"The Cranach Digital Archive is an interdisciplinary collaborative research resource, providing access to art historical, technical and conservation information on paintings by Lucas Cranach (c.1472 - 1553) and his workshop. The repository presently provides information on more than 400 paintings including c.5000 images and documents from 19 partner institutions."
posted by peacay on Jan 18, 2012 - 4 comments

Renaissance Babies in various stages of choking and passing out from noxious fumes: A Study. This is what happens when the Madonna eats way too much turkey, yall. Happy Thanksgiving! (Warning: Tumblr)
posted by Hal Mumkin on Nov 25, 2011 - 25 comments

The Brilliant Line explores the techniques of Renaissance and Baroque engravers. This interactive exhibit shows how layers of lines become art. (Flash.) [more inside]
posted by zamboni on Mar 3, 2011 - 8 comments

Caravaggio's crimes exposed in Rome's police files: "Four hundred years after his death, Caravaggio is a 21st Century superstar among old master painters. His stark, dramatically lit, super-realistic paintings strike a modern chord - but his police record is more shocking than any modern bad boy rock star's. An exhibition of documents at Rome's State Archives throws vivid light on his tumultuous life here at the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries." [Via] [more inside]
posted by homunculus on Feb 18, 2011 - 50 comments

Flying eyeballs. Pissed-off bearded ladies. Mummy Jesus. The Wolfman. The lactation of St. Bernard. The Jesus & Mary UFO invasion.* And the Phineas Gage of 1550.

These and more at the gallery of unexpected motifs in Renaissance art. [old-school NSFW] [more inside]
posted by theodolite on Oct 25, 2010 - 31 comments

In a Michelangelo Fresco, Visions of a Brain Stem. "It has been hiding in plain sight for the past 500 years, and now two Johns Hopkins professors believe they have found it: one of Michelangelo’s rare anatomical drawings in a panel high on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo was a conscientious student of human anatomy and enthusiastically dissected corpses throughout his life, but few of his anatomical drawings survive. This one, a depiction of the human brain and brain stem, appears to be drawn on the neck of God, but not all art historians can see it there."
posted by homunculus on Jun 21, 2010 - 62 comments

Are figures in a Florentine altar panel attributed to Italian artist Andrea del Verrocchio actually by Leonardo da Vinci? "The Baptistery figures, if accepted as Leonardo's, would be the only extant sculptures made in the artist's lifetime..." Related ARTNews article, additional Smithsonian Magazine article, National Gallery of Art writeup related to the additional Smithsonian Magazine article, and the High Museum's upcoming Leonardo exhibit.
posted by cog_nate on Sep 28, 2009 - 21 comments

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam invites you to compare Caravaggio and Rembrandt. For an overview of Rembrandt's work here are Rembrandt van Rijn: Life and Work and A Web Catalogue of Rembrandt Paintings. For Caravaggio there's caravaggio.com which makes use of the Italian website Tutta l'opera del Caravaggio.
posted by Kattullus on Aug 6, 2009 - 13 comments

The Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae A collection of over 900 zoomable print engravings, organized around the work of Antonio Lafreri and other Italian publishers, whose documentation of Roman ruins and statues helped fuel the Renaissance. The itineraries are a good place to start for detailed discussion, or just browse away. [via the wonderful Bouphonia]
posted by mediareport on Dec 10, 2007 - 8 comments

The King's Kunstkammer - en vogue in Renaissance Europe, kunstkammers were status symbols of kings, vast collections of art, curiosities, and scientific and natural objects. This is a partial reconstruction of the Royal Danish Kunstkammer, established by King Frederik III in the mid-1600s. Exploring the collection's 250 objects offers insight into princely preoccupations of the era.
posted by madamjujujive on Nov 22, 2006 - 13 comments

Madonna and Child by Duccio di Buoninsegna (ca 1300) “is widely considered a key forerunner of the Italian Renaissance style and a landmark in Western European painting”. The painting “resides in a Plexiglas case in the middle of a room of medieval Italian paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art” and was purchased in 2004 for about $50million, the most expensive acquisition in the Met’s history. However James Beck, Columbia professor, founder of ArtWatch “established for the dignity of the art” (previously mentioned in this forum), is emphatic: “It’s a poor painting and it is a fake.” In a recent interview to Paul Hond in the Columbia Magazine Fall 2006 issue he admitted that such a bold and counter-mainstream proposition is “…calling attention to the mistakes of our favorite institutions of great power would not have been readily available if I didn’t have tenure.”
posted by carmina on Oct 17, 2006 - 18 comments

I know who brought Leonardo's greatest drawings to Britain. I may not be a Harvard professor of religious symbology or know much about the bloodline of the Magdalene, but I do enjoy a mystery and so I set out to solve this one. And I succeeded. Final proof is elusive, always, but in this case the circumstantial evidence is so overwhelming, I think I've got my man."
posted by Len on Aug 30, 2006 - 6 comments

Medieval & Renaissance Manuscript Images: Corsair is a well documented online image repository of the Morgan Pierpont Library. There are 58 manuscripts with over 7,000 images ranging from the 9th to the 16th century. Sample image page. Sample search results. Research information.
posted by peacay on Sep 3, 2005 - 8 comments

Investigating the Renaissance. 'This interactive program demonstrates the ways in which computer technology can be harnessed to add to our knowledge about Renaissance paintings and how they were made.' Analysis of paintings using x-ray, infrared and ultraviolet technology.
posted by plep on Dec 23, 2003 - 3 comments