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The Arts in Spain
This text presents a representative anthology of examples of painting, architecture and sculpture to provide a critical overview of Spain. From Iberian and Roman beginnings, the book traces the development of the arts in Spain, examining the magnificent Islamic and Christian foundations at Cordoba and the Escorial, the idiosyncratic masterworks of El Greco, the Golden Age of Zurbaran and Velazquez, the art of Goya, and the innovative works of Picasso, Dali and Miro, and revealing that many of the most characteristic Spanish artistic currents had their origins at the dawn of history.
Art Forgery
Until now, all experts have dated the celebrated Lady of Elche, the beautiful and patriotic symbol of timeless Iberia, to pre-Christian Spain, some time between 500 B.C. and A.D. 150. John F. Moffitt dates it to "ca. 1897." The Lady, a magnificent sculpted bust of perhaps a princess or priestess, has been regarded as a major work of "ancient" Spanish art ever since it was unearthed near the village of Elche in 1897. Displayed at the Louvre until 1941, the sculpture has resided since then in a place of honor in Madrid's national archaeological museum. To every reputable art historian and archaeologist, European and American alike, it has defined the very essence of Iberian art and the foundat...
Picturing Extraterrestrials
In this witty, erudite, and thoroughly researched book, art historian John Moffitt discusses the popular iconography depicting alleged extraterrestrial (ET) visitors and the widespread appeal of this New Age craze as a mass cultural phenomenon. A thorough skeptic, Moffitt is interested in kitschy ET portraiture, not as evidence of aliens among us, but for what this imagery reveals about contemporary culture. By brilliantly placing the present cultural moment in historical context, he demonstrates how typical portrayals of aliens reflect long-running (even ancient) cultural motifs. Whether we realize it or not, among ET's precursors are the ecstatic maenads of ancient Greek art, early depicti...
Alchemist of the Avant-Garde
Acknowledged as the "Artist of the Century," Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) left a legacy that dominates the art world to this day. Inventing the ironically dégagé attitude of "ready-made" art-making, Duchamp heralded the postmodern era and replaced Pablo Picasso as the role model for avant-garde artists. John F. Moffitt challenges commonly accepted interpretations of Duchamp's art and persona by showing that his mature art, after 1910, is largely drawn from the influence of the occult traditions. Moffitt demonstrates that the key to understanding the cryptic meaning of Duchamp's diverse artworks and writings is alchemy, the most pictorial of all the occult philosophies and sciences.
Caravaggio in Context
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) has long been recognized as one of the great innovators in the history of art. Through detailed analysis of paintings from his early Roman period, 1594-1602, this study now situates his art firmly within both its humanistic and its scientific context. Here, both his revolutionary painterly techniques--pronounced naturalism and dramatic chiaroscuro--and his novel subject matter--still-life compositions and genre scenes--are finally put into their proper cultural and contemporary environment. This environment included the contemporary rise of empirical scientific observation, a procedure--like Caravaggio's naturalism--committed to a close study of ...
Our Lady of Guadalupe
According to legend, on December 8, 1531, the Virgin Mary appeared to the newly Christianized Juan Diego on the Mexican hill of Tepeyacac. As proof of her divine visit, she miraculously imprinted her image upon his mantle. That image, known as Our Lady of Guadalupe, has become a symbol of national consciousness in Mexico and a talisman for Mexican Americans. Yet its notable features include obviously European artistic techniques. How is it that Renaissance styles are employed in a 16th century Mexican icon supposedly not made by human hands? Looking beyond the divine explanation for the Lady's existence, author John Moffitt uses historical and artistic detective work to determine the work's ...
Architecture for the Screen
Most of us have never found ourselves trapped inside a burning skyscraper or entombed within an Egyptian pyramid--but we probably have some idea of what it would be like because of their portrayal on screen. The movies have overcome the constraints of time and place by bringing us images of diverse and otherwise unfamiliar settings. This work covers the many applications of art and architecture appearing in the movies produced in Hollywood from the very beginning until the fifties. The first chapters deal with the process of design, construction, physical characteristics and immediate functions of a wide variety of architectural sets. The remaining chapters examine the great number of styles shown in those movies and take the reader up to the final triumph of modernist architecture in the aftermath of the Second World War.
The Islamic Design Module in Latin America
This study analyzes the distinctive look of Hispanic architecture. Its triangulate format, originated in Islamic Spain, was based on workshop techniques once used by journeyman designers and simple artisans. Spain was the only European transatlantic colonial power to have once been occupied by Islamic overlords. Spain's conquistadors took their traditional building methods to Latin America. Formal analyses of the facades of various Latin American churches reveal them to reiterate procedures worked out in Andalusia by Islamic builders in the ninth and tenth centuries. Though widely separated by time and place, both share a proportionate system determining abstract ratios; in both cases, this ...
Painterly Perspective and Piety
While the Renaissance is generally perceived to be a secular movement, the majority of large artworks executed in 15th century Italy were from ecclesiastical commissions. Because of the nature of primarily basilica-plan churches, a parishioner's view was directed by the diminishing parallel lines formed by the walls of the structure. Appearing to converge upon a mutual point, this resulted in an artistic phenomenon known as the vanishing point. As applied to ecclesiastical artwork, the Catholic Vanishing Point (CVP) was deliberately situated upon or aligned with a given object--such as the Eucharist wafer or Host, the head of Christ or the womb of the Virgin Mary--possessing great symbolic significance in Roman liturgy. Masaccio's fresco painting of the Trinity (circa 1427) in the Florentine church of Santa Maria Novella, analyzed in physical and symbolic detail, provides the first illustration of a consistently employed linear perspective within an ecclesiastical setting. Leonardo's Last Supper, Venaziano's St. Lucy Altarpiece, and Tome's Transparente illustrate the continuation of this use of liturgical perspective.
