Alla maniera: Technical Art History and the Meaning of Style in 15th to 17th Century Painting

Ever since fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century writers used the word maniera to describe an artist’s personal style, the term has known very different meanings. Alla maniera di… implied the deliberate and eclectic imitation of someone else’s style but also signaled that an artist had possibly more than one maniera at his or her disposal. Such ambivalence presents a challenge for stylistic analysis which has always been an important art historical tool for dating, localizing and attributing works of art. For painting, stylistic observations have traditionally been limited to the surface but technical examination and scientific analysis now reveal additional layers of information that may offer a better and even different understanding of style. The XXIInd symposium for the Study of Underdrawing and Technology in Painting which was held online on 28-30 March 2022 focused on how technical research can provide additional insights or challenges concerning the style of an individual painter, a workshop or a group of painters. Stylistic similarities might indicate cultural, social, regional, or chronological connections in paintings, drawings, prints, applied arts, etc. as well as across artistic media.
This book captures the variety of twenty-three papers presented at the symposium.