Art and Experience in the 15th Century

Michael Baxandall's groundbreaking book, first published in 1972, is not only a meticulous examination of 15th-century Italian painting but also demonstrates ways to read the social history of a period by starting from paintings created in that period. Through the early Renaissance works he examines, he reveals the relationship between the style of the period and daily life. For example, he compares measurement knowledge with the perception of perspective, and dance figures with aesthetic figuration.

Baxandall connects the reception of art, as much as its production, to social and economic life. He argues that "taste," like "style," the fundamental category of modern art history, derives from daily life. He shows that it originates from the daily visual skills and abilities being stripped of their functions and transformed into a game in the experience of art.

By discovering the social foundations of "style," Baxandall succeeded in detaching this concept from the transcendent metaphysics of formalist histories. Thus, he became a pioneer in the establishment of social art history. A 15th-century painting is a sediment where social relations accumulate. On one side, there is the painter who made the painting or at least oversaw its making, and on the other side, there is someone else who commissioned the painter to make it, provided the necessary financial resources for it, and intended to use it in some way after its completion. Both parties operate within commercial, religious, perceptual, that is, broadly social institutions and traditions.