The Portrait in the Renaissance

This text shows how the Renaissance cult of individuality brought with it a demand that the features of the individual be perpetuated. The author describes the process by which Titian and other artists transformed the portrait from a record of appearance to an analysis of character.

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A major account of Renaissance portraiture by one of the twentieth century’s most eminent art historians

The Portrait in the Renaissance provides an unprecedented look at two centuries of experiment in portraiture during the Renaissance. In this compelling book, John Pope-Hennessy shows how the Renaissance cult of individuality brought with it a demand that the features of the individual be perpetuated. This concept was first manifested in the portraits that fill the great Florentine fresco cycles and led, later in the fifteenth century, to the creation of the independent portrait by such artists as Botticelli, Antonio Pollaiuolo, Giovanni Bellini, and Antonello da Messina. Pope-Hennessy goes on to describe the process by which Titian and the great artists of the High Renaissance transformed the portrait from a record of appearance into an analysis of character.