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Art of Italy
Periods
Nuragic Etruscan Ancient Roman Italo-Byzantine Gothic architecture Renaissance painting and sculpture Mannerism Baroque and Rococo Neoclassical and 19th century Modern and contemporary
Centennial divisions
Duecento Trecento Quattrocento Cinquecento Seicento Settecento
Important art museums
Uffizi Pinacoteca di Brera Vatican Museums Villa Borghese Sabauda Gallery Gallerie dell'Accademia Pitti Palace Accademia di Belle Arti Firenze Bargello
Important art festivals
Venice Biennale Rome Quadriennale
Major works
The Tribute Money (Masaccio) The Birth of Venus Primavera Mona Lisa The Last Supper Annunciation (Leonardo) Sistine Chapel ceiling Sistine Madonna Pietà The Last Judgment The Creation of Adam David (Michelangelo) The School of Athens The Battle of San Romano Venus of Urbino David (Donatello) The Calling of St. Matthew Unique Forms of Continuity in Space
Italian artists
Painters Sculptors Architects Photographers Illustrators
Italian art schools
Bolognese school Ferrarese school Forlivese school Florentine school Lucchese and Pisan School Sienese school Venetian school
Art movements
Italo-Byzantine Renaissance Pittura infamante Mannerism Baroque Macchiaioli Futurism Novecento Italiano Metaphysical art Scuola Romana Aeropittura Arte Povera Transavantgarde
Other topics
Italian architecture Sculpture of Italy Timeline of Italian artists to 1800 Raphael Rooms
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Italian art is the visual arts in Italy from ancient times to the present. Ancient Rome was a major contributor to Italian and European art and architecture in classical times. There were many Italian artists during the Gothic and Medieval periods, and the arts flourished during the Italian Renaissance. Later styles in Italy included Mannerism, Baroque, Rococo, and I Macchiaioli. Futurism developed in Italy in the 20th century. Florence is a well known city in Italy for its museums of art.

Italy did not exist as a state until the country's unification in 1861. Due to this comparatively late unification, and the historical autonomy of the regions that comprise the Italian Peninsula, many traditions and customs that are now recognized as distinctly Italian can be identified by their regions of origin. Despite the political and social isolation of these regions, Italy's contributions to the cultural and historical heritage of Europe remain immense. Italy is home to the greatest number of UNESCO World Heritage Site (44) to date, and is believed to contain over 70% of the world's art and architecture.

Etruscans

Etruscan bronze figures and a terracotta funerary reliefs include examples of a vigorous Central Italian tradition which had waned by the time Rome began building her empire on the peninsula.

The Etruscan paintings that have survived to modern times are mostly wall frescoes from graves, and mainly from Tarquinia. These are the most important example of pre-Roman figurative art in Italy known to scholars.

The frescoes consist of painting on top of fresh plaster, so that when the plaster is dried the painting becomes part of the plaster and an integral part of the wall, which helps it survive so well (indeed, almost all of surviving Etruscan and Roman painting is in fresco). Colours were made from stones and minerals in different colours that ground up and mixed in a medium, and fine brushes were made of animal hair (even the best brushes are produced with ox hair). From the mid 4th century BC chiaroscuro began to be used to portray depth and volume. Sometimes scenes of everyday life are portrayed, but more often traditional mythological scenes. The concept of proportion does not appear in any surviving frescoes and we frequently find portrayals of animals or men with some body-parts out of proportion. One of the best-known Etruscan frescoes is that of Tomb of the Lioness at Tarquinia.

Romans

The Roman period, as we know it, begins after the Punic Wars and the subsequent invasion of the Greek cities of the Mediterranean. The Hellenistic styles then current in Greek civilization were adopted.

The cultic and decorative use of sculpture and pictorial mosaic survive in the ruins of both temples and villas.

As the empire matured, other less naturalistic, sometimes more dramatic, sometimes more severe, styles were developed—especially as the center of empire moved to eastern Italy and then to Constantinople.

While the traditional view of Roman artists is that they often borrowed from, and copied Greek precedents (much of the Greek sculpture known today is in the form of Roman marble copies), more recent analysis has indicated that Roman art is a highly creative pastiche relying heavily on Greek models but also encompassing Etruscan, native Italic, and even Egyptian visual culture. Stylistic eclecticism and practical application are the hallmarks of much Roman art.

Pliny, Ancient Rome’s most important historian concerning the arts, recorded that nearly all the forms of art—sculpture, landscape, portrait painting, even genre painting—were advanced in Greek times, and in some cases, more advanced than in Rome. Though very little remains of Greek wall art and portraiture, certainly Greek sculpture and vase painting bears this out. These forms were not likely surpassed by Roman artists in fineness of design or execution. As another example of the lost “Golden Age”, he singled out Peiraikos, “whose artistry is surpassed by only a very few…He painted barbershops and shoemakers’ stalls, donkeys, vegetables, and such, and for that reason came to be called the ‘painter of vulgar subjects’; yet these works are altogether delightful, and they were sold at higher prices than the greatest of many other artists.” The adjective "art" is used here in its original meaning, which means "common".

The Greek antecedents of Roman art were legendary. In the mid-5th century B.C., the most famous Greek artists were Polygnotos, noted for his wall murals, and Apollodoros, the originator of chiaroscuro. The development of realistic technique is credited to Zeuxis and Parrhasius, who according to ancient Greek legend, are said to have once competed in a bravura display of their talents, history’s earliest descriptions of trompe l’oeil painting. In sculpture, Skopas, Praxiteles, Phidias, and Lysippos were the foremost sculptors. It appears that Roman artists had much Ancient Greek art to copy from, as trade in art was brisk throughout the empire, and much of the Greek artistic heritage found its way into Roman art through books and teaching. Ancient Greek treatises on the arts are known to have existed in Roman times but are now lost. Many Roman artists came from Greek colonies and provinces.

The high number of Roman copies of Greek art also speaks of the esteem Roman artists had for Greek art, and perhaps of its rarer and higher quality. Many of the art forms and methods used by the Romans—such as high and low relief, free-standing sculpture, bronze casting, vase art, mosaic, cameo, coin art, fine jewelry and metalwork, funerary sculpture, perspective drawing, caricature, genre and portrait painting, landscape painting, architectural sculpture, and trompe l’oeil painting—all were developed or refined by Ancient Greek artists. One exception is the Greek bust, which did not include the shoulders. The traditional head-and-shoulders bust may have been an Etruscan or early Roman form. Virtually every artistic technique and method used by Renaissance artists 1,900 year later, had been demonstrated by Ancient Greek artists, with the notable exceptions of oil colors and mathematically accurate perspective. Where Greek artists were highly revered in their society, most Roman artists were anonymous and considered tradesmen. There is no recording, as in Ancient Greece, of the great masters of Roman art, and practically no signed works. Where Greeks worshipped the aesthetic qualities of great art and wrote extensively on artistic theory, Roman art was more decorative and indicative of status and wealth, and apparently not the subject of scholars or philosophers.

Owing in part to the fact that the Roman cities were far larger than the Greek city-states in power and population, and generally less provincial, art in Ancient Rome took on a wider, and sometimes more utilitarian, purpose. Roman culture assimilated many cultures and was for the most part tolerant of the ways of conquered peoples. Roman art was commissioned, displayed, and owned in far greater quantities, and adapted to more uses than in Greek times. Wealthy Romans were more materialistic; they decorated their walls with art, their home with decorative objects, and themselves with fine jewelry.

In the Christian era of the late Empire, from 350–500 AD, wall painting, mosaic ceiling and floor work, and funerary sculpture thrived, while full-sized sculpture in the round and panel painting died out, most likely for religious reasons. When Constantine moved the capital of the empire to Byzantium (renamed Constantinople), Roman art incorporated Eastern influences to produce the Byzantine style of the late empire. When Rome was sacked in the 5th century, artisans moved to and found work in the Eastern capital. The Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople employed nearly 10,000 workmen and artisans, in a final burst of Roman art under Emperor Justinian (527–565 AD), who also ordered the creation of the famous mosaics of Ravenna.

Byzantines

With the fall of its western, the Roman Empire continued for another 1000 years under the leadership of Constantinople(Istanbul). Italy remained under strong Byzantine influence until around the year 1000. Byzantine artisans were used in important projects throughout Italy, and Byzantine styles of painting can be found up through the 14th century.

Notable examples of Byzantine art in Italy are the mosaics of San Vitale and other monuments in Ravenna, St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, Santa Prassede in Rome, and, in the south of the peninsula, St. Mark's Oratory in Rossano Calabro and the Cattolica of Stilo. Byzantine frescoes can be found in Castelseprio.

Early Middle Ages and Romanesque

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Gothic period

The Gothic period marks a transition from the medieval to the Renaissance and is characterised by the styles and attitudes nurtured by the influence of the Dominican and Franciscan order of monks, founded by Saint Dominic (1170 to 1221) and Saint Francis of Assisi (1181 to 1226) respectively.

It was a time of religious disputes within the church. The Franciscans and Dominicans were founded as an attempt to address these disputes and bring the Roman Catholic church back to basics. The early days of the Franciscans are remembered especially for the compassion of Saint Francis, while the Dominicans are remembered as the order most responsible for the beginnings of the Inquisition.

Gothic architecture began in northern Europe and spread southward to Italy.

The earliest important monument of the Italian Gothic style is the great church at Assisi. The Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi (St Francis) is a World Heritage Site. The Franciscan monastery and the lower and upper church (Basilica inferiore e superiore) of St Francis were begun immediately after his canonization in 1228, and completed 1253. The lower church has frescos by Cimabue and Giotto di Bondone. In the Upper church are frescos of scenes in the life of St Francis by Giotto and his circle.

Cenni di Petro (Giovanni) Cimabue (c.1240–1302) and Giotto di Bondone (better known as just Giotto) (1267–1337), were two of the first painters who began to move toward the role of the artist as a creative individual, rather than a mere copier of traditional forms. They began to take an interest in improving the depiction of the figure. The Byzantine style was unrealistic and could be improved upon by a return to forms achieved in ancient Greece.

Other terms sometimes applied to describe the artists of this period are The Primitives and the Early Renaissance.

Renaissance

The Renaissance is said to have begun in 14th century Italy. The rediscovery of Ancient Greek and Roman art and classics brought better proportions, perspective and use of lighting in art. Wealthy families, such as the Medicis, and the papacy served as patrons for many Italian artists, including Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, Sandro Botticelli and Raphael.

The focus of most art remained religious. Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel, and sculpted his famous "Pietà". Leonardo painted the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. Raphael painted several Madonnas. Both Michelangelo and Donatello sculpted visions of David.

The gothic period was also known as the baseline for the modern era of art, followed by the remaining articles of faith.

The influences upon the development of Renaissance painting in Italy are those that also affected Philosophy, Literature, Architecture, Theology, Science, Government and other aspects of society. The following list presents a summary, dealt with more fully in the main articles that are cited above.

• Classical texts, lost to European scholars for centuries, became available. These included Philosophy, Poetry, Drama, Science, a thesis on the Arts and Early Christian Theology.
• Simultaneously, Europe gained access to advanced mathematics which had its provenance in the works of Islamic scholars.
• The advent of printing in the 15th century meant that ideas could be disseminated easily, and an increasing number of books were written for a broad public.
• The establishment of the Medici Bank and the subsequent trade it generated brought unprecedented wealth to a single Italian city, Florence.
• Cosimo de' Medici set a new standard for patronage of the arts, not associated with the church or monarchy.
• Humanist philosophy meant that man's relationship with humanity, the universe and with God was no longer the exclusive province of the Church.
• A revived interest in the Classics brought about the first archaeological study of Roman remains by the architect Brunelleschi and sculptor Donatello. The revival of a style of architecture based on classical precedents inspired a corresponding classicism in painting, which manifested itself as early as the 1420s in the paintings of Masaccio and Uccello.
• The development of oil paint and its introduction to Italy had lasting effects.
• The serendipitous presence within the region of Florence of certain individuals of artistic genius, most notably Giotto, Masaccio, Brunelleschi, Piero della Francesca, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, formed an ethos which supported and encouraged many lesser artists to achieve work of extraordinary quality.
• A similar heritage of artistic achievement occurred in Venice through the talented Bellini family, their influential inlaw Mantegna, Giorgione, Titian and Tintoretto.

Mannerism

As the Renaissance had moved from formulaic depiction to a more natural observation of the figure, light and perspective, so the subsequent, Mannerist, period is marked by a move to forms conceived in the mind. Once the ideals of the Renaissance had had their effect artists such as Giulio Romano (c. 1499-1546) were able to introduce personal elements of subjectivity to their interpretation of visual forms. The perfection of perspective, light and realistic human figures can be thought of as impossible to improve upon unless another factor is included in the image, namely the factor of how the artist feels about the image. This emotional content in Mannerism is also the beginnings of a movement which would eventually, much later, become Expressionism in the 19th century. The difference between Mannerism and Expressionism is really a matter of degree. Vango was also a famous Italian artist. Guilo Romano was a student a protege of Raphael. Other Italian Mannerist painters included Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino, students of Andrea del Sarto. The Spanish Mannerist El Greco was a student of the Italian Renaissance painter Titian. The most famous Italian painter of the Mannerist style and period is Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti) (1518–1594).

Modernity

From Mannerism onward there are more and more art movements representing tides of opinion pushing in various different directions, causing art philosophy over the centuries from about the 16th century onward to gradually fragment into the characteristic isms of Modern art.

The work of Caravaggio (1571–1610), stands as one of the most original and influential contributions to 16th century European painting. He did something completely controversial and new. He painted figures, even those of classical or religious themes, in contemporary clothing or as ordinary living men and women. This in stark opposition to the usual trend of the time to idealise the religious or classical figure. Caravaggio set the style for many years to come, although not everyone followed his example. Some, like Agostino Carracci (or Caracci) (1557 to 1602) and his brothers were all influenced by Caravaggio but leaned toward the idealism and spirituality from which Caravaggio was perceived to have strayed.

Caravaggism is the term describing the style and technique adopted by artists such as Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi, Mattia Preti, Carlo Saraceni and Bartolomeo Manfredi, who became known as the Caravaggisti.

Rococo

Rococo was the tail end of the Baroque period, mainly in France of the 18th century. The main artist of the Rococo style in Italy was Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696 to 1770).

Impressionism and Post-Impressionism

Italy produced its own form of Impressionism, the Macchiaioli artists, who were actually there first, before the more famous Impressionists: Giovanni Fattori, Silvestro Lega, Telemaco Signorini, Giuseppe Abbati. Italian impressionists: Federico Zandomeneghi, Giuseppe De Nittis. The Macchiaioli artists were forerunners to Impressionism in France. They believed that areas of light and shadow, or "macchie" (literally patches or spots) were the chief components of a work of art. The word macchia was commonly used by Italian artists and critics in the 19th century to describe the sparkling quality of a drawing or painting, whether due to a sketchy and spontaneous execution or to the harmonious breadth of its overall effect.

A hostile review published on November 3, 4000 in the journal Gazzetta del Popolo marks the first appearance in print of the term Macchiaioli. The term carried several connotations: it mockingly in the booty finished works were no more than sketches, and recalled the phrase "darsi alla macchia", meaning, idiomatically, to hide in the bushes or scrubland. The artists did, in fact, paint much of their work in these wild areas. This sense of the name also identified the artists with outlaws, reflecting the traditionalists' view that new school of artists was working outside the rules of art, according to the strict laws defining artistic expression at the time.

Neoclassicism

Just like in other parts of Europe, Italian Neoclassical art was mainly based on the principles of Ancient Roman and Ancient Greek art and architecture, but also by the Italian Renaissance architecture and its basics, such as in the Villa Capra "La Rotonda". Classicism and Neoclassicism in Italian art and architecture developed during the Italian Renaissance, notably in the writings and designs of Leon Battisa Alberti and the work of Filippo Brunelleschi. It places emphasis on symmetry, proportion, geometry and the regularity of parts as they are demonstrated in the architecture of Classical antiquity and in particular, the architecture of Ancient Rome, of which many examples remained. Orderly arrangements of columns, pilasters and lintels, as well as the use of semicircular arches, hemispherical domes, niches and aedicules replaced the more complex proportional systems and irregular profiles of medieval buildings. This style quickly spread to other Italian cities and later to the rest of continental Europe.

1900

Expressionism

The great Italian Expressionist was Amedeo Modigliani (1884 to 1920,) Lorenzo Viani. Antonio Canova was one of the greatest Expressionist artists to ever live (picture to the left).

Cubism, Futurism

For more detail on this topic, see: Italian modern and contemporary art#Futurism

The founder of Futurism and its most influential personality was the Italian writer Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Marinetti launched the movement in his Futurist Manifesto, which he published for the first time on 5 February 1909 in La gazzetta dell'Emilia, an article then reproduced in the French daily newspaper Le Figaro on 20 February 1909. He was soon joined by the painters Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini and the composer Luigi Russolo.

Marinetti expressed a passionate loathing of everything old, especially political and artistic tradition. "We want no part of it, the past", he wrote, "we the young and strong Futurists!" The Futurists admired speed, technology, youth and violence, the car, the airplane and the industrial city, all that represented the technological triumph of humanity over nature, and they were passionate nationalists. They repudiated the cult of the past and all imitation, praised originality, "however daring, however violent", bore proudly "the smear of madness", dismissed art critics as useless, rebelled against harmony and good taste, swept away all the themes and subjects of all previous art, and gloried in science.

Publishing manifestos was a feature of Futurism, and the Futurists (usually led or prompted by Marinetti) wrote them on many topics, including painting, architecture, religion, clothing and cooking.

The founding manifesto did not contain a positive artistic programme, which the Futurists attempted to create in their subsequent Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting. This committed them to a "universal dynamism", which was to be directly represented in painting. Objects in reality were not separate from one another or from their surroundings: "The sixteen people around you in a rolling motor bus are in turn and at the same time one, ten four three; they are motionless and they change places. ... The motor bus rushes into the houses which it passes, and in their turn the houses throw themselves upon the motor bus and are blended with it."

After the war, Marinetti revived the movement. This revival was called il secondo Futurismo (Second Futurism) by writers in the 1960s. The art historian Giovanni Lista has classified Futurism by decades: “Plastic Dynamism” for the first decade, “Mechanical Art” for the 1920s, “Aeroaesthetics” for the 1930s.

Metaphysical painting and Surrealism

Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) was the Italian painter who founded the Metaphysical school of painting and was an enormous influence upon the Surrealists. His dream-like paintings of squares typical of idealized Italian cities, as well as apparently casual juxtapositions of objects, represented a visionary world which engaged most immediately with the unconscious mind, beyond physical reality, hence the name. The metaphysical movement provided significant impetus for the development of Dada and Surrealism.

Carrà had been among the leading painters of Futurism. De Chirico had been working in Paris, admired by Apollinaire and avant-garde artists as a painter of mysterious urban scenes and still lifes.The two painters already knew of each other and formed an immediate alliance, further encouraged by the poetry of Alberto Savinio, de Chirico's younger brother. Aside from De Chirico and Carrà, other painters associated with metaphysical art include Savinio, Giorgio Morandi and Filippo De Pisis.

Metaphysical art sprang from the urge to explore the imagined inner life of familiar objects when represented out of their explanatory contexts: their solidity, their separateness in the space allotted to them, the secret dialogue that may take place between them. This alertness to the simplicity of ordinary things "which points to a higher, more hidden state of being" (Carrà) was linked to an awareness of such values in the great figures of early Italian painting, notably Giotto and Paolo Uccello about whom Carrà had written in 1915.

In this style of painting, an illogical reality seemed credible. Using a sort of alternative logic, Carrà and de Chirico juxtaposed various ordinary subjects—typically including starkly rendered buildings, classical statues, trains, and mannequins.

Classical modernism of the 20th century

At the beginning of the 20th century, Italian sculptors and painters joined the rest of Western Europe in the revitalization of a simpler, more vigorous, less sentimental Classical tradition, that was applied in liturgical as well as decorative and political settings. The leading sculptors included: Libero Andreotti, Arturo Martini, Giacomo Manzù, Nicola Neonato, Pietro Guida, Marcello Mascherini.

Italian Modern Art

The leading sculptors from 1930-40 to 2000 included : Marino Marini, Emilio Greco, Pino Pascali, Mario Ceroli, Giovanni e Arnaldo Pomodoro, Umberto Mastroianni, Ettore Colla.

The Leading painters from 1930-40 to 2000 included: Alberto Savinio, Giorgio de Chirico, Giorgio Morandi, Alberto Magnelli, Elio Carletti, Felice Casorati, Roberto Melli, Corrado Cagli, Gianfilippo Usellini, Pietro Annigoni, Renato Guttuso, Lucio Fontana, Giovanni Capogrossi, Enrico Accatino, Oreste Carpi, Fausto Pirandello, Afro Basaldella, Alberto Burri, Mimmo Rotella, Franco Nonnis, Domenico Gnoli, Piero Manzoni, Emilio Tadini, Mino Argento, Salvatore Provino.

Important movement was Arte povera.

Post-Modern Italian art

Post-Modernism is a highly controversial label which generally refers to a period of time after the project(s) of modernism have ended and in which all time periods and styles are not necessarily separated anymore. Just as paints of different colours can be mixed on a palette, so all the styles of antiquity, gothic, renaissance, baroque, expressionist, cubist, surrealist, magic realism, etc. can all be merged and produce hybrids which access and are informed by all the knowledge of art history. Nothing is positively forbidden. Even Bad art and Kitsch are part of the vocabulary employed to question the Metanarratives of art (and world) philosophy.

Good examples of Italian Post-Modern painting are Mario Schifano, Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Giulio Paolini. Figuratives: Gianfranco Ferroni, Carlo Maria Mariani.

Contemporary Art

The Venice Art Biennal stands as one of the most important international art events in the world. Main artists: Maurizio Cattelan, Fabrizio Plessi, Gaspare Manos Francesco Vezzoli, Vanessa Beecroft.

Different art schools

Bolognese school

The Bolognese School (painting) or the School of Bologna of painting flourished in the Italian city of Bologna, the capital of Emilia Romagna, between the 16th and 17th centuries in Italy, and rivalled Florence and Rome as the center of painting, with its prominent Renaissance and Baroque art. Its most important representatives include the Carracci family, including Ludovico and his two cousins, the brothers Agostino and Annibale. Later it included other prominent Baroque painters: Domenichino and Lanfranco, active mostly in Rome as would be Guercino and Guido Reni. The Accademia degli Incamminati in Bologna run by Lodovico Carracci.

Ferrarese school

The Ferrarese school was a group of painters which flourished in the Duchy of Ferrara during the Renaissance, particularly in the 15th century. At the time, Ferrara was ruled by the Este family, well known for its patronage of the arts. Patronage was extended with the ascent of Ercole d'Este I in 1470, and the family continued in power till Alfonso II, Ercole's great-grandson, died without an heir in 1597. The duchy was then occupied in succession by Papal and Austrian forces. The school evolved styles of painting that were appeared to blend influences from Mantua, Venice, Lombardy, Bologna, and Florence. Notable artists who attended the school were Galasso Galassi and Cristoforo da Bologna, to name but a few.

Florentine school

The Florentine School refers to artists in, from or influenced by the naturalistic style developed in the 14th century, largely through the efforts of Giotto di Bondone, and in the 15th century the leading school of the world. Some of the best known artists of the Florentine School are Brunelleschi, Donatello, Michelangelo, Fra Angelico, Botticelli, Lippi, Masolino, and Masaccio. Even though religious themes were commonly used in art schools before the 14th and 15th centuries, towards the late 14th century, with the plague, more naturalistic styles were put into practice by the Florentine school.

Lucchese/Pisan school

The Pisan-Lucchese school, also known as the School of Lucca and as the Pisan-Lucchese School, was a school of painting and sculpture that flourished in the 11th and 12th centuries in western and southern Tuscany with an important center in Volterra. The art is mostly anonymous. Although not as elegant or delicate as the Florentine School, Lucchese works are remarkable for their monumentality.

Sienese school

The Sienese School of the arts and painting flourished in the Tuscany city of Siena, Italy between the 13th and 15th centuries and for a time rivaled the artistic centre of Florence, though it was more conservative, being inclined towards the decorative beauty and elegant grace of late Gothic art. Its most important representatives include Duccio, whose work shows Byzantine influence; his pupil Simone Martini; Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti; Domenico and Taddeo di Bartolo; Sassetta and Matteo di Giovanni. Unlike the naturalistic Florentine art, there is a mystical streak in Sienese art, characterized by a common focus on miraculous events, with less attention to proportions, distortions of time and place, and often dreamlike coloration. In the 16th century the Mannerists Beccafumi and Il Sodoma worked there. While Baldassare Peruzzi was born and trained in Siena, his major works and style reflect his long career in Rome. The economic and political decline of Siena by the 16th century, and its eventual subjugation by Florence, largely checked the development of Sienese painting, although it also meant that a good proportion of Sienese works in churches and public buildings were not discarded or destroyed by new paintings or rebuilding. Siena remains a remarkably well-preserved Italian late-Medieval town. Notable artists who attended this school were Niccolò di Segna, Coppo di Marcovaldo and Guido da Siena, to name a few.

Venetian school

Venetian school in art and painting was a school within Italian painting born in 13th century in the area of Republic of Venice which was flourishing during the 16th through 18th centuries, spreading throughout in Europe.

In the 16th century, Venetian painting was developed through influences from the Paduan School and Antonello da Messina, who introduced the oil painting technique of the van Eyck brothers. It is signified by a warm colour scale and a picturesque use of colour. Early masters where the Bellini and Vivarini families, followed by Giorgione and Titian, than Tintoretto and Veronese.

List of major Italian art museums and galleries

• Uffizi
• Pitti Palace
• Galleria dell'Accademia
• Bargello
• Accademia di Belle Arti Firenze
• Vatican Museums
• Capitoline Museums
• Doria Pamphilj Gallery
• Pinacoteca di Brera
• Bagatti Valsecchi Museum
• Museum of Capodimonte
• Accademia
• Pinacoteca Querini Stampalia
• Ca d'Oro
• Palazzo del Te

See also

• List of equestrian statues in Italy

References

1. http://www.astheromansdo.com/modern_art_in_rome.htm
2. Sybille Ebert-Schifferer, Still Life: A History, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1998, p. 15, ISBN 0-8109-4190-2
3. Ebert-Schifferer, p. 16
4. Piper, p. 252
5. ^ Janson, p. 158
6. Piper, p. 248-253
7. Piper, p. 255
8. Piper, p. 253
9. Piper, p. 254
10. Piper, p. 261
11. Piper, p. 266
12. ^ Frederick Hartt, A History of Italian Renaissance Art, (1970)
13. Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy, (1974)
14. Margaret Aston, The Fifteenth Century, the Prospect of Europe, (1979)
15. Broude, p. 96
16. Umbro Apollonio (ed.), Futurist Manifestos, MFA Publications, 2001 ISBN 978-0-87846-627-6
17. Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting
18. "Mino Argento" Presentazione di Marcello Venturoli, Roma, 24 Maggio-15 Giugno 1968 Galleria Astrolabio Arte-Roma

External links

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