Stephen Campbell / Hardcover / Published 1998 ---
Cosme Tura was the first great artist from Ferrara, one of the major
artistic centers of Renaissance Italy. This book offers a new and
wide-ranging approach to his life and stylistically idiosyncratic works,
placing both in the context of Ferrara`s religious, political, and
intellectual milieu.
In the city of Ferrara, a major
cultural and artistic centre of Renaissance Italy, Cosme Tura (c. 1430-1495)
came to prominence as painter to the Este court. This book offers a new and
wide-ranging approach to Tura's life and his enigmatic and stylistically
idiosyncratic works. Stephen Campbell takes the career of Tura as a starting
point for the investigation of such intriguing issues as the
fifteenth-century artist's role and status in both court and urban culture
and the bearing these conceptions may have had on Tura's distinctive style.
Campbell provides an account of the role of the image in Ferrara's
religious, political and intellectual life, broadening our understanding of
the Renaissance beyond traditional discussions of visual culture that focus
on Rome, Florence and Venice. The author discusses also how Tura and his
contemporaries addressed local themes of ethnic, political and religious
tension in their works.
