The heritage of Giotto's geometry
Subtitle: art and science on the eve of the scientific revolution
By: Samuel Y. Edgerton, Jr.
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 1991
Place of publication: Ithaca
Language: eng
Number of pages: 319
Subjects: Giotto, 1266?-1337 -- Themes, motives; Perspective; Visual perception; Space (Art); Art, Medieval; Art, Renaissance
Description: This ambitious book explores the relationship between the Western "scientific revolution" that began with Galileo in the early seventeenth century and the Renaissance "artistic revolution" inaugurated by Giotto three hundred years earlier. The fruit of many years of thought and research, it demonstrates the crucial role that Italian Renaissance painting, sculpture, and architecture played in what we call "modern science." Samuel Y. Edgerton, Jr., shows that rather than being symptomatic in nature, the arts served as a catalyst for the transformation in perception which occurred in the West in the fourteenth century. According to Edgerton, the new way in which "reality" was represented, through the use of the unique Renaissance tools of perspective and chiaroscuro, set the stage for modern scientific practice.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 291-313) and index.