Antonio's Apprenticeship: Painting a Fresco in Renaissance Italy [Library Binding]

Taylor Morrison (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1996 | Age Level: 8 and up

As an apprentice in his uncle's studio, Antonio learns that creating beautiful frescoes for a Florentine chapel demands tedious chores, long hours, and unending patience.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This picture book debut brings to life 15th-century Florence with a sympathetic tale of a painter's apprentice. In first-person narration, Antonio describes his exciting arrival in the great city and his dismay at his distinctly unglamorous duties-gathering quills and hog hair for brushes and scraping dirt off the musty walls of the fictional San Francesco chapel. The work of grinding pigments, selecting models (cousins do nicely), transferring cartoons and applying plaster seems real as Morrison shows Antonio struggling with perspective or nervously painting his first fresco. Large, post-impressionist-type illustrations spatially dominate the layout but are upstaged by a handful of red pencil sketches wrought in fine Renaissance style. Morrison's vibrantly reported details lend irresistible immediacy to a seminal period in art history, but there's a fundamental problem with the book-its combination of a text geared to middle graders and a format and layout typically used for younger children may leave it without much of an audience. Ages 8-12.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 3-5?The year is 1478, the place is Florence, and the subject of this attractively designed picture book is how fresco painting was done. Readers follow Antonio through his first days of apprenticeship as he learns to prepare charcoal sticks and brushes; mix the plaster that will be laboriously applied to a chapel wall; grind the pigments; and transfer the master artist's drawings onto the freshly moistened plaster. At story's end, Antonio has been allowed to take up a brush to help finish the glorious fresco. The plot lacks action and excitement, and the full-page paintings lack detail and definition. Done in a painterly style, they show the colors and costumes of the time, but the heavy brushwork and dark palette give the scenes a murky, indistinct cast. Jane Johnson's The Princess and the Painter (Farrar, 1994) and Sharon Wooding's The Painter's Cat (Putnam, 1994) take readers into the Renaissance period by weaving a story around a specific painting. Morrison's fresco is unnamed and virtually unseen. Both the pictures and the plot are subordinate to an explanation of techniques. A useful supplement to projects on the art of the Renaissance, but not a strong story.?Shirley Wilton, Ocean County College, Toms River, NJ
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Library Binding
• Publisher: Holiday House; 1st edition (March 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 082341213X
• ISBN-13: 978-0823412136
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,634,054 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This first effort has fantastic research and composition., March 26, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Antonio's Apprenticeship: Painting a Fresco in Renaissance Italy (Library Binding)

With the push of technology we can literally work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. For most of us this has meant specialization. Not so in the renaissance. Mr. Morrison's work takes us back to a time of patience, hard work and delayed gratification. It's not surprising that he was recognised for his work by the Academy of Illustrators (a lifetime achievement for most illustrators - rarely bestowed on freshman attempts). Antonio is sure to be a classic for children as well as parents. It is a great model for how "quality time" can be cultured

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Boy in Renaissance apprentices to paint frescoes in a church, April 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Antonio's Apprenticeship: Painting a Fresco in Renaissance Italy (Library Binding)

Antonio, a young boy in Renaissance Italy, apprentices with his uncle, to learn how to paint frescoes in the Roman Catholic Church. Techniques used are described by the young author-illustrator. An interesting picture of Renaissance times for younger readers,with enough specific art descriptions to appeal to adults. Glossary included.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Antonio's Apprenticeship, April 18, 2001

By 

Barbara T. Zimmerman (Memphis, Tn.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Antonio's Apprenticeship: Painting a Fresco in Renaissance Italy (Library Binding)

In Morrison's book, set in Renaissance Italy, the reader learns the way of the artist. Antonio is apprenticed to his uncle to learn how to paint frescoes. With Morrison's full color plates, the reader enters the world of Renaissance Italy with its beautiful full- colored plates.

Morrison has included a very thorough glossary which would be helpful to any novice artist or anyone interested in learning the way of the artist. Helpful for art history buffs, or those interested in Renaissance history. Useful for school children interested in art.