Marie A. (NetGalley review):
This was such an original read! I loved the mix of self-help and Renaissance art, purchased it in the meanwhile as I wanted to go through it again. Couldn’t recommend more. Thanks for the opportunity to read this.
Dilek O. (NetGalley Review)
This book is an exciting combination of art and wellness. In 8 steps, it gives us a path to follow on our way to know ourselves better and to turn to new directions if we need it.
It is written very clearly with a positive and supportive tone, so the reader can go through each step and take a breath to reflect when needed.
Many steps start with a short life story of one of the greatest Renaissance artists, and include their chosen paintings (made available only by certain museums). We learn about these masters’ lives and how their characters shaped their lives and careers. The author continues with what we can learn from those lives and from those works of art on our way to renewal and gives a few tips to consider at each step.
This book does not give a simple recipe for happiness, but it provides insights and tools for everyone to look deeper in their own lives and to revisit from time to time. And it shows that Renaissance artists can be real inspirations still today.
This is a book that appeals to the reader’s eyes, mind and soul. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and I will be happy to recommend it to my friends.
Camille O. (Amazon US review)
The book was very interesting and I really enjoyed how it tied artist’s portraits into self portraits. I found the tips in each chapter to be very helpful. They guide a person into a wonderful journey of self awareness….to take the time to reflect in order to get in touch with their true self so one can renew/improve their lives.
This is an important book for everyone to read, especially in the world today. I have shared the link with friends and family and I am sure it will help them as much as it has helped me
The Starry Library (Goodreads review)
This is a book that offers a unique perspective on Renaissance art. It analyzes famous Italian painters and their artwork through the lens of wellness. The Renaissance era was a time of rebirth when the human form was used to explore the inner world and their connection to the outer world. Viewing Renaissance artwork as a way to connect more deeply to yourself creates greater self-awareness. The author explains this using 8 steps that can initiate an individual into a better understanding of who they are. She uses 8 examples of famous Renaissance paintings and their painters to show how this can be done.
This is a very unique analysis of art that may feel like a bit of a stretch for some. On the other hand, it is enlightening and curious. The advice feels a little generic but I think it’s not about the tips the author gives, but rather the techniques and explorations of art that matters.
Art is healing and that is what this book demonstrates.
Highly original!
Carol K. (NetGalley review):
I love Art and artists, but don’t always understand what I like or dislike about them. I have always had a fondness for the Renaissance and the reason I chose this book. This book combines wellness and art in a unique way. Written by an artist and wellness expert, Your Renaissance gives us an opportunity to understand a bit about the more famous of the great Italian artists of this period. I found it to be an enlightening journey which informed and also gave me pause to find my own inner peace. What a beautiful book. I highly recommend this book, the illustrations even in kindle form are sharp and beautifully shown. Many thanks to the publishers, Netgalley for an ARC and especially the author for an inspirational work.
Avrel Seale (writer, Amazon US review)
Can the lives and the works of Renaissance masters tell us anything that can aid in our own personal development? Rome-based author Maura Garau, an artist in her own right, has written a fascinating book that is part art history, part self help.
Your Renaissance: Eight steps to Embrace Your True Self and Renew Your Life” is a four-stranded meditation on personal growth that braids together 1. biographical sketches of Renaissance and Early Modern artists and the circumstances of their lives, 2. scholarly analyses of their telling works accompanied by beautifully printed full-color reproductions of these works (a bonus feature I did not expect) 3. expositions on psychological and spiritual lessons we can draw from their lives — both from their triumphs and their flaws, and 4. guided meditations or visualizations: “You continue to walk along the forest path. At a certain point the trees thin out and the path slowly opens onto a hill overlooking a beautiful valley.”
Garau repeats this braided structure in each of the eight compact chapters that reflect her eight suggested steps of personal renewal.
We learn how artistic talent literally saved the life of Friar Filippo Lippi. We see Michelangelo not only as an artistic master but as an exemplar of true nourishment and rejection of over indulgence fashionable in the circles that patronized his work.
In one chapter, Garau steps back from biographical sketches and instead examines how multiple artists treated a single Biblical theme, the Annunciation, in which archangel Gabriel announces to a young, unwed and virginal Mary the highly inconvenient news that she is pregnant with the Messiah. This profound disruption and how various artists portrayed it gives rise to Garau’s edifying meditation on the virtue of acceptance and of contentedness as power.
How did Leonardo da Vinci’s penchant for puzzles and hidden meanings help maintain his humanity whilst in the service of a cruel and deceitful patron, Prince Cesare Borgia? What can we glean from the chaos of Raphael’s life and the ironic order and balance of his masterpieces? Or the emotional freedom of Titian, or of the failure of Caravaggio to control his rage?
“Your Renaissance” is a novel approach to self improvement and a refreshing take on the lives of these artistic masters. I recommend it.
La Matta (Amazon US review)
On the brink of 2021, I’m sure we are all feeling the need to reconnect with ourselves and find new balance. Maura Garau addresses this in her newly published book. She believes there is much to be learned from the Renaissance artists who brought about the greatest rebirth of spirit in western civilization. Starting with the first chapter of “Il tuo rinascimento” (Your Renaissance), we meet great artists, like Fra Filippo Lippi, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, and other renowned artists of the Renaissance. Following the Renaissance tradition of eclecticism and intellectual curiosity, Maura includes delightful details about each artist, which are rarely included in art books. But most importantly, in each of the eight chapters, the author demonstrates how the Renaissance artists’ lives and works can be models to help us reflect profoundly, embrace our true selves, and renew our lives. At the end of each chapter, there are tips and exercises to stimulate our inner listening, reflection and awareness capabilities to enhance the desire to take care of ourselves. I enjoyed “Your Renaissance” immensely and recommend it highly to those interested in Italy, Art, and to those who wish to renew their “anima.”
Catalina S. (NetGalley review)
I don’t read self-help books. They are not for me! Really, really not for me lol. But I found the concept of this one intriguing and taking into consideration it’s a slim one, I’ve decided to give it a go.
My initial interest has been rewarded on 2 plans. Firstly I’ve really enjoyed reading about some of the most famous painters of the Renaissance. Despite their fame, turns out I knew very little about their background. The concise chapters work very well in giving the readers enough material to quench their curiosity but they are also intriguing enough to inspire some to do further research. The inclusion of illustrations is another well thought detail.
Secondly I’ve found the 8 steps very realistic and doable. In fact I’ve incorporated many of this steps in my life over the years as a result of my personal experience and other scientific studies/books I’ve read. I really think there’s good advice to be had in this book, given in a pleasurable, attractive manner.
Rita T. (Amazon Italy review)
The passion for art and the passion for life meet and establish a path of personal rebirth through the great artists of the Renaissance, their struggles and their artworks. An interesting, beautiful, lively, full of stimuli parallelism. I am fascinated by this idea, and more by putting it into practice.
Chiara (LibriamociBlog review)
I am always very fascinated by books that combine, in a very elegant way, worlds that, apparently, have little or nothing in common.
While reading these kind of books, one realizes how, with a refined and manifest knowledge of the facts, one can choose any art and use it as a starting point for a personal practice.
Maura Garau, who in her life has chosen the mission of teaching and spreading the humanistic language, culture and values, created this book to combine art – and the impact it can have on our life – with the profound capacity for analysis, help and connection with ourselves through an elegant, informal and fluent writing but, above all, through great sensitivity and communication skills.
While narrating tales from the personal life of various artists including Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Leonardo and other great protagonists of the history of art, the author associates each artist with a physical, spiritual and emotional practice on which to focus, providing us with food for thought and real exercises through which we can work on ourselves.
This is how Renaissance art – which in the book starts from the portrait to arrive to the self-portrait – becomes synonymous with a real renaissance, a concept related not only to the masterworks of the artists described here but also to art as a starting point for a work that we can do on ourselves and on the connection with our true self, of which we may not yet know the potential and capacity.
This reading was therefore double interesting to me.
First of all for those notions and for those academic insights concerning the great artists that I have always esteemed and appreciated but that I had never looked at under such a different light – men who become starting points for a very intimate and very personal journey; secondly for the attention and ability of the author in suggesting us moments, reflections and exercises that can lead us to renew ourselves and to love ourselves more.
I must say that for lovers of the genre, or even for all those people who are looking for a reading capable of giving something to their own self, “Your Renaissance” is the perfect meeting point between the art that is fruit of the genius of great artists, and the art that is inside ourselves and that every day we must learn to contact and cultivate in order to make out of it the masterpiece of our life. And what is more beautiful than loving ourselves?
Alexandra R. (NetGalley Review)
Using examples of painters and their works to give tips and ideas to better yourself. An addition to ongoing or new self care practice or new stage in life.
For privacy, the above selection of reviews shows only the first name and initial of the last name of the reader, unless they are a public figure. |
