Knights of Art: Stories of the Italian Painters — Story, Setting & Ideas

A Conversational Frame for Young Readers

Steedman's prose is consistently addressed to a child reader, using 'we' and 'you' to create intimacy. In the opening pages, she asks, 'Do you ever wonder how all these pictures came to be made?' and recalls shared memories of picture-books featuring 'the little girl in the red cloak' and 'the great big bear.' This technique establishes a friendly, instructive tone. The author also simplifies complex historical transitions: the shift from pagan Greek art to Christian iconography is presented as a moral lesson—'the people had learned that the pictured gods were not real'—and the Renaissance becomes a story of awakening. This voice persists throughout the excerpts, making the book feel like a spoken tale rather than a dry history.

Shifts in Pace: From Summary to Scene

The narrative alternates between rapid historical summaries and vivid, dramatized episodes. For example, Steedman compresses centuries into a few paragraphs at the start, then slows to a detailed scene in Perugino's studio. There, painters like Filippino Lippi, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, and Leonardo gather, and Michelangelo enters with 'curious, rugged face' and 'strong knotted hands.' The dialogue is invented but plausible: Botticelli calls the new style 'strange and unpleasing,' while Leonardo calls it 'marvellously skilful.' The quarrel escalates until Michelangelo calls Perugino 'a dolt and a blockhead in Art.' This shift from summary to scene gives the reader a sense of witnessing history, though Steedman does not claim the dialogue is verbatim.

Recurring Details: The Painter as Knight

The title Knights of Art is not merely decorative. Steedman consistently portrays painters as chivalric figures. Perugino, for instance, is shown defending 'the precious traditions handed down to us since the days of Giotto' as if guarding an honor code. His jealousy of Michelangelo's 'new way' is framed as a knight's loyalty to old ideals. The author also emphasizes personal virtues: Perugino's love for his wife Chiare is described with romantic intensity—'her brown eyes were like the depths of some quiet pool'—and he paints her as an angel in the Tobias story. This blending of artistic biography with knightly valor gives the book a consistent thematic thread, though it is a lens Steedman imposes rather than one found in Vasari.

Readers should note that Steedman's stories are filtered through Vasari's often anecdotal accounts, and she freely invents dialogue and inner thoughts. The book is best approached as a literary introduction rather than a factual biography. Pay attention to how she uses pacing—rushing through centuries, then pausing on a single quarrel—to shape the drama. The chivalric framing may feel dated, but it gives the artists a heroic dimension that can spark curiosity about the actual paintings.

Steedman’s little knights, with their patient brushes and quarried pigments, always made me think of quiet labor—much like the unnamed hands behind those marble courtiers in the Sculpture of the Exposition Palaces and Courts Descriptive Notes on the Art of the Statuary at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco — A Closer Reading. Both books whisper of chisel and canvas, a shared patience that outlasts the noise.