Manifesting masculinities in Central Italian Renaissance art: Artistic theory and representations of the male body.

Title: Manifesting masculinities in Central Italian Renaissance art: Artistic theory and representations of the male body.
Identifier: AAI3306978
identifier: 3306978
Creator: Bautista, Preston W.
Contributor: Adviser: James M. Saslow
Date: 2008
Language: English
Publisher: City University of New York.
Subject: Art History | Gender Studies | Literature, Romance
Abstract: This dissertation examines the intersection of Central Italian Renaissance art works and texts to understand shifts in representations of the male body from the dawn of the Renaissance to the Counter-Reformation. I identify three paradigms of masculinity that appeared as a result of changes in the sexual, political, artistic, and religious climates of the Cinquecento: the Machiavellian Hero, the Hermaphroditic Deviant, and the Emasculated Prophet. Analyzing the relationship of images and texts such as Nicolo Machiavalli's The Prince (written c. 1512, printed 1532), Baldassare Castiglione's Book of the Courtier (1528), Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects (1550), among others, demonstrates how each of these paradigms corresponded to art-theoretical precepts -- disegno, grazia, and decoro. The multiple values and expectations implied in the word "masculinity" and transitions in the meanings embodied by the male form necessitated the development of these three ideals.
Type: dissertation
Source: PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
degree: Ph.D.

Media: Manifesting masculinities in Central Italian Renaissance art: Artistic theory and representations of the male body.