Finding, fixing, faking, making
Subtitle: supplying sculpture in '400 Florence
By: Lynn Catterson
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Ediart
Published: 2014
Place of publication: Todi
Language: eng
Number of pages: 120
ISBN-13: 9788885311787; 9878885311784
Subjects: Italian Sculpture; Renaissance Sculpture; Art; History
Other titles: Supplying sculpture in '400 Florence
Description: Compared to painters of '400 Florence, the costs of materials and production for sculptors were significantly higher. Much has been written about demand and the taste of the patron as reflected in the types of projects they commissioned. Yet there must have been the equal but opposing force of supply. To mitigate the high cost of materials, labor and transport, sculptors had to choose materials and seek production processes that increased profit margins and reduced the labor required of the master's hand. While personal passion and commission competition are among the motivators normally seen to engender innovation, there evidently was the less lofty concern for the cost effectiveness of production. And this in turn would stimulate the craving for, and the evolution of, new technologies, and by the end of the '400, a keen savvy for branding and marketing the objects of supply. Using examples from the practice of Ghiberti, Donatello, Luca della Robbia and Michelangelo, this is an examination of the ways in which '400 sculptors successfully negotiated the emergent art-as-commodity market.
Notes: In English, summary in Italian.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 108-199).
Table of contents: title: Sculpture vs. painting: the economic paragone and its consequences; title: The challenge of correct optical refinements; title: Ghiberti and the early fifteenth-century antiquities market; title: Donatello and antiquities, from Florence to Rome; title: Drawings for the antique; title: Re-carving antiquities informs contemporary production; title: Finding, selling and making antiques, or ars longa vita brevis.