Rating: 
Summary: Short and Delightful
Review: This is the first book I read of Paul Johnson's that is not a kilopage tome. In less than 200 pages, Johnson gave the Renaissance a most delightful treatment. This book will disappoint those who try to look for exhaustive treatment of any area of literature and art of that fabulous era, or of any of the fabled masters. But it delights the reader with a short tour of the Renaissance Italy (and to a lesser degree, Europe) by vivid illustrations of some of the most outstanding literary, architecture and artistic accomplishments and the personalities behind them. A most valuable part of this small volume is its casting of the Renaissance in a historical and geographical context. What brought about this marvelous revival of high arts? How was it related to the Gothic tradition? How some "imported" technologies, such as the movable type printing press from Germany and the oil paint from the Low Countries, were enthusiastically adopted by the Italians in propagating ideas and revolutionizing art forms. How the guild system produced successive generations of artists and also contemporaneous competition. Roles played by local politics and art patrons, and, of course, the church. And how eventually the French and German invasions from the north undermined the power foundation of this spectacular flowering of the arts, while ushering in the era of Reformation and the Baroque. As a short history book - rather than a subject matter book - I find it informative, illuminating and well worth a couple of evening's reading time.
Rating: 
Summary: A Renaissance Sampler
Review: This was a tough one to call as far as how many stars to give...I was wavering between 3 and 4. The most accurate rating would probably be 3 1/2 stars. On the negative side there are two drawbacks to the book. The first is, if you have already read a few books on the Renaissance you won't find much that is new here. The second drawback is the lack of pictures- really inexcusable in a book of this kind. (That is probably the major reason why I went with 3 stars rather than 4.) The majority of the book deals with architecture, sculpture and painting. How can you not include reproductions? I realize that the publisher wanted to keep the price down, but they could have at least included a few plates....even some black and white ones would have been helpful (especially in the sections on architecture and sculpture, where color is not that essential). On the positive side, if you haven't read anything on the Renaissance this book is a good starting point. Mr. Johnson provides some historical background, and then he tells a little bit about key figures in all of the areas mentioned above, (and before he gets into the visual arts he has a good chapter on the heavyweights in the areas of literature and scholarship). Another good thing about the book is that even though it is short and Mr. Johnson has to cram in a lot of people, the book isn't written like an encyclopedia. The prose isn't dry. The author is enthusiastic and isn't afraid to express his opinions. To give you an example, Mr. Johnson includes several pages on Dante and Chaucer- to show that even though they wrote in an earlier period they were harbingers of what the Renaissance was all about...they were fascinated by individual human beings and therefore created characters who were real rather than archetypes. In discussing Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" Mr. Johnson has this to say: "These men and women jump out from the pages, and live on in the memory, in ways that not even Dante could contrive. There is genius here of an inexplicable kind: Chaucer is one of the four English writers- the other three being Shakespeare, Dickens and Kipling- whose extraordinary ability to peer into the minds of diverse human creatures defies rational explanation and can only be attributed to a mysterious 'daemon.'" Mr. Johnson's comments are usually interesting and pertinent but he occasionally shoots from the hip and says something silly, such as the following: "(Albrecht) Durer was unusually thoughtful and articulate for a painter..." I could give Mr. Johnson a long list of intellectual artists, which would include Rubens, Delacroix, Degas, Van Gogh, Matisse, Duchamp, Picasso, Braque, etc. All because someone creates with paint (or music) rather than with words doesn't mean they aren't thoughtful or articulate. Fortunately, comments like this are few and far between and Mr. Johnson is usually sensible rather than silly. So, in summary, this is a good book for the reader who doesn't know a lot about the Renaissance and the pleasing style will make the reader want to learn more about the topics and people that are discussed.
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