The World of the Early Sienese Painter
- Binding: Hardcover
- Publisher: Pennsylvania State Univ Pr
- Publish date: 11/01/2000
Where did painters live? How much were they paid? What was their social status? Were painters aware of the novel importance of thirteenth-century optics? Were the famous Sienese painters isolated figures, surrounded by a few secondary figures, or were they part of a larger community? These and a host of related questions structure Maginnis's book, which demonstrates how firmly painters' lives were embedded in the values and customs of their society and how important the particular character of their society was for the patronage artists received.
The World of the Early Sienese Painter is the second volume of a trilogy Maginnis began with Painting in the Age of Giotto (1997), a revisionist work that examines the history of reception of central Italian painting of the period and shows that the age-old belief in Florentine leadership of the Renaissance has distorted a much more interesting historical reality. The third volume will turn from the broad social and cultural history of the present book to a history of early Sienese painting.