Touching Objects: Intimate Experiences of Italian Fifteenth-Century Art

by Adrian W.B. Randolph

This groundbreaking book spans the fields of art history, material culture, and gender studies in its examination of a range of objects from Italian Renaissance society.  Addressing painted and sculpted portraits, marriage and betrothal gifts, and paxes, Adrian W. B. Randolph uses themes such as family and individual memory, windows, perspectival space, and touch to investigate how these items were experienced at the time, particularly by women.  Rather than focusing on the social contexts of the objects, this original study deals with the objects themselves, asking how individuals lived with, looked at, and responded to complex things that at the time hovered between the nascent category of art and the everyday. Accompanied by beautiful and engaging accounts and illustrations of late-14th- and 15th-century Italian art, this compelling and thought-provoking argument makes the case for an alternate account of art and experience that challenges many conceptions about Renaissance art.

328 pages, Hardcover

First published November 18, 2014

Reviews

[Arjen Taselaar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since I first became acquainted with Italian Renaissance art, I have been fascinated with cassoni (chests with painted panels). Also the role of windows in painting has long intrigued me. So, there was no hesitation in buying this book when I saw it. It is about objects that were made to be touched, in the domestic as well as the religious spheres. There is much to be learned from this book and there are many insights worth considering during my next museum visits, but on the whole I didn’t really get on with the book. Randolph has written a book more like a long drawn-out essay that hovers between the art itself and his philosophical inspirations - starting with Heidegger followed by the French thinkers you would expect with some Warburg thrown in for good measure. “Show, don’t tell” would have been of help here as I am not really interested in the author’s (for sure: nuanced) positions in debates that are often hermetic and arcane. But where Randolph puts late-medieval and renaissance literary sources to good use his book becomes much livelier and convincing. A book that really challenges your assumptions on Italian Renaissance art should maybe have focused on less marginal works, but this book does help in appreciating the more intimate art that has come down to us.