14th/15th Century

In the Venice of the Renaissance, master artists like Bellini, Giorgione, Palma Vecchio and Titian explored the essence of mankind and nature and their relationship to each other with an unprecedented intensity. This attractive volume shows through important portraits and landscape representations the pioneering innovations of Venetian painting, which continued to leave their mark right up to the modern age.

Hans Holbein the Elder and Hans Burgkmair are regarded alongside Albrecht Dürer as the forerunners of Renaissance painting in Germany. The prosperous Imperial and trading city of Augsburg was an important centre during this artistic golden age. By means of high-quality works this volume presents a comprehensive insight into the epochal revolution from the Middle Ages to the modern age.

Hugo van der Goes (c. 1440–1482) was the most important Netherlandish artist of the second half of the 15th century. His innovative pictorial compositions are characterised by monumental figures and realistic narrative moments. They paved the way for the development of Netherlandish painting during the following centuries.

Founded in 1948, Hirmer Publishers soon established a name for art books produced to the highest standards. Over the past decade they have become equally well-known in English-speaking countries, with a reputation as one of the most prestigious publishers in this field. This survey of English titles from 2010 to 2020 encompasses a wealth of subjects across the centuries, from antiquity to the modern age.  

In the art of the Italian Renaissance, the subject of the Madonna with Child was chosen for pictures more frequently than any other.  Raphael’s paintings are regarded as some of the most innovative compositions to this day, 500 years after his death. Their groundbreaking significance is illuminated in this volume through comparisons with other principal works of the period, including those by Botticelli and Mantegna.

The Kunstmuseum Bern owns one of the most important art collections in Switzerland. Since the foundation of the Staatliche Kunstsammlung in Bern in 1809 and the opening of the first museum building in 1879 the collection has grown continuously and has attained world renown. Over 170 masterpieces of the collection are assembled in a single publication for the first time and made accessible to a broad public through new art-historical analyses and numerous colour illustrations.  

With their overwhelming wealth of forms, prints of designs of historic ornaments are a source of boundless inspiration for graphic artists and designers. They also allow collectors and art historians to reliably date works and classify styles. This cornucopia of design, published here for the first time in English, contains the finest images from the famous, hitherto out-of-print, and seminal work by Rudolf Berliner.

Mainly active from 1480 to 1490 in Haarlem, Geertgen tot Sint Jans is considered the first of the major painters of the northern Netherlands. This publication examines the recently restored Winterthur panel, formerly attributed to Geertgen, in juxtaposition with his paintings depicting the biblical “Adoration” scene.