Risks in Renaissance Art

Erscheinungsjahr 2024
ISBN: 978-1-009-47661-4
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 106 Seiten, Format (B × H): 163 mm x 231 mm, Gewicht: 292 g

Reihe: Elements in the Renaissance

This Element represents the first systematic study of the risks borne by those who produced, commissioned, and purchased art, across Renaissance Europe. It employs a new methodology, built around concepts from risk analysis and decision theory. The Element classifies scores of documented examples of losses into 'production risks', which arise from the conception of a work of art until its final placement, and 'reception risks', when a patron, a buyer, or viewer finds a work displeasing, inappropriate, or offensive. Significant risks must be tamed before players undertake transactions. The Element discusses risk-taming mechanisms operating society-wide: extensive communication flows, social capital, and trust, and the measures individual participants took to reduce the likelihood and consequences of losses. Those mechanisms were employed in both the patronage-based system and the modern open markets, which predominated respectively in Southern and Northern Europe.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Nelson, Jonathan K

Zeckhauser, Richard J

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Understanding risks in the renaissance; 2. Production risks: sources and their control; 3. Reception risks: inappropriate iconography and substandard skill; 4. Risky business: northern images after the reformation, by Larry Silver; 5. Three tales of trust and risk reduction; References.