This book provides a new perspective on Sienese painting after the Black Death, asking how social, religious, and cultural change affect visual imagery and style. Judith Steinhoff demonstrates that Siena's artistic culture of the mid and late fourteenth century was intentionally pluralistic, and not conservative as is often claimed. She shows that Sienese art both before and after the Black Death was the material expression of an artistically sophisticated population that consciously and carefully integrated tradition and change. Promoting both iconographic and stylistic pluralism, Sienese patrons furthered their own goals as well as addressed the culture's changing needs. Steinhoff presents both detailed case studies as well as a broader view of trends in artistic practice and patronage. She offers a new approach to interpreting artistic style in the Trecento, arguing that artists and patrons alike understood the potential of style as a vehicle that conveys specific meanings.

This book provides a new perspective on Sienese painting after the Black Death.

About the Author
Judith Steinhoff is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Houston. She has contributed to Renaissance Studies, Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschicte, and The Art Bulletin.

Reviews
"This is a provocative book that devotes sustained attention to a period that is still from many points of view enigmatic. It does achieve its main purpose of illustrating the multiple stylistic strands that characterized late-trecento Sienese painting." -Julian Gardner, University of Warwick, Journal of Medieval Studies
"Solid scholarship on an understudied Sienese painter, Bartolommeo Bulgarini, active from 1338 to 1373." -Renaissance Quarterly



Book Information
ISBN 9780521846646
Author Judith Steinhoff
Format Hardback
Page Count 288
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 936g
Dimensions(mm) 253mm * 199mm * 23mm