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Pisanello: Painter to the Renaissance Court
Pisanello (c.1394-1455) was the most celebrated artist of the early Italian Renaissance. A painter in fresco and on panel, a prolific and innovative draughtsman prized especially for minutely observed studies of animals and birds, he also became the first modern specialist of the portrait medal. Inspired equally by Arthurian romance, Gothic manuscript illuminations, classical antiquity and contemporary court fashions, his work provides a vivid record of the interests and ideals of his patrons, notably the Gonzaga, Este and Visconti rulers of northern Italian city states. To a modern viewer, Pisanello reveals an enchanted world, at once elegant, imaginative and intensely naturalistic.
Yet with the loss of most of his paintings, and the dispersion in specialised museum collections of his drawings and medals, the artist's fame has been eclipsed. This is the first comprehensive book in English for almost a century to present a full survey of his life and work. Taking as their starting point an analysis in depth of his two exquisite panel pictures in the National Gallery, London - The Vision of Saint Eustace and The Virgin and Child with Saint Anthony Abbot and Saint George - the authors give a detailed account of Pisanello's imagery, his techniques and working methods, of his probable teachers and influences, his collaborators and followers. But the book is not confined to artistic matters alone. By firmly situating Pisanello within the fascinating political and intellectual life of the fifteenth-century Italian courts, it also illuminates a defining moment in European when chivalric values were reconciled with humanist learning, Christian piety with Ciceronian eloquence, the arts of war with the art of living worthily - and a contemporary visual artist, Pisanello himself, first received the plaudits of poets and scholars.
Yet with the loss of most of his paintings, and the dispersion in specialised museum collections of his drawings and medals, the artist's fame has been eclipsed. This is the first comprehensive book in English for almost a century to present a full survey of his life and work. Taking as their starting point an analysis in depth of his two exquisite panel pictures in the National Gallery, London - The Vision of Saint Eustace and The Virgin and Child with Saint Anthony Abbot and Saint George - the authors give a detailed account of Pisanello's imagery, his techniques and working methods, of his probable teachers and influences, his collaborators and followers. But the book is not confined to artistic matters alone. By firmly situating Pisanello within the fascinating political and intellectual life of the fifteenth-century Italian courts, it also illuminates a defining moment in European when chivalric values were reconciled with humanist learning, Christian piety with Ciceronian eloquence, the arts of war with the art of living worthily - and a contemporary visual artist, Pisanello himself, first received the plaudits of poets and scholars.
- GenresArt
260 pages, Hardcover
First published October 26, 2001
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July 24, 2025
A belief in the primacy of Florentine art as the driving force of the Italian Renaissance has anchored itself firmly in the collective mind ever since Giorgio Vasari published his Lives of the Artists (1550-1568). Yet historical evidence doesn't fit comfortably with the widely shared conviction that a new dawn in the visual arts originated solely in Florence with Masaccio as the Alpha and Michelangelo as the Omega. How to classify the work of such masters as Gentile da Fabriano and Pisanello, whose paintings were tailored to the tastes of clients living at the Italian courts outside Tuscany? And what to make of the famous remark by humanist Bartolomeo Facio (staying at the Neapolitan court, 1456) that not Masaccio or Fra Angelico, but Gentile da Fabriano and Pisanello (together with Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden) were the greatest painters of his era?
In Pisanello: Painter to the Renaissance Court, published to accompany the 2001 exhibition at the National Gallery in London, Luke Syson and Dillian Gordon counter the dominant view of a Florence-centred rebirth of the visual arts by shedding light on a master who enjoyed much greater fame in his own time than he does now: Pisanello (Verona, c.1394-1455). Instead of writing a traditional exhibition catalogue, the authors have opted for a monographic approach in which they sketch an overview of Pisanello's life and work in five lavishly colour-illustrated chapters. The first chapter provides biographical notes of Pisanello's life and career, while subsequent chapters examine different aspects and themes that suffuse his work, such as the culture of chivalry in Italy, classical learning, and court art. The book closes with a reflection on Pisanello's workshop practices and that quintessential Burckhardtian notion of renaissance characteristics: artistic individuality.
Through these chapters we learn that Pisanello not only worked for private clients at different courts in northern Italy and the Kingdom of Naples, but also that his aristocratic clientele regarded the tastes and traditions of the Burgundian court as benchmarks for their own behaviour and art patronage. This helps explain why many surviving painted works by Pisanello (of which few are extant) depict scenes from chivalric stories and Arthurian legends, which we often associate with the International Gothic Style. At the same time, however, Pisanello is remembered as an artist with a true renaissance spirit for his countless faithful drawings after nature and for his portrait medals, a medium he revived and popularised, which in this book are also elaborately analysed and discussed.
With Pisanello: Painter to the Renaissance Court, Syson and Gordon have written an elegant monograph about a master who we might now find somewhat difficult to categorize but who was staggeringly innovative and without a doubt one of the pre-eminent artists of the early Italian Renaissance. While they seldom break new ground, the authors help to make available to an English-speaking audience a treasure trove of scholarly knowledge previously only accessible in Italian and French for the first time in almost a century. Warmly recommended!
In Pisanello: Painter to the Renaissance Court, published to accompany the 2001 exhibition at the National Gallery in London, Luke Syson and Dillian Gordon counter the dominant view of a Florence-centred rebirth of the visual arts by shedding light on a master who enjoyed much greater fame in his own time than he does now: Pisanello (Verona, c.1394-1455). Instead of writing a traditional exhibition catalogue, the authors have opted for a monographic approach in which they sketch an overview of Pisanello's life and work in five lavishly colour-illustrated chapters. The first chapter provides biographical notes of Pisanello's life and career, while subsequent chapters examine different aspects and themes that suffuse his work, such as the culture of chivalry in Italy, classical learning, and court art. The book closes with a reflection on Pisanello's workshop practices and that quintessential Burckhardtian notion of renaissance characteristics: artistic individuality.
Through these chapters we learn that Pisanello not only worked for private clients at different courts in northern Italy and the Kingdom of Naples, but also that his aristocratic clientele regarded the tastes and traditions of the Burgundian court as benchmarks for their own behaviour and art patronage. This helps explain why many surviving painted works by Pisanello (of which few are extant) depict scenes from chivalric stories and Arthurian legends, which we often associate with the International Gothic Style. At the same time, however, Pisanello is remembered as an artist with a true renaissance spirit for his countless faithful drawings after nature and for his portrait medals, a medium he revived and popularised, which in this book are also elaborately analysed and discussed.
With Pisanello: Painter to the Renaissance Court, Syson and Gordon have written an elegant monograph about a master who we might now find somewhat difficult to categorize but who was staggeringly innovative and without a doubt one of the pre-eminent artists of the early Italian Renaissance. While they seldom break new ground, the authors help to make available to an English-speaking audience a treasure trove of scholarly knowledge previously only accessible in Italian and French for the first time in almost a century. Warmly recommended!
April 1, 2019
This is a detailed exploration of the career of the celebrated Renaissance artist, Antonio da Pucci, known as Pisano or Pisanello (c1395-1455). Perhaps less well known than other Italian masters he was "... probably the most celebrated and among the most sought after painters of his generation in Italy."
The authors, Luke Syson and Dillian Gordon, examine the life and work of Pisanello and place him in in the artistic and historical context of Italy in the late 14th century. The authors examine the two extant panel paintings in London, the Italian frescoes and the two extant Este portraits. They also examine his work in medals and his drawings and in doing so highlight the aspects of his work that made him such a celebrated artist. It seems that Pisanello's success lay in his ability as an artist to reflect the courtly chivalric tradition of his patrons while also reflecting the new humanist learning which was such an integral part of the Italian Renaissance.
The authors, Luke Syson and Dillian Gordon, examine the life and work of Pisanello and place him in in the artistic and historical context of Italy in the late 14th century. The authors examine the two extant panel paintings in London, the Italian frescoes and the two extant Este portraits. They also examine his work in medals and his drawings and in doing so highlight the aspects of his work that made him such a celebrated artist. It seems that Pisanello's success lay in his ability as an artist to reflect the courtly chivalric tradition of his patrons while also reflecting the new humanist learning which was such an integral part of the Italian Renaissance.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews