Revisiting the Italian Renaissance: Painting and Sculpture from the Allentown Art Museum
Feb. 5–March 26, 2011
This exhibition revisits the Renaissance—an age of piety, humanist recovery of the classical world, global exploration, trade between Europe and the East, and a new appreciation of art and its creators.
These Italian Renaissance paintings and sculptures, highlights from the Samuel H. Kress Collection of the Allentown Art Museum, demonstrate the development of Renaissance art from its origins in the fourteenth century through its culmination in the sixteenth century. They include paintings by Paolo Uccello, Dosso Dossi, and Domenico Tintoretto; a bronze statuette recently attributed to Marcantonio da Ravenna; and a magnificent engraving by Giovanni Battista Scultori exemplifying the new Renaissance medium of printmaking.
The works were produced in major centers of the Renaissance—Florence, Venice, and the illustrious Este court in Ferrara—as well as Brescia, Lodi, Mantua, and Rimini, cities that were well known in their day. From dramatic sacred narratives and pious images magnifying religious devotion to the worldly display of aristocrats and naval commanders in vibrant portraits, these splendid works reveal the rich visual culture of Renaissance Italy.
The Roethke Humanities Festival celebrates the Renaissance Spirit.