Luxury Arts of the Renaissance by Marina Belozerskaya (review)

REVIEWS 218 ally, the translation succeeds, although it is true that Wallis’s transformation of the title suggests a narrower field of inquiry than actually emerges from the book. That is, Wallis adds the qualification of early to the period under discussion (a qualification discussed by Bandmann himself, though not in his title), leaving the reader unprepared for extended and multiple forays into both late antique and Gothic architecture. Particularly helpful to the reader is the introduction, cleverly entitled “Bearing Bandmann’s Meaning” (1–13), which spells out what the German architectural historian meant by form and type, crafting metaphors for greater ease of understanding. Wallis also discusses reception, claim, Aufheben, Bauherr, and Westbau, laying the necessary groundwork for reading Bandmann’s book, an undeniably important work on medieval art history. Thanks to Kendall Wallis’s careful translation the English -speaking world now has the opportunity to rediscover ideas that have endured for more than half a century and greatly contributed to our understanding of the Middle Ages. DANA POLANICHKA, History, UCLA Marina Belozerskaya, Luxury Arts of the Renaissance (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum 2005) xiii + 280 pp., ill. “Because a social history of luxury arts is best approached thematically,” writes Marina Belozerskaya in her elegantly written and exquisitely illustrated Luxury Arts of the Renaissance, she has decided to organize her material “as case studies that illuminate ideas and practices characteristic of the period as a whole” (4). She augments her social history with a semiotic approach by considering the objects themselves as repositories of signs and symbols, which, when required , could be called into service to convey their owner’s status, power, wealth, learning, or even piety. The intent of her study, then, is “to try to understand how these objects functioned in the Renaissance and what this tells us about fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Europeans” (11). To set the stage, Belozerskaya begins with a brief historical overview of luxury goods and the status of their creators: “Today it seems self-evident that these [paintings and sculptures] are true Arts, while tapestries and goldwork, armor and ephemeral spectacles are ‘minor,’ ‘applied,’ or ‘decorative’ arts. Yet such a hierarchy of aesthetic values is a recent invention, which began in sixteenth century Florence as a theoretical proposition” (13). Here, she refers to sixteenth-century artists and humanists like Giorgio Vasari and Vincenzo Borghini , who sought for painters and sculptures a social position higher than that occupied by goldsmiths, jewelers, weavers, and other craftsmen. She deftly tracks these shifting sentiments by considering revisions Vasari made to his 1550 edition of the Lives of the Most Illustrious Painters, Sculptors and Architects , whereby he expurgated several sections that lauded goldsmithery and gem carving for the 1568 edition. Belozerskaya’s next chapters each focus on one or more luxury arts: gold and precious stones (and the objects into which they were fashioned), tapestries, armor, and music and dance (Belozerskaya considers the last as both a luxury and a “crucial component of splendor” during the Renaissance.) In each chapter, Belozerskaya describes by example how particular luxury goods could aid their owners in achieving social, political, and, occasionally, religious goals. Gold REVIEWS 219 and precious gems, “which gleam in many biblical passages as substances that reflect the glory of God” (50), might suggest, for example, that their owners were favorites of God and thereby confer upon them a spiritual authority. Today tapestries are not widely admired, Belozerskaya argues, because their fading dyed yarns and deterioration through use make them “pale echoes of the tapestries’ original character and impact” (92). However, during the Renaissance , “rulers surrounded themselves with tapestries,” which were tremendously expensive, labor-intensive, and had the benefit of being portable, “even at war, instantly creating and defining spaces of power” (99). In the chapter on armor, Belozerskaya outlines the different kinds of armor required for combat, tournament, or parade; the rise of garnitures; and the production techniques and decorations implemented by the leading armorers. In the following chapter, Belozerskaya examines the use of different forms of music and dance that were “ingredient(s) of noble education and constituted a vital part of courtly life” (214). The final chapter considers the “weddings and funerals, banquets and...