The Renaissance - Manfred Wundram

"The Renaissance" is one of a series which attempts to describe the social, political, religious and intellectual climate of a period as well as the genesis and attainments of its art and architecture.;It presents the Renaissance not simply as the rebirth of classical styles but as the period that saw "the invasion of man and his world into the domain of the arts". It attempts to show that the driving force behind renaissance art was a new concern with man, produced by church commissions trying to render visible the harmony and the divine order of creation in terms of our world.;This study seeks to define the concept of the Renaissance, describing the many ways in which the concept took form and showing through comparison between North and South the underlying unity (despite the differences) in the styles of European art between 1400 and 1580.;The subject matter ranges from illustrations of building interiors and exteriors to the sculptures of Pisano, Donatello, Luca della Robbia and Verrocchio, to the paintings of Giotto, Duccio, Michelangelo, Piero della Francesca, Botticelli, Durer, Raphael, da Vinci and Grunewald.