intricate story’
Royal Academy Magazine, June issue
‘...an enjoyable account about the competition to paint frescoes of famous battles in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence’
Books of the year, Sunday Times 29/11

L'autore:

Jonathan Jones is the art critic of the Guardian. He appears in the BBC television series Private Life of a Masterpiece and gives talks at the Tate and other galleries. In 2009 he was a judge for the Turner Prize. Jonathan lives in London with his wife and daughter.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Simon & Schuster UK
• Data di pubblicazione: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1416526056
• ISBN 13: 9781416526056
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 368