Piero della Francesca and the Invention of the Artist

Machtelt Brüggen Israëls is Senior Lecturer in Italian Renaissance Art at the University of Amsterdam and Visiting Professor at the University of Florence. Her previous publications include The Berenson Collection (2015).

To reduce his work to clinical, impersonal experimentation, as is sometimes done by art historians, is to neglect the strange mystery contained within Piero’s clarity – of form, space, and luminous color. Israëls’s book "focuses on the works of Piero and uses close looking as its method. It tries to understand the intention of the artist in the hope that, if he were to read the book, he might actually realize that it is his works that are being discussed. Still, while Piero’s paintings need to be understood in their time, they also resound in ours." Incorporating new documentary, technical, and archival information, the monograph makes good on these promises. It is a concise and eminently readable account of Piero’s fascinating life and far-reaching legacy.