History of art Books
L'Erma Di Bretschneider Il Caos Tra Le Righe
£84.74
L'Erma Di Bretschneider Italia. Musei Da Scoprire. Lazio
£41.18
L'Erma Di Bretschneider Hadrians Wall
£168.75
L'Erma Di Bretschneider Ville E Giardini Di Roma
£342.75
L'Erma Di Bretschneider Italia. Musei Da Scoprire. Umbria
£41.39
Rizzoli Manal AlDowayan, Hassan Sharif: The Art Library -
Book Synopsis
£42.75
Brill Les Fonctionnaires Belges Au Service de la Perse
Book Synopsis
£44.65
Reaktion Books Prague 1900: Poetry and Ecstasy
Book SynopsisThis illustrated work introduces the world of "fin-de-siecle" Prague. Around 1900, that city's artists and artisans began to develop an ornamental language inspired by the contemporary revival of Czech culture and influenced by Art Nouveau, Jugendstil, and the Vienna Secession. To begin with, lyricism and poetic symbolism dominated the visual arts. Jan Preisler, one of the most important figures of the time, created sensual paintings and sculptures based on themes connected to the writings of such Czech authors as Zeyer and Brezina. Other artists such as Kobliha and Hlavacek focused on turbulent forms, dramatic expressions of torment, and the macabre. In the applied arts, exuberant floral and vegetal motifs were gradually transformed into geometric patterns. This book charts the effects of the emergence of modernism and the search for Czech national identity on both the fine and the applied arts, as well as on architecture, music and literature. The text also includes a wealth of illustrations of interiors, architectural and sculptural details and documentary photographs. Biographies of the most important artists are provided, as well as a full chronology of artists and events.
£58.07
Peeters Publishers Bouts Studies
Book SynopsisArt historians and amateurs alike continue to be captivated by the 15th and early 16th century art of the Southern Netherlands. Their interest focuses not only on the stylistic and iconographic aspects of the paintings but also their technical construction. Furthermore, recent studies and exhibitions have demonstrated that the impact and effect of Southern Netherlandish art production on society in that period was exceptionally great. In 1998 in Leuven an extensive exhibition took place, dedicated to the oeuvre of Dirk Bouts (+1475). Coupled to this was an international colloquium, in which hitherto unexplored and sometimes controversial aspects of Bouts study were offered for discussion. This publication is the result. The articles deal with the painters life and work, and his artistic relations with Northern and Southern Netherlandish painting. Attention is also devoted to the intellectual iconography of Bouts' work, and to his great stylistic influence on European painting in general. The results of the most recent technological research are also comprehensively described and interpreted. Lastly, the continuing influence of Bouts oeuvre discernible in more recent art is discussed. These articles thus provide an insight into the present state of Bouts study, and open important avenues for further research. The Bouts Studies follow the Memling Studies, Proceedings of the International Colloquium (Bruges, 10-12 November 1994), published in 1997.
£121.68
Peeters Publishers Virtutis Imago: Studies on the Conceptualisation
Book SynopsisManliness, prowess, deeds of valour, excellence: "virtus" is a term which has a broad semantic range, which differs significantly from the meanings attached to such modern notions as the English "virtue" or the French "vertu". Although deeply rooted in a system of practices and discourses aimed at continuing the "mos maiorum", the traditional concept of "virtus" underwent serious changes in the course of time: it was reconsidered, reassessed, and even replaced with new definitions of moral excellence. The editors of the present volume have sought to gather contributions which shed new light on the ancient representation of moral excellence or discuss relevant aspects of the rich but complex "Wirkungsgeschichte" of the Roman concept of "virtus". Thematically coherent, the book testifies to the rich variety of approaches currently adopted in classical philology, ancient history, Early Christian and Byzantine Studies, and the study of Latin texts from the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period.
£61.04
Peeters Publishers Aesthetic Autonomy: Problems and Perspectives
Book SynopsisThis volume contains a selection of essays presented at the international conference on Cultural Crises in Art and Literature, held in Groningen in November 2002, in a special session on the question of the autonomy of the arts. Do we witness, in western culture, the end of the autonomy of the arts as it has been conceptualized and institutionalized since the eighteenth century? Indeed, developments of quite a different nature seem to have contributed to a blurring of boundaries between art and non-art, art and the market, art and politics or ethics, as well as between the arts themselves, and between 'high' and 'low' art. Although this volume does not pretend to map this complex process in its entirety - partly because it is impossible to step out of one's own history - it is meant as a contribution to the elucidation of the process itself, offering some challenging explanations as to the heat of the current debate.
£54.19
Peeters Publishers Pictorial Invention in Netherlandish Manuscript
Book SynopsisHand-painted books produced in the Low Countries during the late Middle Ages are dazzingly inventive, widely admired both in their own time and today. The makers of Flemish illuminated manuscripts experimented, sometimes flamboyantly, with all aspects of their design, manipulating elements of their format, layout, script, decoration and illustration in radically new and challenging ways. In this book, James H. Marrow discusses prominent features of many of the most exuberant illuminated manuscripts created by leading Flemish illuminators of the 15th and the 16th centuries, considering both the playful ways in which the makers of these books reconfigured their design and the ways they exploited these innovations to define and convey the meaning of their contents more effectively. Marrow considers how the designers of these manuscripts broke down the barriers between the different components of the book; how the shapes of some manuscripts became a kind of image; how script sometimes became decoration or one of several illusionistically treated elements or fields on the page; and how decoration and illustration were intermixed in diverse, witty, and provocative fashions. In this final stage in the evolution of the medieval book, leading Flemish illuminators fundamentally changed the structural dynamics of the page, enlarging its fields of visual and pictorial interest and exploiting novel juxtapositions of subject matter and scale, of viewpoint and different kinds of illusionism, to guide viewers beyond the here-and-now, to evoke multiple and alternative levels of truth, and to effect profound transformations of understanding. This is an incisive study of the course of these developments in the Low Countries and of some of the important ways in which they engaged issues central to the function of the visual arts.
£20.90
Peeters Leuven: Een Serie Aquarellen
Book Synopsis
£25.00
Peeters Publishers The Sculptural Environment of the Roman Near
Book SynopsisPublic sculptures were the "mass media" of the Roman world. They populated urban centers throughout the empire, serving as a "plastic language" that communicated political, religious, and social messages. This book brings together twenty-eight experts who otherwise rarely convene: text-based scholars of the Greco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian realms from the fields of classics, history, and religion and specialists in the artistic traditions of Greece and Rome as well as art historians and archaeologists. Utilizing the full spectrum of ancient sources, the book examines the multiple, at times even contradictory, meanings and functions that statues served within the complex world of the Roman Near East. Moreover, it situates the discussion of sculpture in the broader context of antiquity in order to reevaluate long-held scholarly consensuses on such ideas as the essence of Hellenism (the culture that emerged from the encounter of Greco-Romans with the Near East) and the everlasting "conflict" among paganism, Christianity, and Judaism.
£999.99
Peeters Publishers Shapes and Images: Studies on Attick Black Figure
Book SynopsisThis collection of papers is dedicated to Herman Brijder upon his retirement from the University of Amsterdam. He is a renowned scholar in the field of Greek ancient pottery and his research is mainly concentrated on the so-called Siana cups, made in the middle of the 6th century BC at Athens. Twenty three colleagues, among which former students, wrote articles on diverse aspects of Greek pottery of the 6th and 5th centuries BC, especially on vases produced at Athens. Various contributions have been presented during a round table in Brijder's former working environment, the Allard Pierson Museum at Amsterdam. Subjects include the iconography of mythical figures, the depiction of animals, means of transport, the shapes of drinking vessels and the distribution of Athenian pottery in the Mediterranean. A few essays deal with related topics. As a whole, the volume is a representative overview of themes that matter in modern research of ancient Greek pottery.
£98.47
Peeters Publishers Ceramics of the Phoenician-Punic World: Collected
Book SynopsisAncient ceramics play a significant role in monitoring change, adaption and interaction in ancient cultures. This collection of essays concerns pottery from the homeland sites of Beirut and Tyre, and Phoenician settlements in the west at Carthage, Utica, Lixus and Malta. The contributions reflect a wide range of approaches to the study of ceramics, from the fundamental characteristics of the clay from which vessels were built, the range of ware types in a given location, and the hybridity forged through cultural contact between indigenous and foreign groups. Domestic needs as well as the supply and demand of the market place were driving forces in ancient pottery production.
£114.00
Peeters Publishers Blood - Symbol - Liquid
Book SynopsisBlood serves an excellent indicator of a nexus of late medieval and early modern Cultural Change, in which matter and meaning seems to have segregated progressively. As the harmony of body and spirit succumbed under the strain of competing world views, blood lost its unity as an embodied sign, a semiotic substance. The wordplays that impose themselves with such ease in this area of research attest to the enduring permeability of the material and the spiritual when it comes to blood. This volume brings together papers presented at a workshop entitled 'Blood-Symbol-Liquid', held in Groningen on 23-24 March 2006. The organizers were keen to put the shifting composition of the material and symbolic components of blood in a broad chronological and thematic perspective, forcing the contributors to merge their respective disciplinary approaches stemming from literary history, art history and the history of religion, medicine and science.
£57.95
Peeters Publishers Kosmos: Jewellery, Adornment and Textiles in the
Book SynopsisContaining the complete proceedings of the 13th International Aegean Conference, this is almost certainly the biggest book on Bronze Age clothing and jewellery that you are ever likely to see. Nearly 100 papers address a vast array of topics including textile production, costumes, dyes and pigments, colours, jewellery, aesthetics, body adornment, luxury and exotic items, gender and femininity/masculinity, as well as their social, religious, ideological, economic, technological, administrative and philological connections.
£150.00
Peeters Publishers Rogier Van Der Weyden in Context: Proceedings of
Book SynopsisOn 20 September 2009 the new M-Museum Leuven (Belgium) was inaugurated with the opening of the exhibition Rogier van der Weyden 1400-1464 - Master of Passions. The starting point of the exhibition was the work of Rogier van der Weyden himself and the intention was to display and define his individual style and contribution. To demonstrate the significance of his overwhelming influence across artistic media, his own works were brought together with those of his contemporaries and followers: painters, designers, sculptors, tapestry weavers and embroiderers. His significance was reflected in the international Colloquium Rogier van der Weyden in Context, which took place on 22, 23 and 24 October 2009. It was organised by Illuminare - Centre for the Study of Medieval Art (KU Leuven), the Art History Department KU Leuven and Artes.Leuven, in conjunction with the UCL (Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve, Laboratoire d'etude des oeuvres d'art par les methodes scientifiques) and the KIK-IRPA (Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, Belgium). It was the XVIIth Symposium for the Study of Underdrawing and Technology in Painting, yet its scope was extended beyond the technical examination of paintings so that the work of one great genius, Rogier van der Weyden, could be considered in a variety of contexts. The papers in this volume are grouped around the following themes: (i) Rogier van der Weyden, painter and designer; (ii) Archival sources; (iii) Studies in painting; (iv) Studies in underdrawing; (v) Studies in sculpture; (vi) The legacy of Van der Weyden.
£108.15
Peeters Publishers Corpus of Byzantine Church Mosaic Pavements in
Book SynopsisThis is a catalogue of church, chapel and monastery mosaic pavements discovered within the borders of Israel and the Palestinian Territories (Roman Palestine). Chronologically, it spans the early 4th to 8th centuries, the latter period seemingly designating the cessation of mosaic manufacture in early Christian edifices in Palestine based on current archaeological findings. Sites are arranged alphabetically and according to the four Roman provinces that encompassed the region, and to which it is believed each originally belonged. The primary name chosen for each site (in most cases) correlates with the site name used in the indispensable gazetteer Tabula Imperii Romani Iudaea Palaestina (1994), allowing for relatively simple site identification and cross-referencing. In order to simplify the mosaic design descriptions, the catalogue utilises a system of geometric pattern coding. For each site, a map reference is given for the Israel Grid, followed by a brief outline of its excavation or survey, a thorough description of the pavements including the coding system, inscriptions (if present), a commentary including proposed dates (if given) and bibliography. The indexes include a concise list of occurrences for each pattern code, figural designs and iconoclastic damage; for inscriptions, ecclesiastical titles, named mosaicists and cited provincial dating eras.
£999.99
Peeters Publishers The Narrow Way to Heaven: Identity and Identities
Book SynopsisIf art mirrors identity, this is particularly the case in the Christian Middle East. At first glance, the imposed minority position of the various communities and inherent feelings of peril are the driving forces behind the development of distinct artistic idioms, but on closer inspection this bias does not entirely do justice to the achievements of past generations. Churches would never have been erected and embellished without the zealous support of individuals and groups who had the means to realize such projects. This two-partite study deals with them and the tangible results of their efforts. The first part is devoted to the considerable Christian material heritage in Egypt, from the Arab conquest in the seventh century to the downfall of the artistic production around the turn of the thirteenth/fourteenth centuries. Coptic monasteries, churches and prayer rooms were decorated according to their final functional use and specific needs, thus expressing a distinct monastic identity. Another influential category was the wealthy elite of lay nobles, in particular high-ranking state officials in the Fatimid and Ayyubid service. They not only instigated the renovation and decoration of urban churches, but were also committed to the refurbishing of the papal churches in Old Cairo. In this matter, specific attention is devoted to the involvement of Byzantine-trained artists in the second half of the thirteenth century. In addition, the churches and works of art of the other communities in Egypt, in particular the Syrian Orthodox, are highlighted. The second part discusses the revival of Christian art in Ottoman Egypt, Palestine, and Syria from the seventeenth century onwards. Beside the re-emergence of traditional elements, European influences are tangible all across the board. This was the result of the increasing contacts between Europe and the Middle East and the successful extension of the influences of the Church of Rome to the Ottoman realm. Finally, the epilogue is devoted to modern oriental Christian art as a means to express the identity of the different communities.
£105.00
Peeters Publishers Pneuma and the Visual Medium in the Middle Ages
Book SynopsisThe focus of these essays is the impact of wind, pneuma, and movement in medieval and early modern iconography on art historical hermeneutics. What can wind, pneuma, and movement tell us about the visual medium as such? Wind joins, flows, links, changes direction – in short, the wind is capricious. In its capriciousness wind embodies a particular hermeneutics of association, of freedom and the unexpected. Is an iconography of this caprice possible? How does one capture in pictorial form a natural phenomenon that envelops and penetrates us, even escapes from our own bodies? The dynamics of wind are after all only indirectly visible: swaying trees, waving grass, fluttering textile. How has wind impregnated the theory of the image? Is it a question of visual pneuma? And is wind in the arts a question of content, or rather a matter of formal affect?
£68.60
Peeters Publishers The Mosaics of the Norman Stanza in Palermo: A Study of Byzantine and Medieval Islamic Palace Decoration
Book SynopsisThis book explores the making and meaning of one of the most enigmatic and singular interior spaces of the Middle Ages, the mosaic incrusted chamber commonly known as the 'Room of Roger' in the palace of the Norman kings of Sicily in Palermo. The unique way in which Byzantine technique, skill and style are blended with Maghribi Islamic perspective conventions and iconography while producing aesthetic interaction as well as obvious tension, serves as a starting point for an investigation of the various currents of artistic exchange and dynastic pretensions between Palermo, Constantinople, Norman Antioch and the Maghrib. Political aspirations in the Levant, Almoravid splendour in Fez and Marrakech, and the ever-present rival, the Byzantine emperor, all come to play a part in the making of the famous 'Camera di Ruggero'.
£105.00
Peeters Publishers 'Locus amoenus' and the Sleeping Nymph:
Book SynopsisIn his late 15th century chronicle (ca 1477-1484), Michael Fabricius Ferrarinus (died between 1488-1493), prior of the Carmelite cloister in Reggio Emilia, introduced the rumour that an ancient fountain had been found super ripam Danuvii (on the banks of the Danube) with the sculpted figure of a sleeping nymph. According to Ferrarinus, the fountain bore a peculiar epigram: HVIVS NYMPHA LOCI, SACRI CVSTODIA FONTIS, DORMIO, DVM BLANDAE SENTIO MVRMVR AQVAE. PARCE MEVM, QVISQVIS TANGIS CAVA MARMORA, SOMNVM RVMPERE. SIVE BIBAS SIVE LAVERE TACE. Many scholars have discussed the impact of the rumour as creating a prototype for Renaissance sculptures of the sleeping nymph in Rome and for the development of the well-known genre of the sleeping Venus in painting. Building upon the previous studies, this essay contextualizes the phenomenon of the sleeping nymph and its textual and artistic Nachleben from the point of view of the locus amoenus as silence. This study combines iconological, aesthetical-philosophical and anthropological approaches, and contributes to a better understanding of sleep, voyeurism, water and silence within the context of the nymph's particular genius loci.
£42.75
Peeters Publishers In Response to Echo: Beyond Mimesis or
Book SynopsisIn his Metamorphoses, Ovid (43 BC - AD 17) tells the story of Echo and Narcissus. Echo's love for Narcissus ended in a cruel twist of fate. Already punished with an echo for a voice, the nymph suffered further as she petrified and her bones became stones. The study of art has long focused on the Narcissus-mirror syndrome as a paradigm for painting (Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472)). Echo had no place in this masculine scopic discipline. Recent approaches have rehabilitated Echo from a visual, cultural and gendered point of view. Echo cries; she cries for an alternative to the mirror paradigm and oculocentrism. She helps us break free from Narcissus in favour of visual modalities such as dissolution, camouflage and contamination, in short, disappearance as an alternative to the scopic regime. In this essay I treat the impact of Echo on art history through the lenses of: gender, speech and hearing; Echo as textilisation and sacrifice; Echo as chthonic art; and, finally, Echo and le désir mimétique. With this approach, I develop a new hermeneutic to reintegrate the sonoric senses, camouflage theory, gender epistemology, and the anthropological substrata of nature, love and death into our Western obsession for mimetic thinking.
£43.47
Peeters Publishers Kairos or Occasion as Paradigm in the Visual
Book SynopsisThe meaning of tearing and splitting as a life-, love- and wisdom-generating event (for example, the tearing of the temple curtain) is profoundly rooted in the visual and literary 'bodies' of ancient and Christian thought. The primordial cosmogonic split is always sudden, is always sharp (like a knife), appears as a flash (sudden and all encompassing) and is experienced through the whole bodily sensorium (in shivering, bliss, sigh, wind, breath). The split is the epiphany of radical change, revolution and the transition beyond. The Greek deity Kairos embodies this mystery. The reach of Kairos can be detected in the theory of rhetoric (Sophists vs. Aristotle (385-322 BC)), in humanistic politics, in postmodern theology and in contemporary time-management. Iconographical studies have treated Kairos's Nachleben in Byzantine and Latin visual traditions where the god is conflated with Fortuna and Occasio. This essay addresses the impact of Kairos and its iconographic Nachleben from a literary and historical perspective, and further considers Kairos as a new art historical paradigm. Indeed, Kairos can offer us alternative hermeneutics to reconceive the image as chronotopos, as epiphany and as intercession.
£43.75
Peeters Publishers Revisiting Salome's Dance in Medieval and Early
Book SynopsisMark 6:14-29 and Matthew 14:1-12 recount the death of John the Baptist. Herod had him imprisoned for denouncing as incestuous his marriage to Herodias, the former wife of his brother. During a banquet, Herodias’ daughter dances before Herod, who is so enchanted that he promises her a favor. At her mother’s behest, she asks for the head of John the Baptist. The king honors her request and has the head delivered to her on a plate (in disco), which she gives to her mother. When the disciples of John discover about his death, they bury his headless body. In this essay I revisit the iconographic motif of the dancing girl from an interdisciplinary perspective involving exegesis, gender, anthropology, ritual performance, psycho-energetics, Pathosformeln and paragone.
£43.36
Peeters Publishers Utopia's Doom: The 'Graal' as Paradise of Lust,
Book SynopsisThe so-called Garden of Delights by Jheronimus Bosch (c. 1450–1516), now located in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, was painted over half a millennium ago yet remains an absolutely iconic work in European art history. The highly complex and enigmatic image has frequently been interpreted as a paradisiacal utopia, in which people indulge playfully in erotic pleasure in harmony with nature. It is a visual utopia framed before Thomas More had actually coined the word in a book whose entirely unfrivolous blueprint for society could hardly differ more from Bosch’s phantasm. More traditional art historians have identified Bosch’s masterpiece as a painted warning against the sins of the body, more specifically that of `lust’, citing the image of Hell in the right wing in support. Paul Vandenbroeck argues that these two interpretations need not preclude one another: Bosch painted a phantasmagorical false paradise that leads inexorably to ruin. He drew his inspiration from folk ideas about a semi-earthly, semi-supernatural erotic paradise or Grail, in which those who entered could live in a dream-world of unbridled pleasure. But only until Judgement Day, upon which they would all wind up in Hell. As far as `right-thinking’ town-dwellers were concerned from their vantage point within a `bourgeois civilizing offensive’, belief in such an existence was dangerous, if not diabolical nonsense – tantamount to the `Cult of Adam’ and the indiscriminate sexual promiscuity of the late-medieval Sect of the Free Spirit. In large swathes of countryside throughout Europe, however, people were familiar with `ecstatics’, those `born with the caul’, who were able to access this other world. Bosch’s magisterial work is simultaneously a reflection on the first and last times, on passions and moral norms, human beings and Nature. A Nature which, although also part of God’s creation, was permeated with malevolent and highly dangerous sexual urges, which human beings were required to keep in check. For whom did Bosch paint this enormous triptych? Since the discoveries of Prof. J.K. Steppe of the Leuven University, art historians have tended to identify the patron as Henry III of Nassau or, more recently, his uncle, Engelbert II. This book presents an unexpected alternative hypothesis.
£99.46
Peeters Publishers Habitus as Method: Revisiting a Scholastic Theory
Book SynopsisRather than being an event of an aesthetic, sublime or revelatory character, art can be rather understood simply as a habitual productive activity, taking an equal part in the design of quotidian reality as any other tool. The habitual approach to art carries with it several consequences regarding the understanding of the history of art and the theory of artistic production. This habitual approach has its origins in the Scholastic conception of the habitus of art, leaning on the Aristotelian definition of Poiesis. But the habitual approach had also its long history, passing through French Spiritualism in the 19th century, and several other stations in the 20th century. The essay follows Erwin Panofsky’s concept of "mental habit" as a methodological instrument in the history of art. After exposing the principles of a habitual approach to the history of art, the essay continues to follow Panofsky’s essay Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism, trying to trace what was Panofsky in fact conceiving under this term. In the conclusion, the essay suggests some guiding principles for conceiving of a habitus-oriented theory of art, energized by the scholastic approach to the habitus of art and by the method of habitus in the science of history.
£45.60
Peeters Publishers Context and Meaning: Proceedings of the Twelfth
Book SynopsisThis volumes contains 81 contributions on ancient wall painting presented in the form of papers and posters during the twelfth triennial meeting of the Association Internationale pour la Peinture Murale Antique (AIPMA) held at Athens from September 16 through September 20, 2013. 120 participants were guests of Radboud University Nijmegen and the École Française d’Athènes, in collaboration with the Netherlands Institute at Athens, and the National Hellenic Research Foundation. In recent decades there has been a growing interest among researchers in the analysis of paintings in terms of their context rather than as expressions of art in and for itself. Therefore the conference focused on figural themes, and to the iconographical and iconological problems of paintings considered in relation to their specific contexts. Which messages images in wall painting, from the archaic to the late-antique period (ca 700 BC-AD 500) conveyed to contemporary viewers in specific contexts and how were they received? Many contributions in this volume zoom in on the rationale behind the use of specific motifs in wall paintings, the syntax of decorative systems in particular contexts, as well as specific fashions in the use of figural themes in determined areas or sites in the ancient world. Within the series of BABESCH supplements, this book is a sequel to the third one of 1993 which contains the proceedings of the fifth AIPMA conference in Amsterdam. The two editors have carried out extensive research in the field of ancient mural decorations, especially in the context of Roman houses, villas, and temples, and were members of subsequent AIPMA boards. While Eric Moormann was responsible for the organisation of the Amsterdam colloquium in 1992, Stephan Mols organised the Athens conference in 2013, the proceedings of which are presented in this BABESCH supplement. Both Mols and Moormann are members of the Institute for Historical, Literary and Cultural Studies of the Faculty of Arts of Radboud University at Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
£115.00
Peeters Publishers Technical Studies of Paintings: Problems of
Book SynopsisAttributions are central questions in art history. Since the introduction of new examination methods such as radiography, infrared photography and reflectography, conventional art history has undergone major changes. Technical examinations can provide additional arguments for attributing works of art to individual artists or their workshops. However, technical studies often also reveal complex working methods, while new scientific imagery sometimes challenges accepted attributions and instigates reconsiderations of traditional attributions. The XIXth symposium for the Study of Underdrawing and Technology in Painting which was held in Bruges on 11-13 September 2014 was dedicated to technical studies of paintings: problems of attribution (15th-17th centuries). It focussed on the various ways in which technical studies can provide answers to the often complex issue of attribution and will discuss the challenges that art historians face in proposing conclusive theories. This book captures the variety of twenty-four papers presented at the symposium.
£132.88
Peeters Publishers Fragile Biography: The Life Cycle of Ceramics and
Book SynopsisThis book is the first comprehensive synthesis of the life cycle of ceramics and of refuse management in ancient Palestine during the later Roman, Byzantine and Early Islamic periods (4th to 11th centuries CE). The study sheds light on selected material culture-related behavioral practices of the people who produced, used and manipulated ceramics during late antique and early medieval times. The research presents the local picture of pottery use-life, including prime use, reuse, repair, recycling and disposal. The reuse, repair and recycling of pottery reflect a plethora of behavioral practices, some common to the greater Mediterranean and Near Eastern world and some unique to the discussed region and periods. Similarly, the discussion of refuse disposal, while using selected case studies, has shown that attitudes towards the residues of people’s activity were basically similar in different regions and periods, though the ways in which refuse was managed was often dictated by specific cultural and regional circumstances. Finally, a first attempt has been made in this study to partially unveil the mental rationale behind the above-mentioned practices. The conclusion is that mere pragmatism motivated the rather frequent reuse, repair and recycling of pottery, though it also showed that this tendency became more dominant - in historical Palestine and probably elsewhere - in Late Antiquity and later.
£999.99
Peeters Publishers Die Legendare aus der Rue neuve Nostre Dame:
Book SynopsisZu den teuersten Erzeugnissen der Pariser Buchproduktion im zweiten Viertel des 14. Jahrhunderts gehören vier großformatige Legendare, die der Buchhändler Thomas de Maubeuge bei den Buchmalern der Rue neuve Nostre Dame für den französischen König Karl IV. und sein Umfeld illustrieren ließ. Ausgehend von den Herstellungsbedingungen des Entstehungskontextes wird in der vorliegenden Arbeit die Bedeutung und Funktion der meist stereotypen und formelhaften Miniaturen im Gesamtgefüge der Handschriften untersucht. Vor dem Hintergrund der Tradition französischer Legendare und der Legenda aurea werden die Gestaltungsstrategien herausgearbeitet, die den Akteuren eine inhaltliche Ausrichtung der Codices erlauben und die Rezeptionshaltung der Benutzer subtil steuern. Die untersuchten Handschriften unterliegen dabei einer je eigenen Disposition, in der sich die Wünsche einzelner Auftraggeber mit dem Ringen um eine zeitgemäße Form für die Buchtgattung Legendar vereinen. Neben den Transformationen, die die Gattung im 13. und frühen 14. Jahrhundert erfährt, spiegelt sich hierin die buchhistorisch bedeutsame Verschiebung der idealen Lesehaltung von einer monastisch-kontemplativen hin zu einer scholastisch-akademischen lectio. Ein Katalogteil erschließt 39 hagiographische Handschriften aus der Zeit vor 1350 und ihre Bildfolgen für die künftige Forschung.
£298.87
Peeters Publishers Imaging Utopia: New Perspectives on Northern
Book SynopsisOn the first page of his famous book, Thomas More describes Utopia as a Libellus vere aureas, a little true golden book. This little book, published in Leuven in 1516, proved to become one of the greatest works of socio-political analysis of all time; the new spirit attached to More’s work continues to inspire, and was equally the inspiration for the collection of essays presented in this book. The present volume contains the proceedings of the conference Imaging Utopia: New Perspectives on Northern Renaissance Art. In this book, several leading experts in the field of art history reflect on the theme Imaging Utopia in diverse and inventive ways. The result of these scholarly reflections is as varied as the theme itself and examines such topics as the work by Quinten Massys in the context of his relation with Erasmus and More, the Utopian construction of the Prince Bishop’s Palace of Liège, and City Portraits in religious iconography. A number of entries discuss the art technical research on the important sixteenth-century Enclosed Gardens of Mechelen.
£138.83
Peeters Publishers Manuscripts & Precious Books in the Maurits Sabbe
Book SynopsisThe Maurits Sabbe Library of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) holds an exceptional treasury of manuscripts and printed books dating from the 10th to the 19th century. As part of KU Leuven Libraries it is recognised as a Heritage Library of the Flemish Community. This beautifully illustrated volume explores fourty-five remarkable books representing the immense variety and richness of the collections in the Maurits Sabbe Library. The described Bibles, missals, atlases, religious, devotional, historical, botanical, and medical works are all reflecting the wealth of one of the most distinctive rare book collections in the Low Countries.
£38.00
Peeters Publishers Iconology of Charity: Medieval Legends of Saint
Book SynopsisThe images analyzed in this book give each viewer the possibility to interact with Saint Elizabeth’s unique spiritual way, which was nurtured by various sources, including moments of spontaneous inspiration. The religious leaders who went on to imagine and commission a visual image understood the enormous potential associated with the religious zeal of the extraordinary noble lady as a shining example offering new paths towards Christian charity. The images represent an important testimony of what happened, or rather how the artist or the patron imagined events from the saint´s life. Elizabeth’s extraordinary individual charity has been a source of inspiration to many of her admirers, but the artists and their patrons must have experienced and considered the needs and desires which characterized their period and the communities they were serving. There has been a significant interval between the over-temporal needs or values and contingent historical situations with changing constellations of interests, medial landscapes and rules of political game. The medieval cult of saint Elizabeth awakened the interest of the most influential political figures of the time. Their individual dialogues with the saint connected resonant spiritual messages, which were valid for the duration of any individual’s lifespan, with transient concerns about political struggles, military fights, or materialistic considerations. As a result, the images are multilayered products reflecting human needs and longings on several levels. This book offers a minuscule testimony from this endless flux of feelings, observations and meditations in an effort to broaden slightly the limited range of human experience.
£85.73
