patronage

During the 16th century the patron played a much greater role in the development of English Renaissance architecture than did the architect; there were almost no professional architects who were trained as the Italians were in the theory of design and building. Most of the building was executed by mason…

…artist or craftsman and a patron, who might be either a private individual or, as was often the case in the European Middle Ages (approximately 450–1400 ce), an institution such as the Roman Catholic Church. In such cases the work of art might be site-specific, as with a fresco or…

The patronage given by the popes to notable artists—e.g., Francia and Benvenuto Cellini—resulted in a fine and often lavish standard of design in their coins and medals. Similar patronage was shown by the noble houses of Ferrara, Mantua, Milan, and elsewhere, whose coinages from the 15th…

…and military rulers (shoguns) all supported performers at their courts. During the Tang dynasty, the 8th-century Chinese emperor Xuanzong (also called Minghuang) established schools in the palace city of Chang’an (Xi’an) for music, dancing, and acting. The latter school was called the Pear Garden (Liyuan); ever since, actors in China…

…build even fewer hopes on patronage: Harriet Shaw Weaver, James Joyce’s patroness, was probably the last of a breed that, from Maecenas on, once intermittently flourished; state patronage—as represented, for instance, by the annual awards of the Arts Council of Great Britain—can provide little more than a temporary palliative for…

Royal patronage was crucial to the encouragement of the arts at this time. Rudolf II sponsored astrologers and alchemists as well as artists. Francis I of France invited famed French and Italian craftsmen and artists, including Leonardo da Vinci, to rebuild and embellish his château at…

…a key figure in the artistic and architectural development of Paris during his years in power. He was fortunate to employ the great architect Jacques Lemercier, who built for him, close to the Louvre, the Palais-Cardinal, later the Palais-Royal; it contained two theatres and a gallery for the cardinal’s objets…

…orders and also by granting patronage to writers and artists. He granted commissions to the sculptor Donatello and the architects Michelozzo (Medici Palace) and Filippo Brunelleschi (the choir and nave of San Lorenzo) and constructed villas in the countryside at Careggi and Cafaggiolo. Founder of a great library, he subsidized…

…diversity of rival centers of patronage. Royal patronage created the Royal Albert Hall, which every summer provides the setting for one of the world’s greatest music festivals, the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts, known popularly as the Proms. Municipal patronage, first of the London County Council and later of the Greater…

Patronage for Ottoman poets in the classical age took a variety of forms. The location of this patronage varied as well: poets were attached to the imperial household in Bursa or, later, Istanbul, or they were supported at the provincial Anatolian courts of the Ottoman…

…to orthodox academicism characterized their patronage at court. In regard to the former, they favoured artists such as Yuan Jiang, who, in the reign of Kangxi, combined with great decorative skill the model of Guo Xi and the mannered distortions that had cropped up in the late Ming (1368–1644), partly…

…in the pretensions of some patrons; illusions of grandeur are rarely the best basis for the conceiving of great art. The importance of bourgeois patronage should not be overlooked, otherwise no account would be taken of Holland’s golden age. Where taste was unaffected by the need for display (as could…

In all the regions of Southeast Asia, the arts flourished under the patronage of the kings. About the time of the birth of Christ, tribal groups gradually organized themselves, after some years of settled life as rice cultivators, into city-kingdoms, or…