Painters of Reality

Inspired largely by Leonardo's brilliant naturalistic work for the Sforza court in Milan, Lombard artists of the late fifteenth century began to use direct observation to investigate the natural world. This heritage was of considerable importance in northern Italian art for two centuries, finding its greatest expression in the works of Caravaggio and influencing the course of Baroque painting in Rome and eventually elsewhere in Europe. Painters of Reality identifies the salient characteristics of this naturalistic strand in Lombard art. Building on the scholarship of renowned art historian Roberto Longhi, the authors reexamine the subject in light of subsequent literature. Essays range from broad discussions of naturalism in Lombard paintings and drawings (including a fresh consideration of works by Caravaggio) to more specialized treatments of Leonardo's influence, the schools of painting centered in Brescia, Bergamo, Cremona, and Milan, and Caravaggio's most notable successors in northern Italy. In addition to Leonardo and Caravaggio, masters such as Lotto, Savoldo, Moroni, and Ceruti and other significant but less widely known figures are represented. With its devotion to recording the unvarnished truth of daily life, its meticulously observed still lifes and landscapes, and its dramatic use of highly focused light to define form, Lombard art was hugely influential in its time and still holds much appeal today. This book is the catalogue of an exhibition jointly organized by the Associazione Promozione Iniziative Culturali di Cremona and The Metropolitan Museum of Art and held in Cremona (February 14 to May 2, 2004) and at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (May 23 to August 14, 2004).