Customer Reviews

The Renaissance: A Short History (Modern Library Chronicles)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Paul Johnson's _The Renaissance: A Short History_ (Modern Library) is indeed short. It gives capsule biographies of the main artists of the time, and the interrelations between different facets of the arts and the economic and religious trends. It is unillustrated, but pithy, and as a small book on a huge subject, it is excellent. Repeatedly, Johnson shows just how the Renaissance artists drew on ancient models. Roman type was developed by studying the classic engraved letters, artists began to use themes from pagan myths instead of only depicting scenes from the Bible, scholars resumed the task (abandoned throughout the middle ages) of critically examining scriptural texts, and the rules of perspective were rediscovered.

Johnson also has insights on particular artistic processes. For instance, his description of the advantages and disadvantages of tempera use on wet plaster is excellent; the rules of perspective gave enormous freedom to the artists to depict real scenes, but artists were constrained by the fresco technique which demanded that final decisions be made about a large work before any coloring of the plaster was begun, since corrections could only be made by starting all over again. When painting in oil was introduced, artists could make a living painting not on walls but on canvas. With canvas came the easel, and artists could not only paint scenes from life, but could work in their studios where models (and clients) were readily accessible. This involved less church work, ending the religious monopoly on art, and giving another impetus towards humanism.

The most important lesson from the Renaissance, however, is not its deposing the centrality of the church. Those who created the Renaissance masterpieces had drawn from the excellences of the ancients, and having done so, produced works that were equivalent and even surpassing. Leonardo himself said, "He is a wretched pupil who does not surpass his master." After centuries of stagnation, the Renaissance had instilled its most vivid legacy into western thought, that of progress.

This was a tough one to call as far as how many stars to give...I was wavering between 3 and 4. The most accurate rating would probably be 3 1/2 stars. On the negative side there are two drawbacks to the book. The first is, if you have already read a few books on the Renaissance you won't find much that is new here. The second drawback is the lack of pictures- really inexcusable in a book of this kind. (That is probably the major reason why I went with 3 stars rather than 4.) The majority of the book deals with architecture, sculpture and painting. How can you not include reproductions? I realize that the publisher wanted to keep the price down, but they could have at least included a few plates....even some black and white ones would have been helpful (especially in the sections on architecture and sculpture, where color is not that essential). On the positive side, if you haven't read anything on the Renaissance this book is a good starting point. Mr. Johnson provides some historical background, and then he tells a little bit about key figures in all of the areas mentioned above, (and before he gets into the visual arts he has a good chapter on the heavyweights in the areas of literature and scholarship). Another good thing about the book is that even though it is short and Mr. Johnson has to cram in a lot of people, the book isn't written like an encyclopedia. The prose isn't dry. The author is enthusiastic and isn't afraid to express his opinions. To give you an example, Mr. Johnson includes several pages on Dante and Chaucer- to show that even though they wrote in an earlier period they were harbingers of what the Renaissance was all about...they were fascinated by individual human beings and therefore created characters who were real rather than archetypes. In discussing Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" Mr. Johnson has this to say: "These men and women jump out from the pages, and live on in the memory, in ways that not even Dante could contrive. There is genius here of an inexplicable kind: Chaucer is one of the four English writers- the other three being Shakespeare, Dickens and Kipling- whose extraordinary ability to peer into the minds of diverse human creatures defies rational explanation and can only be attributed to a mysterious 'daemon.'" Mr. Johnson's comments are usually interesting and pertinent but he occasionally shoots from the hip and says something silly, such as the following: "(Albrecht) Durer was unusually thoughtful and articulate for a painter..." I could give Mr. Johnson a long list of intellectual artists, which would include Rubens, Delacroix, Degas, Van Gogh, Matisse, Duchamp, Picasso, Braque, etc. All because someone creates with paint (or music) rather than with words doesn't mean they aren't thoughtful or articulate. Fortunately, comments like this are few and far between and Mr. Johnson is usually sensible rather than silly. So, in summary, this is a good book for the reader who doesn't know a lot about the Renaissance and the pleasing style will make the reader want to learn more about the topics and people that are discussed.

This is one of the most informative books on the Renaissance I have ever read. In fewer than two hundred pages Johnson manages to examine in fair detail the major and minor figures associated with the Renaissance. Johnson's thesis is that the Renaissance was a dramatic shift from the collectivism of Medieval art, literature, and society, to an individualism that respected both the artist/writer and his subjects as unique, singular beings rather than mere archetypes. Johnson adds, however, that the Renaissance was not inevitable: without the improbable appearance of a handful of geniuses, the birth of modernity might not have taken place as it did. Among Johnson's arguments, grasped by attentive readers, is that historical events like the Renaissance cannot be confined to exact dates. Thus, Johnson usefully and justifiably discusses early writers such as Dante and Chaucer because, as careful readers will note, the innovation and spirit of their works were groundbreaking and indispensably influential on the literature that unfolded as the Renaissance progressed. Johnson is well worth your time, particularly if you are in the mood for a digestible, refreshing take on the Renaissance in a short, easily readable volume.

The whole point in picking up this book is that it promises to be short. That's what you want. That said, it is inevitable to think, as you draw to the end, that gee, it has left a few things out. That is a minor criticism, however, for a book that encompasses the extraordinary cultural advances of the Renaissance in a lucid narrative that rises well above outline format. Johnson chooses to emphasize the artistic growth of the era (the economics of the book's length apparently caused science and mathematics to get the short end). What Johnson does look at, however, he looks at in depth, with high appreciation for the aesthetics and enduring significance. His first chapter does a good job of sorting out the political, religious and cultural conditions that led to this unparalleled period in human history. For someone untrained in historical inquiry, whose education in world history was minimal and a long time ago, this book was a pleasant refresher course.

This book is a short introduction to one of the greatest periods of mankind's past. It shows what led to the Renaissance and takes you, page by page, through the period's greatest achievements--focusing throughout on the individuals who made them possible. As such, I recommend this book to anyone wanting know any of the above.

My recommendation is somewhat less than enthusiastic however because of the author's attempt to include too much in too little of a space. The author's focus on almost everyone who contributed to this period's greatness (in art and architecture among many other things) makes the book read like a _who's who_ of the Renaissance. Thus, at times, this focus on the many detracts from an all-encompassing view of the one cultural distinction that fueled these individuals to their great achievements--and it can get boring.

Even so, this is one of the best introductions to this period that I have read and, despite its faults, it offers a very real value to every reader. That value is this: it shows the cause behind the achievements of the Renaissance (a culture in which reason was "reborn"). Knowing this, readers can fight for another Renaissance more successfully--and, hopefully, one day live in a culture inhabited with heroes not unlike those who fill the pages of this book.

The beauty of this book is its size and simplicity. Perhaps the best thing the compilers of the Modern Library Chronicles Series did was use historians who have the literary style and writing ability to clearly explain the complexities of THE RENAISSANCE and possess the skill to do so in under 200 pages. I can't imagine a situation like this - but if ever an occassion arose where you would need immediate access to some fact on Renaissance architecture, literature, paintings or sculpture - you could just pop out this little pocket-sized volume. It's that small.

The book begins and ends with a discussion of the economic, technological, and cultural factors that both brought about the Renaissance, and contributed to its decline. Printing by movable type was "the central technological event of the Renaissance" and was a prime mover in the spread of the culture of this golden age. Johnson in fact says it was "the most important cultural event by far of the entire period." Johnson shows how the Reformation with its demands for popular and vernacular forms of religion had a concomitant influence on cultural forms such as music and painting. The polyphonic complexity and richness in music, and Gothic influences in art, were replaced with emphasis on simplicity and austerity. The Renaissance he says became "a spent force" and "by the 1560's and 1570's it was dead." This may be true of the Renaissance as a movement but it had now "become part of the basic repertoire of European arts, subsumed in the Baroque and in Rococo, ready to spring to life again in the neoclassicism of the late eighteenth century."

In between his explanations on Renaissance's rise and fall are discussions on the main topics of interest in this period. In the development of architecture Johnson makes a distinction between Gothic form and style and a Gothic spirit. The former captivated all, but in southern Italy (particularly Florence) where Renaissance architectural styles first emerged, there was a longing for something else. From within the local culture an emphasis on classical themes rather than Gothic clutter emerged. A theory and practice of architecture was developed that looked at "a balance between the elements so that there is no dominant feature but a pervading style that brings the whole together." Florentine innovations were also significant in painting techniques. Johnson mentions that fresco painting methods were amended to incorporate a greater emphasis on drawings and draftmanship. These preparatory sketches are of course now works of art in their own right but then they were simply tools to allow artists to explore other subjects such as the human form. Johnson says that "the glories of the High Renaissance, and its celebration - one might almost say sanctification - of the human body, would have been impossible without this meticulous tradition of draftmanship."

There are some equally interesting insights into Renaissance sculpture and literature, and it's all written in a very readble, clear, and concise prose. This is a good introduction to the Renaissance period.

I am a layman with regard to the arts, but has a keen interest in it, and I thoroughly enjoyed this little work by Paul Johnson. As always he is opinionated, sometimes infuriatingly so (I notice from the formal reviews that this does not endear him to academic historians), but that prevents his writing from being dull and academic. So what if he thinks that England had produced only four authors possessing of true genius- it's his opinion and he is entitled to state it. In this book Johnson gives a concise overview of the Renaissance: why it happened, and the major figures who contributed to this re-birth of painting, sculpture, etc. And he keeps it short, mercifully- it was nice to be able to finish a Johnson in a few days instead of a few months.

Above all, after reading this I want to re-visit Florence, the centre of the Renaissance, with this book in hand, looking for the wonderful art works produced by the masters. And I am sure that is what Johnson hoped for when writing this book, that it would make readers excited about the art of the Renaissance.

This is the first book I read of Paul Johnson's that is not a kilopage tome. In less than 200 pages, Johnson gave the Renaissance a most delightful treatment.

This book will disappoint those who try to look for exhaustive treatment of any area of literature and art of that fabulous era, or of any of the fabled masters. But it delights the reader with a short tour of the Renaissance Italy (and to a lesser degree, Europe) by vivid illustrations of some of the most outstanding literary, architecture and artistic accomplishments and the personalities behind them.

A most valuable part of this small volume is its casting of the Renaissance in a historical and geographical context. What brought about this marvelous revival of high arts? How was it related to the Gothic tradition? How some "imported" technologies, such as the movable type printing press from Germany and the oil paint from the Low Countries, were enthusiastically adopted by the Italians in propagating ideas and revolutionizing art forms. How the guild system produced successive generations of artists and also contemporaneous competition. Roles played by local politics and art patrons, and, of course, the church. And how eventually the French and German invasions from the north undermined the power foundation of this spectacular flowering of the arts, while ushering in the era of Reformation and the Baroque.

As a short history book - rather than a subject matter book - I find it informative, illuminating and well worth a couple of evening's reading time.

This is not a bad introduction in that it covers an enormous subject in fewer than 200 pages; and, manages to provide a plausible structure which the newcomer to this era can use to orient him or herself in future reading. Many important figures are briefly described and given easily grasped contexts. I was pleased to be introduced to a few scholars/men of letters of whom I had not heard before. I was also disappointed at some omissions, but it is, after all, a short work.

Johnson's writing style is pleasant and clear.

I was troubled, however, by the thinness of the author's overarching observations: that the economic conditions that allowed the Renaissance to take place and his opinion that its development was based in great part upon the sudden and inexplicable appearances of certain men of genius. The relative growth of Europe's prosperity, coupled with low population does provide a partial and, I think useful, explanation for technical and scientific innovations, however, it is too undeveloped here. The "men of genius" component is plopped in as a sort of secret ingredient. Johnson fails to try to explain what inspired the geniuses or just why/how their ideas caught on. Johnson supplies an ocassional intriging but completely undeveloped hint as for example when he describes influences on Dante, which including the ideas of two contempory scholars. Illuminating how the "original ideas" of the Renaissance evolved would have made this book far more interesting and meaningful and would have helped supply the missing insight as to what "caused" the Renaissance and just what is meant by the term "Renaissance."

I also think that the book fails to bring to life the intellectual and asthetic accomplishments of the outstanding people of this era. The vision it creates is rather dull and grey. As a short work, necessairly its depth is limited. Nevertheless, its "name dropping" feel might have been avoided had it included more penetrating overarching analysis. Similairly, I think the book would have greatly benefited had the author taken just a few occasions to examine a Renaissance accomplishment (artistic device or literary expression or new idea) in some critical detail: focusing on its antecedents (what it was based on as well as what it superceded) and the manner in which it was viewed at the time of its creation. A few such examples would have greatly enhanced this book and tended to breath life into this short history.

For further reading, I highly recommend the chapters on the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance in "The Classical Tradition" by Gilbert Highet. It is a 100 star book, but much more lengthy!!

It is no small feat to capture in one hundred eighty-six pages the essence of the most powerful artistic and intellectual movement in history. But historian and journalist Paul Johnson, as only Johnson can, has accomplished just that. In this new addition to the Modern Library Chronicles, The Renaissance: A Short History, Johnson systematically identifies the primary elements of the Renaissance movement, illustrating each point with colorful biographical information.
The hallmark of Johnson's writing is a clear, universal presentation of subject matter combined with skillfully selected detail. In Renaissance, he divides his narrative into six parts, each focusing on a different aspect of the era-literature and letters, sculpture, architecture, and painting-framed by sections on the movement's rise and fall. Each chapter is a beautifully constructed piece, expounding upon the minutiae of its respective topic, exploring how each demonstrated the Renaissance principles of individuality and human glorification. For example, in his section on literature, Johnson attributes Dante's Convivio, penned not in Latin but in his native Italian, as "the first great Renaissance defense of the vernacular as a suitable language for works of beauty and weight" (26).
Johnson paints the historical landscape with a broad brush, beginning his discussion of the Renaissance with a contrasting picture of the Middle Ages. He explains how the coarse craftsman of the village guild, laboring in stone, leather, and wood, blossomed into the master studio artist, creating aesthetic works through sculpture, painting, and carving (16). The monastic scriptorium became the modern printing press; the local dialect became a script; the illiterate public official became a learned patron of the arts--a uomo universale.
Johnson illustrates these artistic movements through an exploration of the individuals who propelled them. The essence of the Renaissance was man's discovery and expression of himself: "The emergence of an artist as an individual in his works-both processes reinforced each other" (66). Johnson demonstrates how this theme of individuality manifested itself in every area of art. For example, he discusses how writers such as Chaucer had a "fascination [for] the individual human being, as opposed to the archetype or mere category," so fashionable in medieval literature (51). Instead, Chaucer created characters that were utterly human, each possessing his own unique set of quirks and foibles. Johnson also readily identifies this trend in the material arts. Sculptors, such as Nicola Pisano (c. 1220-c. 1284) accomplished this same "humanizing process" in his stone relief, The Last Judgment (c. 1260):
[T]he embodied souls, whether saved or damned, emerge as
individuals, not types; they have faces you would see in the Sienese
streets, and bodies you can imagine walking or running-real, working
bodies. (64)

After exploring its impact on the creative culture, Johnson explains how this emphasis upon the individual gradually transformed the structure of civil society. This trend produced new attitudes and expectations not present in the communities of the Dark Ages. He describes how artists began to cultivate their own distinctive styles, creating art for the sake of personal expression rather than at the behest of a bishop or public official. Noblemen, also, gained a new respect for craftsmen, patronizing their works and bearing with each one's idiosyncrasies (such as Leonardo da Vinci's notorious habit for never finishing a commissioned work) (148).
This new creative freedom unleashed an era of artistic production of unprecedented scale. Indeed, Johnson's descriptions of the innovative minds of the Renaissance dazzle the reader. He maintains a sense of wonder throughout his text as he describes the "fantastic imagination" of Donatello's work, Michelangelo's "supranormal powers" of sculpting, and Chaucer's "extraordinary ability to peer into the minds of diverse human creatures (51, 74, 81).
Ultimately, it is this characteristic-Johnson's utter respect for the brilliance of the leaders of the Renaissance-in this work that the reader comes to appreciate most. Through Johnson's writing, one develops a sense of camaraderie with the individuals of a bygone era who sought to better understand our common race. The work is an exciting and useful read not only for those who wish to expand their knowledge of the period, but those who wish to understand the driving passions of mankind.