Book ID: CBB001251417

Florence and Baghdad: Renaissance Art and Arab Science (2011)

unapi

Belting, Hans (Author)


Belknap Press of Harvard University Press


Publication Date: 2011
Physical Details: 303 pp.; ill.; bibl.; index
Language: English

The use of perspective in Renaissance painting caused a revolution in the history of seeing, allowing artists to depict the world from a spectator's point of view. But the theory of perspective that changed the course of Western art originated elsewhere---it was formulated in Baghdad by the eleventh-century mathematician Ibn al Haithan, known in the West as Alhazen. Using the metaphor of the mutual gaze, or exchanged glances, Hans Belting---preeminent historian and theorist of medieval, Renaissance, and contemporary art---narrates the historical encounter between science and art, between Arab Baghdad and Renaissance Florence, that has had a lasting effect on the culture of the West.In this lavishly illustrated study, Belting deals with the double history of perspective, as a visual theory based on geometrical abstraction (in the Middle East) and as pictorial theory (in Europe). How could geometrical abstraction be reconceived as a theory for making pictures? During the Middle Ages, Arab mathematics, free from religious discourse, gave rise to a theory of perspective that, later in the West, was transformed into art when European painters adopted the human gaze as their focal point. In the Islamic world, where theology and the visual arts remained closely intertwined, the science of perspective did not become the cornerstone of Islamic art. Florence and Baghdad addresses a provocative question that reaches beyond the realm of aesthetics and mathematics: What happens when Muslims and Christians look upon each other and find their way of viewing the world transformed as a result?

...More

Description On the theory of perspective as it arose in Islamic and Western contexts.


Reviewed By

Review Edgerton, Samuel Y. (2012) Review of "Florence and Baghdad: Renaissance Art and Arab Science". American Historical Review (pp. 486-487). unapi

Review Farago, Claire (2012) Review of "Florence and Baghdad: Renaissance Art and Arab Science". Renaissance Quarterly (pp. 879-881). unapi

Review Raynaud, Dominique (2012) Review of "Florence and Baghdad: Renaissance Art and Arab Science". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 570-572). unapi

Review Campbell, Caroline (2013) Review of "Florence and Baghdad: Renaissance Art and Arab Science". Journal of Modern History (pp. 410-411). unapi

Review Campbell, Caroline (2013) Review of "Florence and Baghdad: Renaissance Art and Arab Science". Journal of Modern History (p. 410). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001251417/

Similar Citations

Book Margherita Quaglino; (2014)
Glossario Leonardiano: Nomenclatura dell'ottica e della prospettiva nei codici di Francia (/isis/citation/CBB290920244/)

Book Hendrix, John; Carman, Charles H.; (2010)
Renaissance Theories of Vision (/isis/citation/CBB001220203/)

Article Graziella Federici Vescovini; (2021)
La pyramide visuelle d’Alhazen et la perspectiva pingendi de Léon Battista Alberti (/isis/citation/CBB839447966/)

Article Camerota, Filippo; (2006)
Teaching Euclid in a Practical Context: Linear Perspective and Practical Geometry (/isis/citation/CBB000671073/)

Article Nicholas Temple; (2021)
Lorenzo Ghiberti and Contested Views of Perspectiva in Renaissance Concepts of Space (/isis/citation/CBB223572956/)

Book Camerota, Filippo; Cigoli, Ludovico Cardi da; (2010)
Linear Perspective in the Age of Galileo: Lodovico Cigoli's Prospettiva Pratica (/isis/citation/CBB001033190/)

Book Sven Dupré; (2019)
Perspective as Practice: Renaissance Cultures of Optics (/isis/citation/CBB705021329/)

Article Park, Malcolm; (2013)
Brunelleschi's Discovery of Perspective's “Rule” (/isis/citation/CBB001320656/)

Book Short, John Rennie; (2012)
Korea: A Cartographic History (/isis/citation/CBB001214777/)

Chapter Rothstein, Bret; (2008)
Moveable Feasts of Reason: Description, Intelligence, and the Excitation of Sight (/isis/citation/CBB000952938/)

Article Pyle, Cynthia M.; (2000)
Art as science: Scientific illustration, 1490-1670 in drawing, woodcut and copper plate (/isis/citation/CBB000110905/)

Authors & Contributors
Raynaud, Dominique
Federici Vescovini, Graziella
Camerota, Filippo
Quaglino, Margherita
Temple, Nicholas
Short, John Rennie
Concepts
Perspective
Science and art
Optics
Visual representation; visual communication
Mathematics
Geometry
Time Periods
15th century
16th century
Renaissance
17th century
18th century
Medieval
Places
Italy
Florence (Italy)
Mediterranean region
Europe
Korea
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment