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.

Around 1500, Lucas Cranach the Elder steps onto the world stage – in Vienna. The publication explores this, the artist’s earliest period of work and presents all the paintings he produced during this time, their expressiveness radically different from the courtly-elegant compositions he subsequently produced as court painter in Wittenberg.

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.  

"Global Luxury in Renaissance Venice" offers an unprecedented exploration of maiolica in the Serenissima set in a vibrant context of hybridity and exchange. Versatile and receptive to all forms of decoration, the medium of maiolica offers a unique point of entry into Venice’s material world as it was shaped by Mediterranean trade and local luxury production.

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.

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.

"Dürer’s Praying Hands" is one of the world’s most popular artworks. Few artists have changed the art world more profoundly than Leonardo and Dürer. Both bring their subjects to life with breathtaking virtuosity, creating masterpieces of incredible intimacy.