Associated University Presses
Anarchism and the crisis of representation; hermeneutics, aesthetics, politics.
Cohn (English, Purdue U.) appears to agree with Marxist theorist Frederic Jameson that an all-encompassing "crisis of representation" has befallen Western thought, calling into question "the relationships between our concepts and the truths they are meant to denote, our images and the realities they are supposed to depict, our institutions and the interests they are meant to serve." Finding in the social anarchist tradition the earliest modern critique of political representation, he believes that a close reading of the tradition shows a path out of the contemporary representation impasse, not only in the field of politics but also in the realms of hermeneutics and aesthetics. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Antoine Watteau; perspectives on the artist and the culture of his time.
Sheriff (art history, U. of North Carolina) presents ten essays from scholars of French history, literature, and art discussing the art and context of 18th-century painter Antoine Watteau, known for his fetes galantes and scenes from the theater. Topics explored include the history of writing about the artist across the centuries; how the practice of drawing shaped Watteau's artistic production; how his works respond to his contemporary social and political climate; his relationship to various theatrical institutions; and his influence on contemporaries and modern painters, among other subjects. About 30 of Watteau's drawings and paintings are reproduced in b&w. This book is distributed by Associated University Presses. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Art and money in the writings of Tobias Smollett.
Scottish writer Smollett (1721-71) is known today for his picaresque novels full of scatological humor and a robust use of language, but his contemporaries also knew him as a historian, journalist, and social commentator. Gibson (literature, Nanyang Technical U., Singapore) looks at his commentary on painting as a window into his cultural and aesthetic sensibilities. Distributed in the US by Associated University Presses. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Between the real and the ideal; the Accademia degli Arcadi and its garden in eighteenth-century Rome.
Although the members of the Accademia degli Arcadi largely supported restraint, elegance and Enlightenment ideals, they were also well aware of their proximity to the court and the papal curia and the tensions those views, particularly the participation of women, would create. Therefore the Arcadians expressed themselves in a less-direct way, in their meeting gardens, as well as more directly in theater. Dixon (art history, U. of Tulsa) describes how Arcadian developments of space and the physical world expressed their views, how their friends and enemies perceived those views as expressed in their garden and landscape, and how the Arcadians came to be regarded as social reformers. As the gardens are currently under renovation this is particularly timely. Distributed by Associated University Presses. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Caravaggio; realism, rebellion, reception.
These essays consider Caravaggio's revolutionary "realism" from a range of perspectives. As a whole, the volume adds to the understanding of Caravaggio's relationship to the "new" science of observation championed by Galileo and reexamines the theoretical nature of Caravaggio's seemingly direct realism. Some of the essays extend the research on Caravaggio's intellectual and social milieu and the effects of high and low cultures. Distributed by Associated University Presses. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
A dilemma of English modernism; visual and verbal politics in the life and work of C.R.W. Nevinson (1889-1949).
The son of a social commentator (considered a radical) and a suffragist (considered equally radical), Nevinson was probably not predestined to produce pastel watercolor landscapes for the parlor market. Instead he created visual commentaries on the dreariness of everyday life, and scathingly drawn reviews of questionable entertainment. He is best known, however, for his visual record of World War II and his experiences as a soldier, of his battles with the Royal Academy, and his ability to slip from the visual to the literary without raising a ripple. These nine essays regard his family, his years in the most brilliant class of the Slade School of Art, his involvement with futurism, his activism, his approach to Jazz Age America, his fiction, his prints, his attitude toward photography and his fight with fascism and elitism in the 1930s. Distributed by Associated University Presses. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Facing the late Victorians; portraits of writers and artists from the Mark Samuels Lasner collection.
Stetz curated Beyond Oscar Wilde, an exhibition focusing on the surge of interest in portraits of writers and artists in Victorian Britain, for the U. of Delaware's University Gallery. This volume expands on that exhibition, detailing how Victorians "read" the faces of public figures and why such portraits became ubiquitous. Approximately 110 b&w reproductions of drawings, paintings, photographs, and lithographs are each accompanied by a brief analysis of how the portraitist meant to depict their subject. Among the figures portrayed are Wilde, Sir John Irving, Rudyard Kipling, Caroline Blanche, Robert Browning, Tennyson, and James McNeill Whistler. This book is distributed by Associated University Presses. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
From sacred to secular; visual images in early American publications.
Contextualizing the images to demonstrate their link with religious and political thought of the time, this text describes and analyzes Puritan ideas as expressed in imagery found in broadsides, caricatures, political portraiture, representations of women, religious tracts, primers, and chapbooks, among other media. Published in an oversized format (8.75x11.25 inches), the images are presented in clear b&w plates. Distributed by Associated University Presses. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Monument, moment, and memory; Monet's cathedral in fin de siécle France.
Bernier (art history, Wilkes U., Pennsylvania) examines the critical responses of Claude Monet's contemporaries to his paintings of Rouen Cathedral, a departure from his natural subjects that better suited the widespread discourse on instantaneity and temporality. Among other things, the author relates how these themes translated (and how they didn't) in the opinion of nineteenth-century critics when the impressionist's subject changed from transient nature to a monument of history and nation. Oversize: 8.5x11.25 inches. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Performing the "everyday"; the culture of genre in the eighteenth century.
With 9 essays contributed by academics in art history, music and English in the U.S., Canada, Israel, and Australia, this volume offers a range of examples and analysis of the popular style in art, literature, and music, especially in France and Britain. Many of the essays are concerned with issues of gender. Published in an oversized format (8.5x11.25 inches), the volume is well illustrated with b&w plates. Distributed by Associated University Presses. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Putting the caliph in his place; power, authority, and the late Abbasid caliphate.
The commonly held notion of the Abbasid caliphs being mere puppets from the Buyid period on is disproven in this study by Hanne (Florida Atlantic U.). Based on research of medieval sources, Hanne describes the evidence for the caliphs' exercise of power from al-Qadir billah in the 10th-11th century C.E. to al-Mustadi bi-Amr Ahllah in the 12th century, ranging from their involvement in politics at home, building activities, and their influence on politics throughout the Muslim world. The study is a revision of his doctoral thesis at U. of Michigan. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
