Description

Book Synopsis
"This book is an original, cogent account of the singular Florentine painter Piero di Cosimo (1462-1522), providing a concise survey of his life within his social, cultural and literary backdrop. Delving into the artist’s deliberately idiosyncratic life, the book shows how Piero chose to live in squalor, and eat nothing but boiled eggs, which (according to Vasari’s famous Lives of the Artists) he cooked fifty at a time in his painting glue. This book shows how the artist became the favourite of sophisticated patrons, who were eager to decorate their residences with pagan Greco-Roman mythological subjects. Piero’s vividly imagined portrayals led to his cornering the market on these commissions. At the same time his more orthodox, but never ordinary, religious altarpieces and private devotional paintings also won the admiration of leading Florentine families."

Piero di Cosimo: Eccentricity and Delight

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    A Hardback by Sarah Blake McHam

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      Book details

      Publisher Reaktion Books
      Published 1 February 2024
      ISBN-13 9781789148428
      978-1789148428
      ISBN-10 1789148421
      Also in:
      Art & Photography History of art

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      "This book is an original, cogent account of the singular Florentine painter Piero di Cosimo (1462-1522), providing a concise survey of his life within his social, cultural and literary backdrop. Delving into the artist’s deliberately idiosyncratic life, the book shows how Piero chose to live in squalor, and eat nothing but boiled eggs, which (according to Vasari’s famous Lives of the Artists) he cooked fifty at a time in his painting glue. This book shows how the artist became the favourite of sophisticated patrons, who were eager to decorate their residences with pagan Greco-Roman mythological subjects. Piero’s vividly imagined portrayals led to his cornering the market on these commissions. At the same time his more orthodox, but never ordinary, religious altarpieces and private devotional paintings also won the admiration of leading Florentine families."

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