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From abolitionist medallions to statues of bondspeople bearing broken chains, sculpture gave visual and material form to narratives about the end of slavery in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Sculpture at the Ends of Slavery sheds light on the complex—and at times contradictory—place of such works as they moved through a world contoured both by the devastating economy of enslavement and by international abolitionist campaigns. By examining matters of making, circulation, display, and reception, Caitlin Meehye Beach argues that sculpture stood as a highly visible but deeply unstable site from which to interrogate the politics of slavery. With focus on works by Josiah Wedgwood, Hiram Powers, Edmonia Lewis, John Bell, and Francesco Pezzicar, Beach uncovers both the radical possibilities and the conflicting limitations of art in the pursuit of justice in racial capitalism's wake.
A critical reexamination of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux's bust Why Born Enslaved!, this book unpacks the sculpture's engagement with—and defiance of—an antislavery discourse. In this clear-eyed look at the Black figure in nineteenth-century sculpture, noted art historians and writers discuss how emerging categories of racial difference propagated by the scientific field of ethnography grew in popularity alongside a crescendo in cultural production in France during the Second Empire. By comparing Carpeaux's bust Why Born Enslaved! to works by his contemporaries on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as to objects by twenty‑first‑century artists Kara Walker and Kehinde Wiley, the authors touch on such key themes as the portrayal of Black enslavement and emancipation; the commodification of images of Black figures; the role of sculpture in generating the sympathies of its audiences; and the relevance of Carpeaux's sculpture to legacies of empire in the postcolonial present. The book also provides a chronology of events central to the histories of transatlantic slavery, abolition, colonialism, and empire.
This work explores the use of a time chart based on generations as a way to understand history. A sole reliance on yearly dating tends to obscure the historical reality and deter us from further exploration. However, patterns are revealed if we number generations, and we become intrigued by the connections and hypotheses raised. The author uses 15-year intervals to date events and mark when people turn 30 and tend to enter history. The 15-year generational interval was first used by the medieval historian, Bede, and later advocated by Ortega E Gasset, a leading Spanish philosopher of the 20th century. In brief, the phases of history found are: 1) A partly invisible beginning phase; 0-15 gene...
A major new survey of American sculpture, exploring how it both reflects and redefines concepts of race and identity in the United States How does American sculpture intersect with the history of race in the United States? The three-dimensional qualities of sculpture give it a distinct advantage over other art forms in capturing a subject’s likeness, and our minds can swiftly conjure a body and racialize it from the most minimal of prompts. The Shape of Power examines the role of American sculpture, from the nineteenth century to today, in understanding and constructing the concept of race in the United States and how this medium has shaped the way generations have learned to visualize and...
This work explores a generational history from America's Colonial period to the United States of contemporary times. A novel historical approach will rely on generational markers every 15th year, rather than yearly astronomical dates. This method will make history more accessible and its patterns more apparent. Identified from cultures presented in an earlier volume, the phasings are: 1) "Invisible" Beginnings; 2) Establishment and Testing; 3) Novel Consolidation and Opening Up, 4) Crisis and Creativity; 5) Empire and Inclusion, and 6) Rigidification or Renewal. This history does not seek to hide or obscure the shadow side of America, nor does it fail to present beauty and light, especially ...
This catalogue, published annually by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, announces the Museum's publications for that year. It also features notable backlist titles and provide a complete list of books available in print at the time of publication.
This richly illustrated collection of essays presents wide-ranging perspectives on the legacies of the Dutch Atlantic slave trade within and beyond museum walls. Contributions by curators, academics, activists, artists, and poets consider this history as reflected in the arts of Europe, the Americas, Africa, and the Black diaspora more broadly, together illuminating how art museums may function as liberatory spaces working against systemic injustice.
Musical Genre and Romantic Ideology charts the workings and legacies of Romantic artistic values such as originality and anti-commercialism in relation to musical genre. In case studies from across nineteenth-century Europe, author Matthew Gelbart explores the processes through which composers, performers, critics, and listeners gave sounds, and themselves, a sense of belonging.
Republics and empires provides transnational perspectives on the significance of Italy to American art and visual culture and the impact of the United States on Italian art and popular culture. Covering the period from the Risorgimento to the Cold War, it reveals the complexity of the visual discourses that bound two relatively new nations together. It also gives substantial attention to literary and critical texts that addressed the evolving cultural relationship between Italy and the United States. While American art history has tended to privilege French, British and German ties, these chapters highlight a rich body of contemporary research by Italian and American scholars that moves beyond a discussion of influence as a one-way directive towards a deeper understanding of cultural transactions that profoundly affected the artistic expression of both nations.
The artistic traditions of four major Christian denominations are examined and outlined in detail in this groundbreaking volume that presents the first synthesis of the artistic contributions of those traditions. Diane Apostolos-Cappadona has curated a volume that presents four single-authored contributions in one place, broadening the study of Christian art beyond Roman Catholic, Orthodox and 'protestant' traditions to consider these more recent Christian approaches in close and expert detail. Rachel Epp Buller examines art in the Mennonite tradition, Mormon art is considered by Heather Belnap, Quaker contributions by Rowena Loverance and Swedenborgian art by Diane Apostolos-Cappadona. Each...