Past-Present: Essays on Historicism in Art from Donatello to Picasso

These seven essays of art historian Irving Lavin show how the past plays an explicit role in his explorations. In focusing on specific works such as Donatello’s bronze pulpits in San Lorenzo, Bernini’s image of the Sun King and Picasso’s lithographs of bulls, Lavin addresses creations that seek to define the present expressly in terms of the past. Also, he persuasively shows how art can portray human individuality within philosophical, religious, political, ideological and cultural frameworks. Originally delivered as part of a lecture series at the University of California, Berkeley, the essays show the richness of the artist’s sources by tracing certain motifs and traditions back in time.