The Lies of the Artists: Essays on Italian Art, 1450-1750

Luminous essays on artists of the Italian Renaissance by one of our most inspired writers on the history and making of art.


In the three centuries from 1450 to 1750 painters, sculptors, and architects emerged from the medieval craft guilds of Italy to claim a new social status as creators, whose gorgeous handiwork, now called “art,” expressed lofty inspiration as much as manual skill. In The Lies of the Artists, Ingrid Rowland takes us into the world of these artists, and into their seemingl...