front cover of Botticelli
Botticelli
Artist and Designer
Ana Debenedetti
Reaktion Books, 2024
A revealing look at the commercial strategy and diverse output of this canonical Renaissance artist.
 
In this vivid account, Ana Debenedetti reexamines the life and work of Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli through a novel lens: his business acumen. Focusing on the organization of Botticelli’s workshop and the commercial strategies he devised to make his way in Florence’s very competitive art market, Debenedetti looks with fresh eyes at the remarkable career and output of this pivotal artist within the wider context of Florentine society and culture. Uniquely, Debenedetti evaluates Botticelli’s celebrated works, like The Birth of Venus, alongside less familiar forms such as tapestry and embroidery, showing the breadth of the artist’s oeuvre and his talent as a designer across media.
[more]

logo for Harvard University Press
Bruce Rogers
Designer of Books
Frederic Warde
Harvard University Press

logo for Intellect Books
The Designer
Half a Century of Change in Image, Training, and Technique
Rosemary Sassoon
Intellect Books, 2008
Design is one of the most rapidly changing fields in the art world, as professionals, students, and teachers must reckon with new technologies before the older versions have much time to collect dust. In The Designer, Rosemary Sassoon surveys fifty years of change in the world of design, evaluating the skills that have been lost, how new techniques affect everyday work, and how training methods prepare students for employment. This indispensable volume reveals how design is both an art and a skill—one with a rich past and momentous relevance for the future.
Along the way, Sassoon traces the fascinating trajectory of her own career, from its beginning at art school and an early apprenticeship to her work as an established professional, with advice for designers at every stage of their own development. Weaving together biography and career advice, theory and practice, The Designer provides a unique history of the art form and looks ahead to an age of ever-changing attitudes to drawing, aesthetics, and artistic practice.
 
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter