Perugino

Umbrian landscapes and quiet devotional figures anchor Selwyn Brinton's study of the painter known as Perugino. Combining artistic biography with close descriptions of paintings, Brinton considers the influences that shaped Pietro Vannucci before his work in Florence and Rome. He weighs competing accounts of the painter's early training and examines his part in the decoration of the Sistine Chapel, including questions about his collaboration with Pinturicchio.

The discussion moves between workshop history and the details of individual pictures: a winding stream, distant hills, a gesture of surprise, or the arrangement of figures beneath an open colonnade. Eight colour reproductions accompany the text, while comments on portraits and altarpieces show the range of Brinton's interests. Readers interested in Renaissance painting can follow both his attention to visual detail and his habit of testing earlier critics' claims against the works themselves.