Methods, composition and aesthetics
In the world of nativity scenes, the vast majority of nativity-scene makers are self-taught. They build their nativity scenes guided by their taste, their experience and what they have learned through practice. Only a minority have gone through courses, associations or a broader artistic training.
Few, moreover, complement that practice with books that provide foundations in art, technique and composition. Not because it does not interest them, but because it is not always clear where to begin.
Without those references, creativity tends to move within a familiar repertoire, not for lack of talent, but for lack of new stimuli. Books on art can open doors: they provide visual vocabulary, technical knowledge and aesthetic foundations that help to turn practice into a more conscious production.
These books do not replace the experience of the workshop or the enthusiasm of tradition; they enrich them, giving them a firmer basis for understanding better the figures, the composition and the scenography of the nativity scene.
This section brings together books devoted to art in general: history, artistic techniques and methods, aesthetic theory and other disciplines that can help to place the nativity scene within universal art. It is not a definitive list, but an open bibliography that may grow with new contributions.
In the end, the question every nativity-scene maker can ask is a simple one: is there something more I want to be able to express with my nativity scene?
In most countries, these works can be requested through public libraries or interlibrary loan. They can also be searched for in WorldCat, the international bibliographic catalogue.
Documented catalogue
15 references available. Covers are shown when they form part of the documentary archive.
nouamente dato in luce, con la vita dell'istesso autore, scritta da Rafaelle dv Fresne.
Parigi, Appresso Giacomo Langlois · 1651
It can serve as support for understanding observation, perspective, light and the representation of the figure within the tradition of painting treatises.
London · Phaidon Press · 1950
It can serve as general support for placing the nativity scene within a broad view of the history of art and of the evolution of visual forms.
da Cimabve in sino a? tempi nostri
Firenze · Giunti · 1550
It can serve as support for placing the biographical and historical tradition of Italian art, especially in relation to painters, sculptors and architects of the Renaissance.
messo in luce la prima volta con annotazioni dal cavaliere Giuseppe Tambroni
Roma · Paolo Salviucci · 1821
It can serve as support for understanding techniques, materials and workshop procedures in the medieval and Renaissance painting tradition.
New York · Oxford University Press · 1947
It can serve as a useful reference for understanding the materials, techniques and procedures proper to sculptural work.
Volume IX: Books 33–35 (H. Rackham, Trad.)
Cambridge, MA & London, UK · Harvard University Press · 1952
It can serve as support for understanding materials, pigments, metals and ancient accounts of painting and sculpture in classical culture.
Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance
New York · Harper Torchbooks · 1962
It can serve as a useful reference for understanding the interpretation of symbols, humanist themes and visual meanings in Renaissance art.
Volume X: Books 36–37 (D. E. Eichholz, Trad.)
Cambridge, MA & London, UK · Harvard University Press · 1962
It can serve as support for understanding stones, marbles, gems and ancient accounts of sculpture, architecture and noble materials.
Processes and Principles
London · Allen Lane, Penguin Books Ltd · 1977
It can serve as a useful reference for understanding how working processes and methods shape the form and meaning of sculpture.
Principe d'analyse scientifique, Méthode et vocabulaire
Paris · La Documentation Française · 1984
It can serve as a useful reference for describing with precision the forms, techniques, materials and vocabulary proper to sculpture.
London · Batsford · 1990
It can serve as a useful reference for consulting the techniques, materials, tools and procedures proper to sculptural work.
London · Batsford · 1990
It can serve as support for understanding the casting and reproduction procedures applied to sculptural work.
: Photons to Phenomenology
Cambridge, Massachusetts, · MIT Press · 1999
It can serve as support for understanding visual perception, form, colour, depth and the experience of the image.
contemporary techniques, terms, tools, materials, and sculpture
Mississippi · Sculpture Books, Gulfport, MS, cop. · 2005
It can serve as a useful reference for consulting the techniques, terms, tools and materials proper to contemporary sculpture.
Failures to understand how everyday objects work
Psychonomic Society · 2006
It provides experimental evidence that visual familiarity does not guarantee a correct structural or functional understanding: many people draw a bicycle from memory with serious errors in the frame, the pedals or the chain. It is relevant to the Manual because it grounds the need to observe, analyse and understand an object before representing it in sculpture or painting.
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