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Luxury Arts of the Renaissance
Today we associate the Renaissance with painting, sculpture, and architecture—the “major” arts. Yet contemporaries often held the “minor” arts—gem-studded goldwork, richly embellished armor, splendid tapestries and embroideries, music, and ephemeral multi-media spectacles—in much higher esteem. Isabella d’Este, Marchesa of Mantua, was typical of the Italian nobility: she bequeathed to her children precious stone vases mounted in gold, engraved gems, ivories, and antique bronzes and marbles; her favorite ladies-in-waiting, by contrast, received mere paintings. Renaissance patrons and observers extolled finely wrought luxury artifacts for their exquisite craftsmanship and the s...
Rethinking the Renaissance
In this study, Marina Belozerskaya re-establishes the importance of the Burgundian court as a center of art production and patronage in early modern Europe. Beginning with a historiographical and theoretical overview, she offers an analysis of contemporary documents and patterns of patronage, demonstrating that Renaissance tastes were formed through a fusion of international currents and art works in a variety of media. Among the most prestigious were those emanating out of the Burgundian court, which embodied prevailing contemporary values: magnificence in appearance, ceremony and surroundings, chivalry inspired by Greco-Roman antiquity, and power manifested through ingenious ensembles of luxury arts. The potency of this 'Burgundian mode' fostered a pan-European demand for its arts and their creators, with rulers in England, Germany, Spain and Italy itself eagerly acquiring Burgundian art works. This interdisciplinary study of the Burgundian arts provides a new paradigm for further inquiry into the pluralism and cosmopolitanism of the Renaissance.
Medusa's Gaze
The Tazza Farnese is one of the most admired objects from classical antiquity. A libation bowl carved from banded agate, it features Medusa's head on its outside and, inside, an assembly of Egyptian gods. For more than two millennia, these radiant figures have mesmerized emperors and artists, popes and thieves, merchants and museum goers. In this, the first book-length account of this renowned masterpiece, Marina Belozerskaya traces its fascinating journey through history. That it has survived at all is a miracle. The Tazza's origins date back to Ptolemaic Egypt where it likely enhanced the power and prestige of Cleopatra. After her defeat by Emperor Augustus, the bowl began an amazing itine...
Ancient Greece
They reflected - and projected - essential cultural values, whether they were intended for religious sanctuaries for aristocratic drinking parties, civic squares or tombs."--BOOK JACKET.
The Medici Giraffe
A fascinating exploration, spanning two thousand years, of the central role exotic animals have played in war, diplomacy, and the pomp of rulers and luminaries.
Rethinking the Renaissance
Marina Belozerskaya reestablishes the importance of the Burgundian court as an early modern European center of art, production and patronage. She analyzes contemporary documents and patterns of patronage, demonstrating that Renaissance tastes were formed through the fusion of international currents and art works in a variety of media. Among the most prestigious were those emanating out of the Burgundian court. This interdisciplinary study of the Burgundian arts provides a new paradigm for further inquiry into the pluralism and cosmopolitanism of the Renaissance.
Oudry's Painted Menagerie
In the 1720s and 1730s, Jean-Baptiste Oudry established himself as the preeminent painter in France of hunts, animals, still lifes, and landscapes. Oudry’s Painted Menagerie focuses on a suite of eleven life-size portraits of exotic animals from the royal menagerie at Versailles, painted by Oudry between 1739 and 1752. These paintings eventually found their way into the ducal collection in Schwerin, Germany. Among them is the magnificent portrait of Clara, an Indian rhinoceros who became a celebrity in mid-eighteenth-century Europe. Her portrait has been out of public view for more than a century, and it is presented here in its newly conserved state.
The Arts of Tuscany
Tuscany is everyone’s dream--a land of picturesque landscapes, fabulous food, and above all, extraordinary masterpieces of art of every kind. Focusing on a series of Tuscan centers, from the Etruscan capitals of Cerveteri and Tarquinia to the great medieval and Renaissance city-states of Lucca, Pisa, Siena, and Florence down to the present day, Marina Belozerskaya leads the reader on a journey through the arts of this astonishing part of Italy. Unlike other books on Tuscany, this one spans time, geography, and a wide variety of art forms--from Etruscan bronzes to Ferragamo shoes--and shows how the arts of this fertile region have sprung from their native soil over the centuries, each era providing the foundation for the next. Lavishly illustrated, and rich with the fascinating stories of Tuscan arts and their creators, The Arts of Tuscany offers an enchanting new look into the opulent culture of a beloved part of the world.
The Breathless Zoo
From sixteenth-century cabinets of wonders to contemporary animal art, The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing examines the cultural and poetic history of preserving animals in lively postures. But why would anyone want to preserve an animal, and what is this animal-thing now? Rachel Poliquin suggests that taxidermy is entwined with the enduring human longing to find meaning with and within the natural world. Her study draws out the longings at the heart of taxidermy—the longing for wonder, beauty, spectacle, order, narrative, allegory, and remembrance. In so doing, The Breathless Zoo explores the animal spectacles desired by particular communities, human assumptions of superiority, the yearnings for hidden truths within animal form, and the loneliness and longing that haunt our strange human existence, being both within and apart from nature.
Somewhere Towards The End
What is it like to be old? Diana Athill made her reputation as a writer with the candour of her memoirs - her commitment, in her words, 'to understand, to be aware, to touch the truth'. Now in her nineties, and freed from any inhibitions that even she may once have had, she reflects frankly on the losses and occasionally the gains that old age brings, and on the wisdom and fortitude required to face death. This is a lively narrative of events, lovers and friendships: the people and experiences that have taught her to regret very little, to resist despondency and to question the beliefs and customs of her own generation.
