¶ … Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy by Michael Baxandall. The paper presents the thesis of the book, evidence of the arguments put forward by the author to support his thesis, details of the structure of the book, and a critical analysis of the thesis put forward by Baxandall.
Baxandall's book is a classic of art history, which gives both an introduction to fifteenth century Italian painting, and also a discourse on how to interpret social history from the paintings of a particular era. The main thesis of the book is that the style of paintings in any particular era reflects the social life of the time. He argues that life is lent to the paintings by the assimilation of contemporary daily habits and fashions by their creators.
He argues, for example, that Renaissance painting became so vibrant at that time due to the expansion of other branches of the arts around at the time: for example, dance, literature, theatre, opera etc. This expansion in the arts gave inspiration to painters to take their art further, by introducing new techniques, and new ways of representing life in art, through developments in the use of perspective, relief etc.
He argues that artists were...
This led to the greatest movement art has known: the Renaissance.
A further
argument he develops is that we, from our day and age, with our own set of perceptions, historical experience, and social circumstances, cannot truly understand or comprehend these fifteenth century paintings, as we no longer have ready conceptual access to them.
He argues that we bring our own experiences and concepts to the viewing, analysis and appreciation of these paintings, such that we fail to see their true colours, their true historical messages. By using our own
conceptual framework to look at these fifteenth century masterpieces, we fail to appreciate the paintings as a contemporary would have done: we fail to see their
social context, and as such, we miss a great deal of information held within the painting that could be useful for an even better, greater, understanding of the works. The book is a cry to heed this argument, and to view painting with a more encompassing eye.
He uses examples of certain artists to reinforce his arguments, and to reach his end point, which is to attempt to re-establish a contemporaries sense of social situation when viewing a fifteenth century painting. He argues that only through this pathway to viewing fifteenth century art, indeed any art, can that art be truly appreciated, as it is only then placed in its correct historical, and cultural…
