The British School of Sculpture, c. 1760-1832 represents the first edited collection exploring one of the most significant moments in British art history, returning to centre stage a wide range of sculpture considered for the first time by some of the most important scholars in the field. Following a historical and historiographical introduction by the editors, situating British sculpture in relation to key events and developments in the period, and the broader scholarship on British art more generally in the period and beyond, the book contains nine wide-ranging case studies that consider the place of antique and modern sculpture in British country houses in the period, monuments to heroes of commerce and the Napoleonic Wars, the key debates fought around ideal sculpture at the Royal Academy, the reception of British sculpture across Europe, the reception of Hindu sculpture deriving from India in Britain, and the relationship of sculpture to emerging industrial markets, both at home and abroad. Challenging characterisations of the period as 'neoclassical', the volume reveals British sculpture to be a much more eclectic and various field of endeavour, both in service of the state and challenging it, and open to sources ranging from the newly arrived Parthenon Frieze to contemporary print culture.

What does it mean for a sculpture to be described as 'organic' or a diagram of 'morphological forces'? These were questions that preoccupied Modernist sculptors and critics in Britain as they wrestled with the artistic implications of biological discovery during the 1930s. In this lucid and thought-provoking book, Edward Juler provides the first detailed critical history of British Modernist sculpture's interaction with modern biology. Discussing the significant influence of biologists and scientific philosophers such as D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, Julian Huxley, J. S. Haldane and Alfred North Whitehead on interwar Modernist practice, this book provides radical new interpretations of the work of key British Modernist artists and critics, including Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Paul Nash and Herbert Read. Innovative and interdisciplinary, this pioneering book will appeal to students of art history and the history of science as well as anyone interested in the complex, interweaving histories of art and science in the twentieth century. -- .

The Discobolus or discus-thrower is a marvellous classical piece of sculpture that over time has come to mean different things to different people. Originally cast in bronze by the fifth-century BC sculptor Myron, the composition portraying an athlete preparing to throw his discus captures a moment of action perfectly: the tensed body looks as if it is merely pausing and about to burst into life at any moment. An enduring pattern of energy, Myrons statue of harmonious proportions is a fantastic representation of the athletic ideal and an embodiment of the male Greek body beautiful. Sadly, the original statue has long been lost; however, it was so admired by the Romans that numerous marble copies were made. This book tells the story of Myron's Discobolus both as an archaeological artefact and bearer of meaning. Focusing on the Townley Discobolus, the Roman marble copy excavated from Hadrians Villa in Lazio, Italy, this illustrated introduction explores the history and significance of the statue in both classical and modern times in light of ancient discus throwing, Myron's other works, and the artistic, intellectual and philosophical context of the Greek world.

Indian art, increasingly popular in the west, cannot be fully appreciated without some knowledge of the religious and philosophical background. This book, first published in 1985, covers all aspects of Hindu iconography, and explains that its roots lie far back in the style of prehistoric art. The dictionary demonstrates the rich profusion of cults, divinities, symbols, sects and philosophical views encompassed by the Hindu religious tradition.

A leading female sculptor and figure in Chinese contemporary art, Yin Xiuzhen (b. 1963, Beijing, China) began her career in the early 1990s following her graduation from Capital Normal University in Beijing where she received a B.A. from the Fine Arts Department in 1989. Best known for her works that incorporate second-hand objects, Yin uses her artwork to explore modern issues of globalization and homogenization. By utilizing recycled materials such as sculptural documents of memory, she seeks to personalize objects and allude to the lives of specific individuals, which are often neglected in the drive toward excessive urbanization, rapid modern development and the growing global economy. The artist explains, "In a rapidly changing China, 'memory' seems to vanish more quickly than everything else. That's why preserving memory has become an alternative way of life."

Sculpture has been a central aspect of almost every art culture, contemporary or historical. This volume comprises ten essays at the cutting edge of thinking about sculpture in philosophical terms, representing approaches to sculpture from the perspectives of both Anglo-American and European philosophy. Some of the essays are historically situated, while others are more straightforwardly conceptual. All of the essays, however, pay strict attention to actual sculptural examples in their discussions. This reflects the overall aim of the volume to not merely "apply" philosophy to sculpture, but rather to test the philosophical approaches taken in tandem with deep analyses of sculptural examples. There is an array of philosophical problems unique to sculpture, namely certain aspects of its three-dimensionality, physicality, temporality, and morality. The authors in this volume respond to a number of challenging philosophical questions related to these characteristics. Furthermore, while the focus of most of the essays is on Western sculptural traditions, there are contributions that features discussion of sculptural examples from non-Western sources. Philosophy of Sculpture is the first full-length book treatment of the philosophical significance of sculpture in English. It is a valuable resource for advanced students and scholars across aesthetics, art history, history, performance studies, and visual studies.

Blake's only wood engravings, made near the end of his life for a school edition of Virgil, are among his most lyrical and enduringly influential creations. This is their first publication as a stand-alone book, with the original text of Ambrose Philips' version of the first Eclogue of Virgil.

The Life and Times of Moses Jacob Ezekiel: American Sculptor, Arcadian Knight tells the remarkable story of Moses Ezekiel and his rise to international fame as an artist in late nineteenth-century Italy. Sephardic Jew, homosexual, Confederate soldier, Southern apologist, opponent of slavery, patriot, expatriate, mystic, Victorian, dandy, good Samaritan, humanist, royalist, romantic, reactionary, republican, monist, dualist, theosophist, freemason, champion of religious freedom, proto-Zionist, and proverbial Court Jew, Moses Ezekiel was a riddle of a man, a puzzle of seemingly irreconcilable parts. Knighted by three European monarchs, courted by the rich and famous, Moses Ezekiel lived the life of an aristocrat with rarely a penny to his name. Making his home in the capacious ruins of the Baths of Diocletian in Rome, he quickly distinguished himself as the consummate artist and host, winning international fame for his work and consorting with many of the lions and luminaries of the fin-de-siecle world, including Giuseppe Garibaldi, Queen Margherita, Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner, Sarah Bernhardt, Gabriele D'Annunzio, Eleonora Duse, Annie Besant, Clara Schumann, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Alphonse Daudet, Mark Twain, Emile Zola, Robert E. Lee, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and Isaac Mayer Wise. In a city besieged with eccentrics, he, a Southern Jewish homosexual sculptor, was outstanding, an enigma to those who knew him, a man at once stubbornly original and deeply emblematic of his times. According to Stanley Chyet in his introduction to Ezekiel's memoirs, "The contemporary European struggle between liberalism and reaction, between modernity and feudalism, between the democratic and the hierarchical is rather amply refracted in Ezekiel's account of his life in Rome." Indeed so many of the contentious cultural, political, artistic, and scientific struggles of the age converged in the figure of this adroit and prepossessing Jew.

William Turnbull (1922-2012) stands as one of Britain's foremost artists in the second half of the twentieth century. Both a sculptor and a painter, he explored the changing contemporary world and its ancient past, actively engaging with the shifting concerns of British, European and American artists. Presenting interpretations of Turnbull's work from an impressive roll-call of over sixty art historians, curators, critics and artists, a picture emerges of an innovative artist who determinedly followed his own path, drawing on influences as diverse as ancient cultures and contemporary music. Expansive in its breadth, William Turnbull: International Modern Artist will stand as the authoritative book on this fascinating artist. With contributions by Oliva Bax, Paul Becker, Andrew Bick, Antonia Bostroem, Mel Brimfield, Bianca Chu, Matthew Collings, Ann Compton, Sam Cornish, Keith Coventry, Elena Crippa, Amanda A. Davidson, Michael Dean, John Dee, Richard Demarco, Edith Devaney, Norman Dilworth, Patrick Elliott, Ann Elliott, Garth Evans, Pat Fisher, Neil Gall, Margaret Garlake, Antony Gormley, Kirstie Gregory, Kelly Grovier, Nigel Hall, Bill Hare, Daniel F. Herrmann, Peter Hide, Ben Highmore, Nick Hornby, Tess Jaray, Julia Kelly, Phillip King, Liliane Lijn, Clare Lilley, Jeff Lowe, Tim Martin, Ian McKeever, Henry Meyric Hughes, Catherine Moriarty, Richard Morphet, Jed Morse, Peter Murray, Matt Price, Peter Randall-Page, Guggi Rowen, Natalie Rudd, Michael Sandle, Dawna Schuld, Sean Scully, Jyrki Siukonen, Chris Stephens, Peter Suchin, Marin R. Sullivan, Mike Tooby, William Tucker, Johnny Turnbull, Alex Turnbull, Michael Uva, Brian Wall, Nigel Walsh, Calvin Winner, Jon Wood, Bill Woodrow, Greville Worthington, Emily Young

A fresh approach to the construction of "Anglo-Saxon England" and its depiction in art and writing. This book explores the ways in which early medieval England was envisioned as an ideal, a placeless, and a conflicted geography in works of art and literature from the eighth to the eleventh century and in their modern scholarly and popular afterlives. It suggests that what came to be called "Anglo-Saxon England" has always been an imaginary place, an empty space into which ideas of what England was, or should have been, or should be, have been inserted from the arrival of peoples from the Continent in the fifth and sixth centuries to the arrival of the self-named "alt-right" in the twenty-first. It argues that the political and ideological violence that was a part of the origins of England as a place and the English as a people has never been fully acknowledged; instead, the island was reimagined as a chosen land home to a chosen people, the gens Anglorum. Unacknowledged violence, however, continued to haunt English history and culture. Through her examination here of the writings of Bede and King Alfred, the Franks Casket and the illuminated Wonders of the East, and the texts collected together to form the Beowulf manuscript, the author shows how this continues to haunt "Anglo-Saxon Studies" as a discipline and Anglo-Saxonism as an ideology, from the antiquarian studies of the sixteenth century through to the nationalistic and racist violence of today.

This fascinating volume showcases the work of British artist, poet and performer Liz Finch and presents a series of 25 sculptures created between 1975 and 2016. The gentle figures are strangely familiar, built using found and made objects that might otherwise be discarded. Knitted limbs and faces with stitched or collaged features are affixed to torsos made from cardboard boxes that are plastered with papier-mâché and painted. The fragile bodies are then suspended on pieces of frayed string and twisted wire from the shoulders or sometimes by the neck. Finch subverts the ordinary and engages with the uncanny; a strange and anxious feeling created by familiar objects in unfamiliar contexts. Featuring full reproductions of each artwork alongside close details that reveal their composition, the book is threaded with poetic texts by Finch that blur the lines between personal memories, surreal dreams and everyday reality.