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The Eye
An art adventure story that exposes readers to a secret, high-stakes profession involving masterpieces, massive amounts of money and an intense love of painting.
The Medici: Portraits and Politics 1512–1570
Between 1512 and 1570, Florence underwent dramatic political transformations. As citizens jockeyed for prominence, portraits became an essential means not only of recording a likeness but also of conveying a sitter’s character, social position, and cultural ambitions. This fascinating book explores the ways that painters (including Jacopo Pontormo, Agnolo Bronzino, and Francesco Salviati), sculptors (such as Benvenuto Cellini), and artists in other media endowed their works with an erudite and self-consciously stylish character that made Florentine portraiture distinctive. The Medici family had ruled Florence without interruption between 1434 and 1494. Following their return to power in 15...
Forms of Faith in Sixteenth-Century Italy
The sixteenth century was a period of tumultuous religious change in Italy as in Europe as a whole, a period when movements for both reform and counter-reform reflected and affected shifting religious sensibilities. Cinquecento culture was profoundly shaped by these religious currents, from the reform poetry of the 1530s and early 1540s, to the efforts of Tridentine theologians later in the century to renew Catholic orthodoxy across cultural life. This interdisciplinary volume offers a carefully balanced collection of essays by leading international scholars in the fields of Italian Renaissance literature, music, history and history of art, addressing the fertile question of the relationship...
The Ground of the Image
The renowned philosopher provides “noteworthy contributions to themes connected with images, imagination, representation, aesthetics, and . . . religion.” —Journal of American Academy of Religion What is this power that lies in the depths and recesses of an image—which is always only an impenetrable surface? What secrets are concealed in the ground or in the figures of an image—which never does anything but show just exactly what it is and nothing else? How does the immanence of images open onto their unimaginable others, their imageless origin? In this collection of writings on images and visual art, Jean-Luc Nancy explores such questions through an extraordinary range of referenc...
The Artist Grows Old
How does the artist’s self-conception change in old age? How does old age affect artistic practice? In this intriguing study, art historian Philip Sohm considers some of the greatest artists of Renaissance and Baroque Italy and their experiences of aging. Sohm investigates how art critics, collectors, biographers, and fellow artists dealt with old painters, what mental landscapes preconditioned responses to art by the elderly, and how biology and psychology were co-opted to explain the imprint that artists left on their art. He also looks carefully at the impact of prejudices, stereotypes, and other imaginary truths about old age. For some artists, the problems of old age were related to physical decline—Poussin’s hands became shaky, Titian’s eyesight dimmed. For others, psychological symptoms emerged. The book’s cast of characters includes Michelangelo, the hypochondriac young fogy; Titian, the shrewd marketer of old age; the multiphobic Pontormo; and others. With sensitivity and insight, Sohm uncovers what it meant to be an old artist and how successive generations have looked at the art of an old master.
The Propagandist
"Shows why historical fiction matters ... This haunting tale stayed with me."—Cara Black, author of Three Hours in Paris In a grand Paris apartment, a young girl attends gatherings regularly organized by her mother. The women talk about beauty secrets and gossip, but the mood grows dark when the past, notably World War II, comes under coded discussion in hushed tones. Years later, the silent witness to these sessions has become a prominent historian, and with this chilling autobiographical novel she sets out to unmask enigmatic figures in and around her family. Why, she seeks to understand, did they betray their Jewish neighbors and zealously collaborate with the Nazi occupation of France, remaining for decades hence obsessive devotees of that evil lost cause.
The Lady of the Mine
"A monumental feat . . . a book of rare elemental power that lays bare the dark forces driving Putin's Russia today."—Catherine Belton, author of Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took on the West The mystical laundress at the center of this novel is obsessed with purity. Her task is formidable as she stands guard over a sealed shaft at a Ukrainian coal mine that hides terrible truths. The bodies of dead Jews lying in its depths seem to attract still more present-day crimes. Acclaimed Russian author Sergei Lebedev portrays a ghostly realm riven by lust and fear just as the Kremlin invades the same part of Ukraine occupied by the German Wehrmacht in World War II. Then co...
The Ashgate Research Companion to Giorgio Vasari
The Ashgate Research Companion to Giorgio Vasari brings together the world's foremost experts on Vasari as well as up-and-coming scholars to provide, at the 500th anniversary of his birth, a comprehensive assessment of the current state of scholarship on this important-and still controversial-artist and writer. The contributors examine the life and work of Vasari as an artist, architect, courtier, academician, and as a biographer of artists. They also explore his legacy, including an analysis of the reception of his work over the last five centuries. Among the topics specifically addressed here are an assessment of the current controversy as to how much of Vasari's 'Lives' was actually written by Vasari; and explorations of Vasari's relationships with, as well as reports about, contemporaries, including Cellini, Michelangelo and Giotto, among less familiar names. The geographic scope takes in not only Florence, the city traditionally privileged in Italian Renaissance art history, but also less commonly studied geographical venues such as Siena and Venice.
Pontormo
Pontormo's Halberdier has long been controversial. How did scholars come to identify the sitter as Duke Cosimo de' Medici and why is this open to doubt? Who was Francesco Guardi? What was the siege of Florence, and could Pontormo have made this compelling portrait during that time of deprivation and political tumult? In a fascinating piece of historical detective work, Elizabeth Cropper investigates these questions and uncovers new evidence for interpretation. She also analyzes the portrait's relationship to other works by Pontormo, explores the importance for Pontormo of Donatello, Michelangelo, and Andrea del Sarto, and looks into Bronzino's connection with the portrait.
Instruments in Art and Science
This volume presents a collection of original papers at the intersection of philosophy, the history of science, cultural and theatrical studies. Based on a series of case studies on the 17th century, it contributes to an understanding of the role played by instruments at the interface of science and art. The papers pursue the hypothesis that the development and construction of instruments make a substantive contribution to the opening of new fields of knowledge, the development of new cultural practices, but also to the delineation of particular genres, methods, and disciplines. This perspective leads the authors to reflect anew on what actually defines an instrument and to develop a series ...
