In her analysis of Michelangelo's Last Judgment, Bernadine Barnes provides an original and stimulating view of this renowned fresco and of the audience for which it was created. Because Michelangelo is so often regarded as a nearly superhuman artistic genius, we tend to forget that his works were not created to illustrate his life. The Last Judgment did have great personal meaning for him, but his representation of this religious event was not purely self-directed, says Barnes. She argues that Michelangelo had a particular type of viewer in mind as he designed his work. The Last Judgment dealt with an especially evocative subject, and Michelangelo engaged viewers by creating highly imaginative scenes tempering fear with hope and by referring to contemporary events. The painting's original, elite audience—the papal court and a handful of distinguished lay persons—was sophisticated about art and poetry, almost exclusively male, and orthodox in its religious beliefs. That audience later broadened and included artists allowed into the Chapel to copy Michelangelo's work. These artists helped to create another, less sophisticated audience, one that knew the fresco only through reproductions and written descriptions. The response of this latter audience eventually prompted the church to censor the painting. Beautifully illustrated with photographs of the recently restored Sistine Chapel, Barnes's study greatly enhances our understanding of changing Renaissance attitudes toward art. Her book also provides valuable insights into one of Michelangelo's greatest works.

Michelangelo's Last Judgment: The Renaissance Response (The Discovery Series)

Arts & Photography

Barnes, Bernadine

History & Criticism

University of California Press

Michelangelo in Print: Reproductions as Response in the Sixteenth Century

In seeing printed reproductions as a form of response to Michelangelo's work, Bernadine Barnes focuses on the choices that printmakers and publishers made as they selected which works would be reproduced and how they would be presented to various audiences. Six essays set the reproductions in historical context, and consider the challenges presented by works in various media and with varying degrees of accessibility, while a seventh considers how published verbal descriptions competed with visual reproductions. Rather than concentrating on the intentions of the artist, Barnes treats the prints as important indicators of the use of, and public reaction to, Michelangelo's works. Emphasizing reception and the construction of history, her approach adds to the growing body of scholarship on print culture in the Renaissance. The volume includes a comprehensive checklist organized by the work reproduced.

Routledge

In seeing printed reproductions as a form of response to Michelangelo's work, Bernadine Barnes focuses on the choices that printmakers and publishers made as they selected which works would be reproduced and how they would be presented to various audiences. Six essays set the reproductions in historical context, and consider the challenges presented by works in various media and with varying degrees of accessibility, while a seventh considers how published verbal descriptions competed with visual reproductions. Rather than concentrating on the intentions of the artist, Barnes treats the prints as important indicators of the use of, and public reaction to, Michelangelo's works. Emphasizing reception and the construction of history, her approach adds to the growing body of scholarship on print culture in the Renaissance. The volume includes a comprehensive checklist organized by the work reproduced.

Eva/Ave: Woman in Renaissance and Baroque Prints

Russell, H. Diane

Feminist Pr

In her excellent introduction to this catalogue for an exhibition of old master prints at the National Gallery of Art, Russell writes that these pieces show ``some of the guises, good and bad, in which woman was represented by male artists'' from about 1460 to the late 17th century. Russell, a curator at the National Gallery, touches upon various topics relating to the portrayal of women during this period: chastity as social necessity; the choice between marriage and convent; the inherent (male) power of the visual image. Grouped by subject matter, the prints portray Eve, Venus, and the Virgin and saints. A section on heroines includes the biblical Judith, who decapitated Holofernes. In one print, Judith, fully clothed, is depicted as powerful and virtuous; in another by the same artist, she is eroticized by her nakedness. The chapter on lovers offers a series of ``ill-assorted'' couples--one young woman with an old man is shown with her hand open, ``demanding money before she will grant sexual favors.'' This book provides a thoughtful feminist reading of a genre of art--and a period of art history--unabashedly committed to the subjugation of the female sex.

Today most of us enjoy the work of famed Renaissance artist Michelangelo by perusing art books or strolling along the galleries of a museum—and the luckier of us have had a chance to see his extraordinary frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. But as Bernadine Barnes shows in this book, even a visit to a well-preserved historical sight doesn’t quite afford the experience the artist intended us to have. Bringing together the latest historical research, she offers us an accurate account of how Michelangelo’s art would have been seen in its own time. As Barnes shows, Michelangelo’s works were made to be viewed in churches, homes, and political settings, by people who brought their own specific needs and expectations to them. Rarely were his paintings and sculptures viewed in quiet isolation—as we might today in the stark halls of a museum. Instead, they were an integral part of ritual and ceremonies, and viewers would have experienced them under specific lighting conditions and from particular vantages; they would have moved through spaces in particular ways and been compelled to relate various works with others nearby. Reconstructing some of the settings in which Michelangelo’s works appeared, Barnes reassembles these experiences for the modern viewer. Moving throughout his career, she considers how his audience changed, and how this led him to produce works for different purposes, sometimes for conventional religious settings, but sometimes for more open-minded patrons. She also shows how the development of print and art criticism changed the nature of the viewing public, further altering the dynamics between artist and audience. Historically attuned, this book encourages today’s viewers to take a fresh look at this iconic artist, seeing his work as they were truly meant to be seen.

Michelangelo and the Viewer in His Time (Renaissance Lives)

Reaktion Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Barnes, Bernadine. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Barnes, Bernadine

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Barnes, Bernadine. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Michelangelo's Last Judgment: The Renaissance Response (The Discovery Series)

Michelangelo in Print: Reproductions as Response in the Sixteenth Century

Michelangelo in Print: Reproductions as Response in the Sixteenth Century

Eva/Ave: Woman in Renaissance and Baroque Prints

Eva/Ave: Woman in Renaissance and Baroque Prints

Michelangelo and the Viewer in His Time (Renaissance Lives)