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Books > Arts & Architecture > History of art / art & design styles > 1600 to 1800 > General
The Art of Thomas Bewick is the first book to interpret the art of
the wood engraver Thomas Bewick (1753 - 1828) and set it in the
context of history, revealing the connections between Bewick's
political and religious views - reflections of the late
eighteenth-century Enlightenment - and the character of his images.
Bewick was both an important contributor to the history of British
ornithology and a highly original artist and printmaker. His
depictions of the natural world, particularly of British birds, set
new standards of realism and authenticity, while his graphic scenes
of country life were unparalleled in their thoughtfulness, mingling
humour and tragedy. His lively depictions of dogs, horses and other
animals can also be seen as the expression of a new insight and
sensibility: part of the growing movement for the prevention of
cruelty to animals. Allowing Bewick's art to be viewed in a broad
context of the artistic and scientific culture of his age, this
lavishly illustrated book will appeal to naturalists, especially
ornithologists and birdwatchers; historians of science, art and
country life; those interested in the history of animal rights and
protection; and students of painting and print media.
Images of Thought is an entirely new approach to understanding
non-Western art. Supported by a wide reading in anthropology,
theology and philosophy, it provides an intellectual context for
reading the visual language of Indian and Persian miniature art. By
decoding artistic conventions, and with searching visual analyses,
the book attempts to transform our understanding of art as an
illustration of history to art as a reflection of the intellect.
Images of Thought should be of interest to the general reader,
students and scholars of art and critical theory, as it shows that
one of the world's richest painting traditions can offer important
insights into issues of visual perception and intellectual
production generally.
This book is the first complete study of the life and work of the
17th century Dutch painter Pieter Codde (1599-1678). Alongside
Rembrandt, Codde was active in Amsterdam, the largest and busiest
city of the Netherlands. Codde belonged to the first generation of
painters who took part in the cultural phenomenon known as the
Dutch Golden Age and therefore this monograph makes a significant
contribution to our understanding of the early stages of
development of the Dutch school of painting and its influence on
later developments. The book includes a biography of the painter as
well as a systematic and comparative iconographical and stylistic
study of his work with an attached extensive critical oeuvre
catalogue. This book is an important tool for both art enthusiasts
and collectors as well as art professionals such as students,
scholars, auctioneers and art dealers.
The essays in this collection range across literature, aesthetics,
music and art, and explore such themes as the dynamics of change in
eighteenth-century aesthetics; time, modernity and the picturesque;
the function of graphic ornaments in eighteenth-century texts;
imaginary voyages as a literary genre; the genesis of children's
literature; the Italian opera and musical theory in Frances
Burney's novels; Italian and British art theories; and patterns of
cultural transfers and of book circulation between Britain and
Italy in the eighteenth century. Collectively they epitomise the
concerns and approaches of scholars working on the long eighteenth
century at this challenging and exciting time. In the absence of
universally agreed, overarching interpretations of the cultural
history of the long eighteenth century, these papers pave the way
for the ultimate emergence of such explanations.Authors discussed
here include Margaret Cavendish, David Russen, Francis Hutcheson,
Reverend Gilpin, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, Laurence
Sterne, Dugald Stewart, Dorothy Kilner, Frances Burney, Anna Gordon
Brown, Saverio Bettinelli, Henry Ince Blundell, Francesco
Algarotti, Ugo Foscolo and Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi.
With many illustrations and diagrams, Images of Thought provides
easy to follow ways in which to read Indian, Persian and European
paintings in terms of composition, proportion, colour symbolism and
references to myth. Yet it also provides the intellectual contexts
of Islamic cultures which inform our perceptions of how this visual
language works. The author uses salient aspects of critical theory,
anthropology and theology to sensitise viewers to the diversity and
difference of cultural readings but never loses sight of the
primacy of the visual and formal characteristics, gestures,
geometrical structures and their cooperation with myths and
theologemes. The book provides access to one of the world's major
visual traditions whose characteristics continue to inform and
elucidate Indian and Islamic contemporary thought today. Images of
Thought is a major, scholarly and provocative contribution not only
to our understanding of cultural individuality but it offers
important examples of how to engage in transcultural understanding
and ways of seeing.
Portraits have a long history in royal courts as a way of
communicating the monarch's status, rulership, and even piety. This
anthology places such art works studied in the context of their
commission, production, and display. Artists use different
representational strategies to convey important information about
the sitter. These aspects combined with patronage, location and use
of the work form a departure point from which to address portraits
comprehensively. The intersection between artist, the portrayed and
audience with the additional layer of formed identity allows the
portrait to hold a special place as popular genre of Spanish art.
The relationship between the use of the work and its context is key
to understanding better the cultural and social norms of Spanish
aristocracy and what they reveal about Spanish identity in general.
Used to solidify governance, lineage, and marriage, portraits
legitimized the negotiation of status, power, and social mobility.
The city of Venice holds a special place in the global imagination.
This book explores the creation of one of its largest surviving
depictions, which has remained almost unknown to the wider public
since its creation exactly four centuries ago. Singed and dated
1611, the painting is the work of the notable early
seventeenth-century Bolognese artist Odoardo Fialetti. His huge
birds-eye view of the watery townscape is enlivened by tiny
vignettes of Venetian life. Eight square meters in size, this
remarkable painting is a tour-de-force among depictions of cities.
In 1636 the painting was given to Eton College by the former
British ambassador to Venice, Sir Henry Wotton. Over the centuries
it was known only to pupils and masters at the school, its surface
obscured by layers of grime. Restored in 2010-11, Fialetti's view
has emerged as a striking work of real artistic merit. Its
prominent position in the British Museum's Shakespeare exhibition
in the summer of 2012 brought it to the attention of the general
public for the very first time. This book takes a closer look at
the remarkable picture and the context in which it was created.
What kind of artist was Odoardo Fialetti, a Bolognese immigrant
hoping to fill the shoes of the recently deceased great masters of
the Venetian Renaissance? What image does it present of Venice?
What sort of a figure was Henry Wotton, and informed connoisseur
and a passionate playing the European politics, though not as
diplomatic as perhaps he should have been? This is a relatively
neglected period of both in Venetian art history and in British
culture, the Jacobean prelude to the enthusiasm for Venetian art of
Charles I's court. This beautiful commemorative volume is
interdisciplinary in scope, involving history of art, political
history, cartography, architectural history and English literature
and bibliophilia, as well as a story of restoration and its
techniques, drawn together by one of the most distinctive views
ever inspired by the townscape of Venice.
This book is the first complete study of the life and work of the
17th-century Dutch painter Simon Kick (1603-1652). Kick was active
in Amsterdam, the largest and busiest city of the Netherlands,
alongside Rembrandt.Simon Kick began painting only at the age of
32, driven to do so only due to the tragic death of his
brother-in-law and since the economic situation necessitated it.
Nevertheless, he was an excellent painter who focused on painting
portraits, histories, and, above all, genre topics. He was one of
only ten 17th-century Dutch painters to practice the unique genre
formula of the guardroom scene. His guardroom scenes stand out as
being more gentrified than others due to the fact that he
assimilated in them the elegance of contemporary civic-guard
portraits. His figures are particularly striking since they are
well-characterized, often depicted in a contemplative mood, and
imbued with a strong psychological presence. The fact that he
started his career late and passed away at an early age robbed us
of a great painter.The book includes a biography of the painter, as
well as a systematic and comparative iconographical and stylistic
study of his work, with an attached critical oeuvre catalogue. As
such, it provides an important tool for both art enthusiasts and
collectors, as well as art professionals such as students,
scholars, auctioneers, and art dealers.
Portraits were the most widely commissioned paintings in
18th-century France, but most portraits were produced for private
consumption, and were therefore seen as inferior to art designed
for public exhibition. The French Revolution endowed private values
with an unprecedented significance, and the way people responded to
portraits changed as a result. This is an area which has largely
been ignored by art historians, who have concentrated on art
associated with the public events of the Revolution. Seen from the
perspective of portrait production, the history of art during the
Revolution looks very different, and the significance of the
Revolution for attitudes to art and artists in the 19th century and
beyond becomes clearer.
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