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Books > Arts & Architecture > Art forms, treatments & subjects > Art treatments & subjects > Iconography, subjects depicted in art > Religious subjects depicted in art
Pearls on a String presents the arts of historical Islamic cultures
by focusing on specific people and relationships among cultural
tastemakers, especially painters, calligraphers, poets, and their
patrons. Through a series of chapters, the book spotlights certain
historical moments from across the Islamic world. Each chapter
pivots around patrons and their social networks. These independent
sections allow different voices and perspectives to emerge,
enabling the reader to see that Islamic societies are not
monolithic but made up of a tapestry of individuals with distinct
and varying views. Pearls on a String pays particular attention to
individuals from different sectors of society, giving voice to
anonymous artists and translators, merchants, and women of the
harem. Islamic historical sources reinforce the book's themes of
writing in Islamic societies, artistic patronage, biographical
traditions, and human connectivity.
Jesus Christ is arguably the most famous man who ever lived. His
image adorns countless churches, icons, and paintings. He is the
subject of millions of statues, sculptures, devotional objects and
works of art. Everyone can conjure an image of Jesus: usually as a
handsome, white man with flowing locks and pristine linen robes.
But what did Jesus really look like? Is our popular image of Jesus
overly westernized and untrue to historical reality? This question
continues to fascinate. Leading Christian Origins scholar Joan E.
Taylor surveys the historical evidence, and the prevalent image of
Jesus in art and culture, to suggest an entirely different vision
of this most famous of men. He may even have had short hair.
The sacred and the secular in medieval literature have too often
been perceived as opposites, or else relegated to separate but
unequal spheres. In Medieval Crossover: Reading the Secular against
the Sacred, Barbara Newman offers a new approach to the many ways
that sacred and secular interact in medieval literature, arguing
that (in contrast to our own cultural situation) the sacred was the
normative, unmarked default category against which the secular
always had to define itself and establish its niche. Newman refers
to this dialectical relationship as "crossover"-which is not a
genre in itself, but a mode of interaction, an openness to the
meeting or even merger of sacred and secular in a wide variety of
forms. Newman sketches a few of the principles that shape their
interaction: the hermeneutics of "both/and," the principle of
double judgment, the confluence of pagan material and Christian
meaning in Arthurian romance, the rule of convergent idealism in
hagiographic romance, and the double-edged sword in parody.
Medieval Crossover explores a wealth of case studies in French,
English, and Latin texts that concentrate on instances of paradox,
collision, and convergence. Newman convincingly and with great
clarity demonstrates the widespread applicability of the crossover
concept as an analytical tool, examining some very disparate works.
These include French and English romances about Lancelot and the
Grail; the mystical writing of Marguerite Porete (placed in the
context of lay spirituality, lyric traditions, and the Romance of
the Rose); multiple examples of parody (sexually obscene,
shockingly anti-Semitic, or cleverly litigious); and Rene of
Anjou's two allegorical dream visions. Some of these texts are
scarcely known to medievalists; others are rarely studied together.
Newman's originality in her choice of these primary works will
inspire new questions and set in motion new fields of exploration
for medievalists working in a large variety of disciplines,
including literature, religious studies, history, and cultural
studies.
Transforming Saints explores the transformation and function of the
images of holy females within wider religious, social, and
political contexts of Old Spain and New Spain from the Spanish
conquest to Mexican independence. The chapters here examine the
rise of the cults of the lactating Madonna, St. Anne, St. Librada,
St. Mary Magdalene, and the Suffering Virgin. Concerned with holy
figures presented as feminine archetypes, images that came under
Inquisition scrutiny, as well as cults suspected of concealing
indigenous influences, Charlene VillaseNor Black argues that these
images would come to reflect the empowerment and agency of women in
viceregal Mexico. Her close analysis of the imagery additionally
demonstrates artists' innovative responses to Inquisition
censorship and the new artistic demands occasioned by conversion.
The concerns that motivated the twenty-first century protests
against Chicana artists Yolanda LOpez in 2001 and Alma LOpez in
2003 have a long history in the Hispanic world-anxieties about the
humanization of sacred female bodies and fears of indigenous
influences infiltrating Catholicism. In this context Black also
examines a number of important artists in depth, including El
Greco, Murillo, Jusepe de Ribera, and Pedro de Mena in Spain and
Naples and Baltasar de Echave IbIa, Juan Correa, CristObal de
Villalpando, and Miguel Cabrera.
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