The State of Research in Italian Renaissance Art

Abstract

In the Renaissance, writers on art could work in the comforting security of knowing that neither they nor their readers seriously questioned their competence. Joined with the further notions that the artist's enterprise was fundamentally moral and that his achievement could be assessed against an empirical canon of excellence, this knowledge subsumed disagreements and allowed real debate. But unlike their predecessors, modern writers on Renaissance art may no longer bundle themselves in gemutlich self-confidence. The wide variety of viewpoints relative to artistic intention, methods of interpretation, and even the purposes of writing art history makes it obvious that Renaissance art historians do not stand on a ground of common discourse.