Today's Hours:
The Italian Renaissance Altarpiece by
The altarpiece is one of the most distinctive and remarkable art forms of the Renaissance period. It is difficult to imagine an artist of the time--whether painter or sculptor, major or minor--who did not produce at least one. Though many have been displaced or dismembered, a substantial proportion of these works still survive. Despite the volume of material available, no serious attempt has ever been made to examine the whole subject in depth until now. The Italian Renaissance Altarpiece is the first comprehensive study of the genre to examine its content and subject matter in real detail, from the origins of the altarpiece in the 13th century to the time of Caravaggio in the early 1600s. It discusses major developments in the history of these objects throughout Italy, covers the three key categories of Renaissance altarpiece--"immagini" (icons), "historie" (narratives), and "misteri" (mysteries)--and is illustrated with 250 beautiful reproductions of the artworks.
The Art of Colour by
As featured on BBC Worldwide A captivating new history of art told through the storied biographies of colors and pigments In this refreshing approach to the history of color, Kelly Grovier takes readers on an exciting search for the intriguing and unusual. In Grovier's telling, a color's connotations are never fixed but are endlessly evolving. Knowledge of a pigment and its history can unlock meaning in the works that feature it. Grovier employs the term "artymology" to suggest that color is a linguistic device, where pigments stand in for syllables in art's language. Color is the site of invigorating conflict--a battleground where past and present, influence and originality, and superstition and science merge into meanings that complicate and intensify our appreciation of a given work. How might it change our understanding of a well-known masterpiece like Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night to know that the intense yellow moon in that painting was sculpted from clumps of dehydrated urine from cows that were fed nothing but mango leaves? Or that the cobalt blue pigment in Van Gogh's sky shares a material bloodline with the glaze of Ming Dynasty porcelain? Consisting of ten chapters, each presenting a biography of a family of colors, this volume mines a rich vein of pigmentation from prehistoric cave painting to art of the present day. The book also includes beautifully designed features exploring important milestones in the history of color theory from the Enlightenment to the twentieth century.
The Last Civilized Place by
Set along the Sahara's edge, Sijilmasa was an African El Dorado, a legendary city of gold. But unlike El Dorado, Sijilmasa was a real city, the pivot in the gold trade between ancient Ghana and the Mediterranean world. Following its emergence as an independent city-state controlling a monopoly on gold during its first 250 years, Sijilmasa was incorporated into empire--Almoravid, Almohad, and onward--leading to the "last civilized place" becoming the cradle of today's Moroccan dynasty, the Alaouites. Sijilmasa's millennium of greatness ebbed with periods of war, renewal, and abandonment. Today, its ruins lie adjacent to and under the modern town of Rissani, bypassed by time. The Moroccan-American Project at Sijilmasa draws on archaeology, historical texts, field reconnaissance, oral tradition, and legend to weave the story of how this fabled city mastered its fate. The authors' deep local knowledge and interpretation of the written and ecological record allow them to describe how people and place molded four distinct periods in the city's history. Messier and Miller compare models of Islamic cities to what they found on the ground to understand how Sijilmasa functioned as a city. Continuities and discontinuities between Sijilmasa and the contemporary landscape sharpen questions regarding the nature of human life on the rim of the desert. What, they ask, allows places like Sijilmasa to rise to greatness? What causes them to fall away and disappear into the desert sands?
The Mongol Empire in Global History and Art History by
With the rise of projects to create global histories and art histories, the Mongol Empire is now widely taken as a fundamental watershed. In the later thirteenth century, the Mongol states reconfigured the basic zones of Eurasian trade and contact. For those they conquered, and for those who later overthrew them, new histories and narratives were needed to account for the Mongol rise. And as people, ideas, and commodities circulated in these vast and interconnected spaces, new types of objects and new visual languages were created, shifting older patterns of artistic production. The Mongol rise is now routinely cast as the first glimmering of an early modernity, defined as an ever-increasing acceleration in systems of contact, exchange, and cultural collision. Yet what is at stake in framing the so-called Pax Mongolica in this way? What was changed by the Mongol rise, and what were its lasting legacies? It is the goal of essays in this book to address these and other questions about the Mongol impact and their modern role, and to make these debates more widely available. Contributors include specialists of Mongol history and historiography as well as Islamic, East Asian, and European art, writing on topics from historical chronicles to contemporary historiography, and case studies from textile production to mapmaking and historical linguistics.
Cultivating the Renaissance by
By exploring the evolution of the Medici family's villas, Cultivating the Renaissance charts the shifting politics, philosophy and aesthetics of the age and chronicles the rise of an extraordinary family from obscure farmers to European royalty. Lavishly illustrated, Cultivating the Renaissance is of great interest to students and scholars of architecture, horticulture, landscape history, philosophy, art, and the history of the Renaissance in Italy
Mermaid Coloring Book by
Walking as Artistic Practice lays out foundational information about the history of walking and its development as an artistic practice, making it accessible to readers of all backgrounds. It also provides guidance on how to analyze and discuss walking artworks, with vocabulary support, over three hundred examples, and over seventy-five exercises. The chapters offer a variety of topical approaches, allowing readers and instructors to craft an experience most suited to their interests and needs. Themes include observational and sensory experience, leading versus following, who walks where (identity and positionality), rituals, place, activism, connections to drawing, and embodiment. Appendices include information on documentation, sample syllabi, readings and resources, brainstorming tips, community engagement guidance, and tips for travel-based study. Instructors will appreciate this text because it has so many resources to direct students to when they have questions about analysis, history, community engagement, or documentation approaches. It's the type of book that students will hang onto long after the course is done because it is so practical and useful.