Bargaining over beauty: The economics of contracts in Renaissance art markets

This paper argues that concerns over opportunism affected the content and structure of Renaissance art contracts. Building on insights from the economic analysis of contracts, we first show that opportunism threatened the relationship between buyer—the patron—and seller—the painter—in Renaissance Italy. We then test the effect of opportunism on the contracting process for paintings against a novel data set on the content and structure of ninety documents corresponding to as many commissions. Our results provide evidence that concerns over opportunism had a systematic effect on the trading parties’ choice of how much and what to include in the contract governing their ex-change.

ICON OF THE APOCALYPSE FROM THE DORMITION CATHEDRAL OF THE KREMLIN. DATE AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The “Apocalypse” icon from the Domition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin has long been in the field of view of researchers, but still there is no common opinion about its dating, and therefore there is no context in which this monument would take its place. The icon has many inscriptions, all of which correspond to the text of the Revelation of John the Theologian. In the construction of the composition, the master of the “Apocalypse” could not rely on the Byzantine tradition of illustrating the Revelation, since it actually did not exist. So what could the author of the iconography of the Moscow Apocalypse have been inspired by? The process of penetration of Renaissance influences into Russian culture, which began in the reign of Ivan III, reached its highest point at the beginning of the XVI century. The coincidence of certain motives of the iconographic program of the «Apocalypse» with the motives of Botticelli’s illustrations for the Divine Comedy, as well as the role of the line in both works, indicate the penetration of Renaissance art influences into iconеpainting. The discovered parallels do not allow us to date the icon from the Domition Cathedral earlier than 1491-1500, the icon was most likely written after 1500, in the first decade of the XVI century. The icon became the “banner” of a new period of understanding of eschatological ideas.

The Bonnet and the Beret in Medieval and German Renaissance Art

This paper presents an art-historic contribution, examining the bonnet and the beret as characteristic forms of female and male headdresses and their manifold variations and oriental origins. Both types of head coverings are shaped by sociocultural attitudes and evolved in form. Embedded within the wider context of clothing they also, in turn, influence social norms and attitude. Examining their history and genesis also reveals and raises gender-specific perspectives and questions. The depiction and representation of the bonnet and beret during two defining periods in the visual arts, incorporating role-play and creativity, present a considerable knowledge transfer through media. First instances of gender-specific dress codes can be traced back to the Bible and therefore Paul’s rules for head covering for women in 1 Cor 11,2-16 is intensively debated. The following chapter will trace and illustrate the history of female and male head coverings on the example of various works of art. The strict rules outlined in 1 Corinthian 11 prescribing appropriate head coverings in ceremonial settings, which had a significant and lasting impact, have in time been transformed through the creative freedom afforded by the mundanity of fashion.

Moving Pictures and Renaissance Art History

Film, like the printed imagery inaugurated during the Renaissance, spread ideas---not least the idea of the power of visual art---across not only geographical and political divides but also strata of class and gender. Moving Pictures and Renaissance Art History examines the early flourishing of film, 1920s-mid-60s, as partly reprising the introduction of mass media in the Renaissance, allowing for innovation that reflected an art free of the control of a patron though required to attract a broad public. Rivalry between word and image, narrative and visual composition shifted in both cases toward acknowledging the compelling nature of the visual. The twentieth century also saw the development of the discipline of art history; transfusions between cinematic practice and art historical postulates and preoccupations are part of the story told here.

Luxuswaren und Wissensobjekte

The Venetian incunabula and post-incunabula traced in the library of the Nuremberg humanist Willibald Pirckheimer express the significant influence of the two cities’ relationship on shaping early modern culture in North-alpine Europe: The books, traded by Franconian merchants as luxury goods and, due to the miniatures added by Albrecht Dürer, examples of the influence of Italian Renaissance art north of the Alpes, also shaped the development of Greek humanism in the north and played an important role in constituting learned networks. The ambivalent and always shifting relation of their status as luxury goods or as objects of intellectual knowledge continued after Pirckheimer’s death as they became part of important English book collections and in the 1920 s precious pieces of the stocks of the famous Munich antiquarians Jacques and Erwin Rosenthal, the latter studying as an art historian the artistic importance of Dürer’s miniatures in Pirckheimer’s Venetian books.