Ornament & Illusion - Carlo Crivelli of Venice

Accompanying the exhibition at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, this catalogue explores one of the most important but historically neglected painters of the Italian Renaissance. Carlo Crivelli (c. 1435 — c. 1495) was Venetian by birth and radical by training. Shaped by formative experiences in Padua, Crivelli embarked on a career that spanned both sides of the Adriatic. His extraordinary success led to virtual monopoly in the Marches, where he dominated the market for towering altarpieces and intimate images for private devotion in the second half of the fifteenth century.
Pushing the boundaries between painting and sculpture, his works are distinguished by their radically expressive compositions, luxuriant ornamental display, and bravura illusionism.