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As if in a Bright Mirror -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Abbreviations -- Bibliography of Cited Works -- Index
Meticulously woven by hand with wool, silk, and gilt-metal thread, the tapestry collection of the Sun King, Louis XIV of France, represents the highest achievements of the art form. Intended to enhance the king’s reputation by visualizing his manifest glory and to promote the kingdom’s nascent mercantile economy, the royal collection of tapestries included antique and contemporary sets that followed the designs of the greatest artists of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, including Raphael, Giulio Romano, Rubens, Vouet, and Le Brun. Ranging in date from about 1540 to 1715 and coming from weaving workshops across northern Europe, these remarkable works portray scenes from the bible, his...
Packed with strange stories and spectacular illustrations, The Devil's Atlas leads you on an adventure through the afterlife, exploring the supernatural worlds of global cultures to form a fascinating traveler's guide quite unlike any other. From the author of the critically acclaimed bestsellers The Phantom Atlas, The Sky Atlas, and The Madman's Library comes a unique and beautifully illustrated guide to the heavens, hells, and lands of the dead as imagined throughout history by cultures and religions around the world. Packed with colorful maps, paintings, and captivating stories, The Devil's Atlas is a compelling tour of the geography, history, and supernatural populations of the afterworl...
Specialist Markets in the Early Modern Book World, edited by Richard Kirwan and Sophie Mullins, investigates an underexplored yet important facet of early modern book production. Bringing together 19 detailed case studies, this volume considers and reconstructs the characteristics of specialist book production in the early modern period. In particular it explores the motives that led to specialisation ranging from the desire for profit on the part of risk-taking, entrepreneurial individuals or family firms to the more propagandist or missionising aims of corporate groups who subsidised production, often without regard for profit. The book also explores the economic and personal pressures and perils that accompanied specialist production, which was often a risk-laden enterprise that could end in financial and social ruin.
At a moment when France was coming to new prominence in the production of furniture and fashion, the fairy tales of Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy (1652–1705) and Henriette-Julie de Murat (1670–1716) gave pride of place to richly detailed descriptions of palaces, gardens, clothing, and toys. Through close readings of these authors’ descriptive prose, Rori Bloom shows how these practitioners of a supposedly minor genre made a major contribution as chroniclers and critics of the decorative arts in Old Regime France. Identifying these authors’ embrace of the pretty and the playful as a response to a frequent critique of fairy tales as childish and feminine, Making the Marvelous demonstrates their integration of artisan’s work, child’s play, and the lady’s toilette into a complex vision of creativity. D’Aulnoy and Murat changed the stakes of the fairy tale, Bloom argues: instead of inviting their readers to marvel at the magic that changes rags to riches, they enjoined them to acknowledge the skill that transforms raw materials into beautiful works of art.
Crowning Glories integrates Louis XIV's propaganda campaigns, the transmission of Northern art into France, and the rise of empiricism in the eighteenth century - three historical touchstones - to examine what it would have meant for France's elite to experience the arts in France simultaneously with Netherlandish realist painting. In an expansive study of cultural life under the Sun King, Harriet Stone considers the monarchy's elaborate palace decors, the court's official records, and the classical theatre alongside Northern images of daily life in private homes, urban markets, and country fields. Stone argues that Netherlandish art assumes an unobtrusive yet, for the history of ideas, surp...
Catalog of an exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, October 1, 2013-January 5, 2014.
From one of today’s most inspired architects and urban advocates, a manifesto for architecture as a force for addressing our biggest social challenges The world is facing unprecedented challenges, from climate change and population growth, to political division and technological dislocation, to declining mental health and fraying cultural fabric. With most of the planet’s population now living in urban environments, cities are the spaces where we have the greatest potential to confront and address these problems. In this visionary book, Vishaan Chakrabarti argues for an “architecture of urbanity,” showing how the design of our communities can create a more equitable, sustainable, and...
One of the most striking features of French government in the second half of the sixteenth century was the influence of Italians. Notwithstanding widespread French admiration for Italian culture, Italian influence at the heart of French government aroused xenophobic antagonism amongst many in French society. This study throws light on this complex relationship by offering the first detailed examination of the Gondi, one of the most influential of the Italian families active during this period. The Gondi family played a leading part in the finance, government, church and military affairs of the nation, and were indispensable counsellors to the Queen Mother, Catherine De' Medici. They were als...
The Edible Monument considers the elaborate architecture, sculpture, and floats made of food that were designed for court and civic celebrations in early modern Europe. These include popular festivals such as Carnival and the Italian Cuccagna. Like illuminations and fireworks, ephemeral artworks made of food were not well documented and were challenging to describe because they were perishable and thus quickly consumed or destroyed. In times before photography and cookbooks, there were neither literary models nor a repertoire of conventional images for how food and its preparation should be explained or depicted. Although made for consumption, food could also be a work of art, both as a spec...