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How did our ancestors die? Whereas in our own day the subject of death is usually avoided, in pre-Industrial England the rituals and processes of death were present and immediate. People not only surrounded themselves with memento mori, they also sought to keep alive memories of those who had gone before. This continual confrontation with death was enhanced by a rich culture of visual artifacts. In The Art of Death, Nigel Llewellyn explores the meanings behind an astonishing range of these artifacts, and describes the attitudes and practices which lay behind their production and use. Illustrated and explained in this book are an array of little-known objects and images such as death's head spoons, jewels and swords, mourning-rings and fans, wax effigies, church monuments, Dance of Death prints, funeral invitations and ephemera, as well as works by well-known artists, including Holbein, Hogarth and Blake.
Renaissance Bodies is a unique collection of views on the ways in which the human image has been represented in the arts and literature of English Renaissance society. The subjects discussed range from high art to popular culture - from portraits of Elizabeth I to polemical prints mocking religious fanaticism - and include miniatures, manners, anatomy, drama and architectural patronage. The authors, art historians and literary critics, reflect diverse critical viewpoints, and the 78 illustrations present a fascinating exhibition of the often strange and haunting images of the period. With essays by John Peacock, Elizabeth Honig, Andrew and Catherine Belsey, Jonathan Sawday, Susan Wiseman, Ellen Chirelstein, Tamsyn Williams, Anna Bryson, Maurice Howard and Nigel Llewellyn. "The whole book ... presents a mirror of contemporary concerns with power, the merits and demerits of individualism, sex-roles, 'selves', the meaning of community and (even) conspicuous consumption."--The Observer
How did our ancestors die? Whereas in our own day the subject of death is usually avoided, in pre-Industrial England the rituals and processes of death were present and immediate. People not only surrounded themselves with memento mori, they also sought to keep alive memories of those who had gone before. This continual confrontation with death was enhanced by a rich culture of visual artifacts. In The Art of Death, Nigel Llewellyn explores the meanings behind an astonishing range of these artifacts, and describes the attitudes and practices which lay behind their production and use. Illustrated and explained in this book are an array of little-known objects and images such as death's head spoons, jewels and swords, mourning-rings and fans, wax effigies, church monuments, Dance of Death prints, funeral invitations and ephemera, as well as works by well-known artists, including Holbein, Hogarth and Blake.
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Since 1960, progressive forces within art education have stoked, and continued to fire, new impulses in the field of artistic production. As society at large embraced youth and popular culture, art school students with international aspirations exploded class barriers, fused fashion with Pop and insisted that art was integral to social change. These possibilities were unthinkable without shifts in priorities. Replacing a craft-based curriculum, the teaching in art schools across Britain, and notably in London, began to widen the range of artistic exploration. A new generation emerged, whose techniques, perspectives, and arguments had their origins in these innovations and whose most striking...
A look at the wider issues of design and industrial culture throughout Europe, Scandinavia, North America, and the Far East. The book explores the way in which 20th-century designs such as the Coca-Cola bottle have affected our culture more than those considered true classics
This significant and innovative collection explores the changing piety of townspeople and villagers before, during and after the Reformation. It brings together leading and new scholars from England and the Netherlands to present new research on a subject of importance to historians of society and religion in late medieval and early modern Europe. Contributors examine the diverse evidence for transitions in piety and the processes of these changes. The volume incorporates a range of approaches including social, cultural and religious history, literary and manuscript studies, social anthropology and archaeology. This is, therefore, an interdisciplinary volume that constitutes a cultural histo...
Funeral monuments are fascinating and diverse cultural relics that continue to captivate visitors to English churches, yet we still know relatively little about the messages they attempt to convey across the centuries. This book is a study of the material culture of memory in sixteenth and seventeenth-century England. By interpreting the images and inscriptions on monuments to the dead, it explores how early modern people wanted to be remembered - their social vision, cultural ideals, religious beliefs and political values. Arguing that early modern English monuments were not simply formulaic statements about death and memory, Dr Sherlock instead reveals them to be deliberately crafted messa...
English royal funeral ceremony from Mary, Queen of Scots to James I gives fascinating insight into the relationship between power and ritual at the renaissance court.
Art, Literature and Religion in Early Modern Sussex is an interdisciplinary study of a county at the forefront of religious, political and artistic developments in early-modern England. Ranging from the schism of Reformation to the outbreak of Civil War, the volume brings together scholars from the fields of art history, religious and intellectual history and English literature to offer new perspectives on early-modern Sussex. Essays discuss a wide variety of topics: the coherence of a county divided between East and West and Catholic and Protestant; the art and literary collections of Chichester cathedral; communities of Catholic gentry; Protestant martyrdom; aristocratic education; writing...