This fascinating and richly illustrated book accompanies The Medieval Body, the third in a series of vanguard exhibitions that places medieval masterpieces within a contemporary context. The title of the exhibition refers to both a literal thread of figuration that runs throughout the works in the presentation, as well as the complex and often shifting symbolism of the human body in the medieval period. For thinkers and artists of that time, the human body served as a rich source of religious and philosophical significance, one that was in a constant state of flux between idealism anddisfigurement. While the early Middle Ages reserved representations of suffering bodies to the margins of their world, the later Middle Ages displayed wounded bodies in the most central spaces of public life. The crucified body of Christ and the wounded bodies of saints assumed important positions as they were displayed on altars, in processions, and on the exteriors of churches. The Medieval Body tells a unique story about the human form as both a physical entity and a recognizable metaphor. Presenting works spanning the course of a thousand years, this exhibition offers insight into the body as an essential imagemaking tool with far-reaching implications for the development of art in the European Middle Ages.

Throughout his long career, David Hockney has insistently explored diverse ways of depicting the visible world. He has scrutinised the methods of the old masters, and explored radical departures from their cherished assumptions. The exhibitions accompanied by this volume are the first to focus on this central theme in his art. 'Western art' from the Renaissance until at least the late 19th century has been dominated by the depiction of nature. Was this to be accomplished by direct looking (called “eyeballing” by Hockney) or with the assistance of optical theory and devices, such as cameras? Hockney has experimented with the full range of existing strategies, overtly using perspective in some of his classic pictures and rigorously investigating optical aids for the imitation of nature, including the camera obscura and camera lucida. Yet he has come to reject the photograph as the definitive image of what we see. Along the way, he has identified a 'camera culture' in European painting from 1400, arguing very controversially that the supreme naturalism of painters like Jan van Eyck are the product of optical devices. His book, Secret Knowledge (2001), with its majestic panorama of paintings over the course of five centuries, claims that art historians have missed the central aspect of painters’ practice. The 'Hockney thesis' has been received more favourably outside the professional world of art history than in it. His own artistic practice has been in vigorous dialogue with his radical thesis, and he has progressively demonstrated new and dynamic ways of characterising the visual world without perspective and other conventional techniques. This quest results a series of joyous challenges to our ways of seeing in the major exhibition in Cambridge at the Fitzwilliam Museum and in the Heong Gallery (Downing College). It will look at the whole span of Hockney’s varied career and at the nature of the optical devices he has tested. His vision will be explored in the setting of traditional masterpieces of naturalistic observation, and in the context of modern sciences and technologies of seeing. The first section of the book looks at his thrilling experiments in seeing and representing in broad historical and contemporary contexts. This is followed by discussions of pre-photographic devices for capturing the appearances of things by optical means. The third section includes essays on Hockney’s experiments from the perspectives of neuroscience and computer vision. In short, it reveals in a new way the working of Hockney’s unique eye.

Between 1958 and 1961, William Crozier painted a series of daring and original landscapes. He lived in north Essex at the time and found inspiration in that bleak environment, even as he looked inwards to give his paintings existential angst. William Crozier: Nature into Abstraction brings these works together for the first time since the 1960s. William Crozier: Nature into Abstraction is a fully illustrated catalogue including a poignant introduction by the art critic and writer Thomas Marks. The book shows Crozier to be one of the leading artists in post-war Britain and is published to accompany an exhibition of the same title at The Lightbox, Woking. A prolific artist who produced a dizzying range of styles over short periods of time, William Crozier has yet to receive the recognition his work deserves. This publication offers a detailed look at just three years of the artist’s career, addressing a gap in the existing literature about Crozier.

Returning from a visit to New York in 1979, William Crozier had a rush of creative energy. Newly confident in his European identity and inspired by art of the past, he produced a cycle of still life work. This fully illustrated book presents a selection of Crozier’s still life paintings and watercolours from an important period in his career. William Crozier was one of the premier painters in post-war Ireland. His still life paintings pulse with the memory of both Chardin and Picasso, even as he remade the genre in his own inimitable style. Executed in 1979 and 1980, the paintings illustrated here belong to a significant and previously undescribed period in Crozier’s career. Most have never been reproduced until now. William Crozier: Seize the Flow’r accompanies Piano Nobile's exhibition of the same title and includes lavish illustrations and an essay exploring the artist’s profound attitude to his still life subjects.

Long anticipated and hugely welcome, Paul Holberton's A History of Arcadia is a close and thorough examination of a great number of original texts of classical and early and later modern pastoral poetry, literature and drama in ancient Greek, Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, German and English, and of a wide range of visual imagery, ending just before 1800. The book analyses the development of pastoral as a means of representing human happiness on this earth in the requited wooing of girl and boy, to whose feelings early modern pastoral gives voice. This tremendous book is an iconographic study of Renaissance and Baroque pastoral and related subject matter, with an important chapter on the 18th century, both in the visual arts, where pastoral is very poorly understood, and in words and performance, about which many false preconceptions prevail. The study begins with Virgil's use of Theocritus and an analysis of what basis Virgil provided for Renaissance pastoral and what, by contrast, stemmed from the medieval pastourelle. Pastoral developed notably in the Venetian High Renaissance. Its texts incorporated Petrarchist and Neoplatonic ideas of love, of which this book charts the development and evolution with unprecedented precision, considering also the female nude in art. There is a novel and polemical discussion of the development of landscape subjects in art, from Giorgione to Claude. The contributions of the most influential or representative authors - Petrarch, Sannazaro, Montemayor, Tasso, Guarino, Lope de Vega, Cervantes, Honoré d’Urfé, Cornelis de Hooft, Shakespeare and lastly Salomon Gessner - are considered beside many interesting more minor ones - Arsocchi, Bernardim Ribeiro, Clément Marot, Cieco d’Adria, John Fletcher, Fontenelle - and the verses of madrigals. There is a chapter on 'Being Rural' - what we can say about the reality of life in the country in the early modern period. There is a chapter on 'Et in Arcadia Ego' that introduces new evidence for the dating of Poussin’s famous work by reference to a neglected work by Sébastien Bourdon in Yale; another on a pastoral composition by Rubens that has not been considered as such. There is an important and bold discussion of self-projection ('metachronic' representation) by monarchs and courtiers across Europe in the 17th century, both within pastoral and without, which illuminates profound differences between Protestant and Catholic culture. Coming from the study of earlier periods, the author is able to throw new light on the Rococo - figures such as John Gay, Watteau, Gessner and Gainsborough - and to explain the termination of pastoral writing and art with the embrace of modernity in form and means of expression. All texts are given in the original language and all translated into English, while the visuals are beautifully reproduced: the book is also an anthology.

Long anticipated and hugely welcome, Paul Holberton's A History of Arcadia is a close and thorough examination of a great number of original texts of classical and early and later modern pastoral poetry, literature and drama in ancient Greek, Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, German and English, and of a wide range of visual imagery, ending just before 1800. The book analyses the development of pastoral as a means of representing human happiness on this earth in the requited wooing of girl and boy, to whose feelings early modern pastoral gives voice. This tremendous book is an iconographic study of Renaissance and Baroque pastoral and related subject matter, with an important chapter on the 18th century, both in the visual arts, where pastoral is very poorly understood, and in words and performance, about which many false preconceptions prevail. The study begins with Virgil's use of Theocritus and an analysis of what basis Virgil provided for Renaissance pastoral and what, by contrast, stemmed from the medieval pastourelle. Pastoral developed notably in the Venetian High Renaissance. Its texts incorporated Petrarchist and Neoplatonic ideas of love, of which this book charts the development and evolution with unprecedented precision, considering also the female nude in art. There is a novel and polemical discussion of the development of landscape subjects in art, from Giorgione to Claude. The contributions of the most influential or representative authors - Petrarch, Sannazaro, Montemayor, Tasso, Guarino, Lope de Vega, Cervantes, Honoré d’Urfé, Cornelis de Hooft, Shakespeare and lastly Salomon Gessner - are considered beside many interesting more minor ones - Arsocchi, Bernardim Ribeiro, Clément Marot, Cieco d’Adria, John Fletcher, Fontenelle - and the verses of madrigals. There is a chapter on 'Being Rural' - what we can say about the reality of life in the country in the early modern period. There is a chapter on 'Et in Arcadia Ego' that introduces new evidence for the dating of Poussin’s famous work by reference to a neglected work by Sébastien Bourdon in Yale; another on a pastoral composition by Rubens that has not been considered as such. There is an important and bold discussion of self-projection (‘metachronic’ representation) by monarchs and courtiers across Europe in the 17th century, both within pastoral and without, which illuminates profound differences between Protestant and Catholic culture. Coming from the study of earlier periods, the author is able to throw new light on the Rococo - figures such as John Gay, Watteau, Gessner and Gainsborough - and to explain the termination of pastoral writing and art with the embrace of modernity in form and means of expression. All texts are given in the original language and all translated into English, while the visuals are beautifully reproduced: the book is also an anthology.

Tony Birks was a prolific writer on art, particularly in British studio ceramics. This is the first publication to bring together his writings in a single volume. During the 1970s studio ceramic grew dramatically as a force on the international art scene. In Britain and America particularly, but also across Europe, practice flourished and powerful thinkers sought to define and describe what was happening. It was a dynamic and a controversial time, in which the nature of pottery showed itself capable of radical change. In the decades that followed this outburst, ceramic consolidated into a complex aesthetic and cultural discourse. Tony Birks was at the heart of this new wave of activity. A consummate writer and an artist himself, he supported what had happened in previous decades to generate a Modern ceramic art, and he championed the new generation blossoming around him. His publications provided crucial support to a discipline barely served by mainstream art history and criticism. He wrote monographs on major established figures, but he also had an extraordinarily perceptive eye for new talent, which served to bring attention to vibrant young artists. A number of these went on to become leading forces on the international scene. This book gathers together for the first time a comprehensive selection of Tony Birks's writing. A number of the essays are about the nature of ceramic practice, but the majority are about individual practitioners, among them are Bernard Leach, Lucie Rie, Hans Coper, Claudi Casanovas, Tony Hepburn, Andrew Lord, Ruth Duckworth and Takeshi Yasuda. Taken as a whole, the book is a window on the world of ceramic art at a crucial time in its growth - the issues and the personalities - opened for us by one of its most significant critical voices. The book also includes a catalogue of the ceramic works owned by Tony Birks that were gifted to the Sainsbury Centre at the University of East Anglia.

Ingenuity in the Making explores the myriad ways in which ingenuity shaped the experience, discourse and conceptualization of materials and their manipulation in early modern Europe. Contributions range widely across the arts and sciences, examining objects and texts, professions and performances, concepts and practices. The book considers subjects such as spirited matter, the conceits of nature, and crafty devices, investigating the ways in which wit acted in and upon the material world through skill and technique. Contributors ask how ingenuity informed the “maker’s knowledge” tradition, where the perilous borderline between the genius of invention and disingenuous fraud was drawn, and what were the ambitions of material ingenuity in a rapidly globalizing world.

Performance/Art explores the phenomenology of skilled performance, ranging from athletics to the performing arts, including music, dance and acting. Gallagher reviews a variety of studies concerning different degrees of mindful awareness operative in performance, and builds on the concept of a meshed architecture, suggesting ways to make it more complex and dynamic. He draws on ideas from enactivist embodied cognition about how different types of movement can be meaningful and intelligent and can scaffold learning and problem solving. He also explicates the notion of an empathic mindfulness in performance and develops the idea of a double attunement to explain aesthetic experience in performance, distinguishing the latter from aesthetic experience in the observer/ audience perspective.

Rhythm and Geometry: Constructivist art in Britain since 1951 celebrates the dynamic abstract and constructed art made and exhibited in Britain over a seventy-year period. Including constructed reliefs and sculpture, kinetic and participatory art, painting and printmaking, the publication explains the dialogue and collaboration between artists working in radical ways across the generations to continually reinvent Constructivist art. Rhythm and Geometry is drawn from the collection at the Sainsbury Centre, University of East Anglia. Featured artists include Robert Adams, Rana Begum, Charles Biederman, Lygia Clark, Natalie Dower, Stephen Gilbert, Adrian Heath, Anthony Hill, Kenneth Martin, Mary Martin, Victor Pasmore, Jean Spencer, Takis, Victor Vasarely, Mary Webb, Stephen Willats, Gillian Wise and Li Yuan-Chia.

Sickert: The Theatre of Life explores the human side of Walter Sickert's art. Among the sources of inspiration which sustained him over a long career, none won him so much acclaim and infamy as the human face and body. After a short period as an actor, he spent his life fashioning new identities for himself and his sitters. This fully-illustrated book provides an overview of Sickert's figurative work, from theatre subjects in the 1880s, through Camden Town period nudes, concluding with visionary late works including photo-based paintings and his controversial 'English Echoes'. The publication features essays by leading specialists on Sickert's work. Richard Shone has written an introduction and catalogue entries which provide new information about the artist's friends and sitters. Wendy Baron has contributed a memoir about her 'life with Sickert' and a scholarly article about a newly-discovered painting by the artist. Also included are first-hand accounts of Sickert written by Basil Jonzen and Duncan Grant.

In 2020, the Dresden Kupferstich-Kabinett celebrates its 300th anniversary. Founded in 1720 by Augustus the Strong as a museum specializing in works on paper, the collection – now with over half a million works, from the Middle Ages to the present day – has always acquired contemporary art alongside recognised masterpieces. The collection – which includes exceptional works by Jan van Eyck, Dürer, Verrocchio, Grünewald, Cranach, Holbein, Rembrandt, Caspar David Friedrich, Ludwig Richter, Toulouse Lautrec, Mondrian, Hermann Glöckner, Gerhard Altenbourg, A. R. Penck, Georg Baselitz and Evelyn Richter – began in the 18th century with drawings, miniatures and prints, before photography was added in 1898 as the promising future means of reproduction. The people in charge of the collection always had a keen eye for the art of their contemporaries and often demonstrated particular foresight in their acquisitions. Many of the works that were contemporary and still unknown at the time of their acquisition are now considered special treasures and rank equally with those that had been added to the collection as masterpieces. Exemplary are freshly printed etchings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, which were little known at the time, and were bought in the 18th century. And towards the end of the 19th century, the then director Max Lehrs promoted artists directly, such as Max Klinger and Käthe Kollwitz.Today, the Kupferstich-Kabinett occupies an outstanding international position thanks to the high quality and abundance of works. However, the collection is often hidden from the public. Works on paper in particular require special protection and, due to their fragility and extreme sensitivity to light, they can only rarely leave the safety of the depot. The anniversary gives reason to air many masterpieces of the collection, and offers the opportunity to look into both the past and into the future, and to anchor the Kupferstich-Kabinett with its seemingly inexhaustible holdings as a lively, innovative and democratic place in the public consciousness – as a place where creativity and knowledge, critical thinking and aesthetic pleasure can be experienced.The exhibition of 84 masterpieces, which opens in Dresden in April 2020, will then travel to New York in October 2020, where they will be presented in the prominent, international context of The Morgan Library & Museum.

This book celebrates the most important collection of 17th-century Chinese porcelain in the world, assembled by the distinguished British diplomat Sir Michael Butler. His passion for porcelain is clearly reflected in the over eight hundred pieces he collected and lived with at his home and private museum in Dorset. The pots (as Sir Michael called them), many of extreme rarity or exquisite quality, give testimony to the incredible depth of knowledge he acquired over five decades and his outstanding contribution to research and education in this previously neglected field of study. This lavish and comprehensive collection covers most types of porcelain produced at Jingdezhen, in Jiangxi province, during the 17th century. The variety of the pieces carefully acquired by Sir Michael reflects the great innovative spirit of the highly skilled Jingdezhen potters and painters at a time when they were released from the controls of Imperial patronage, between the end of the reign of the Ming Emperor Wanli in 1620 and the re-establishment of the Imperial kilns by the Qing Emperor Kangxi in 1683. It is a study collection of porcelain unrivalled in its breath and rarity that demonstrates the stylistic and qualitative evolution which occurred in Chinese porcelain production during the 17th century. An introduction written by Katharine Butler tells the fascinating story of the circumstances that encouraged her father to acquire, collect and passionately study Chinese porcelain of the 17th century; how he found rare pieces with dates, interesting inscriptions, seal marksor narrative scenes; and how the collection and his scholarly publications came to be internationally renowned. The core of the book is composed of nine sections presenting the main categories of porcelains in the collection: Late Ming, High Transitional, Shunzhi, Early Kangxi, Mid-Late Kangxi, Monochromes and Famille Verte, as well as disputed pieces. Some of the highlights are the extremely rare High Transitional pieces painted only in overglaze enamels dating to the Chongzhen reign, c.1640-43; the first piece acquired by Sir Michael, a green enamel winepot, dating to the early Kangxi reign, c.1665–70; a group of rare dated Zhonghe Tang pieces painted in underglaze blue and red, and an early Kangxi basin finely painted in underglaze blue and red with a Master of the Rocks landscape, dating to c.1670–75. Leaping the Dragon Gate refers to the symbolic metamorphosis from a humble carp to a mighty dragon – the most powerful of the Four Divine Creatures – that a student would undergo on succeeding in the Jinshi or Imperial civil service examinations. Passing these examinations required years, sometimes decades, of enormous effort to acquire the requisite educational merit and success was very rare. It is a worthy metaphor for Sir Michael’s scholarly achievement. This 384-page book with over 600 colour illustrations is a catalogue raisonné of almost his entire 17th century porcelain collection, including many previously unpublished pieces. In the spirit of keeping the family legacy of acquisition and scholarship alive, the authors have included a few important, recently purchased pieces and also have revised and expanded the list of all known dated pieces of 17th Century Chinese porcelain in the world that Sir Michael compiled in his 1992 USA exhibition catalogue.

This book tells the fascinating story of the rhinoceros Miss Clara, the most famous animal of the eighteenth century. It accompanies the fi rst ever major loan exhibition devoted to Clara and celebrity pachyderms in the UK and will off er a signifi cant contribution to scholarship on the subject. The latest in the Barber’s acclaimed objectin-focus series, Miss Clara focuses on a small bronze sculpture of a rhinoceros, and also considers other celebrity beasts, the emergence of menageries and zoos, and the significance of the capture and captivity of these big beasts within wider academic discussions of colonialism and empire. 'Miss Clara' arrived in Europe from the Dutch East Indies in 1741, brought by a retired Dutch East India Company captain, Douwe Mout van der Meer, who then toured her round Europe (including England) to huge acclaim and excitement. Jungfer Clara (so christened while visiting Würzburg in 1748) was the fi rst rhino to be seen on mainland Europe since 1579 and the object of great wonder and aff ection. Her fame generated a massive industry in souvenirs and imagery from life-scale paintings by major masters to cheap popular prints; there were even Clara-inspired clocks and hairstyles. This book will look at the phenomenon of Clara but, unlike previous studies of the subject, will focus primarily on sculptural/3D representations of her, within the context of other celebrity pachyderms represented by artists between the 16th and 19th centuries. Miss Clara is one of the most remarkable and best-loved sculptures in the Barber and was praised by the great German art historian and museum director Wilhelm von Bode as 'the fi nest animal bronze of Renaissance' - a telling tribute to its quality, even if he misunderstood its date. The Barber’s cast is one of only two known, the other being at the V&A. There are also closely related marble versions. Other celebrity beasts featured will include the elephants Hansken, Chunee and Jumbo; Dürer’s and various London rhinos; and the hippo Obaysch, star of London Zoo in the 1850s, and the fi rst to be seen in Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire. The publication will consist of entries for the thirty exhibits - included extended texts by Dr Helen Cowie (York University) on images of Chunee and Obaysch - preceded by three essays. Robert Wenley, Deputy Director of the Barber Institute, and the curator of the exhibition, will relate the story of Miss Clara (and of other celebrity rhinos), and explore the sculptural representations of her, presenting new research into their attribution and dating. The eminent sculptural historian, Dr Charles Avery, formerly of the V&AMuseum and Christie’s, will write a complementary essay about celebrity elephants in Europe between 1500 and 1700. Dr Sam Shaw (Open University), will discuss private menageries and public zoos between about 1760 and 1860 in the UK, and consider celebrity pachyderms as emblems of empire and colonialism.

Accompanying an exhibition at the Frist Art Museum, this lavishly illustrated catalogue is the first major study in English about manuscript illumination, painting, and sculpture in the northern Italian city of Bologna between the years 1200 and 1400. By focusing on Bologna, Europe’s first university city, this publication aims to expand our understanding of art and its purposes in the medieval world. Universities are a medieval invention, and Bologna has the distinction of having the oldest one in Europe. Its origins have been traced to the late 11th century, when masters and students started gathering in the city to study Roman law. The academic setting gave rise to Bologna’s unique artistic culture. Professors enjoyed high social status and were buried in impressive tombs carved with classroom scenes. Most importantly, teachers and students created a tremendous demand for books. By the mid-13th century, the city had become the preeminent center for manuscript production in Italy. Most books were made outside traditional monastic scriptoria, within a revolutionary commercial system involving stationers, parchment makers, scribes, illuminators, and clients. A new style of script, called the littera Bononiensis, distinguished Bolognese books, and the city’s illuminators were celebrated in Dante’s Divine Comedy. The legal textbooks produced in great numbers in the city are remarkable for their heft and size. In addition to illuminations, which include colorful narrative scenes, these manuscripts often contain in their margins the notes, corrections, and doodles of their original owners. The seven essays in this publication – by academics, a conservator, curators, and a museum educator – create a rich context for the nearly seventy works of art in the exhibition, which are drawn primarily from American libraries, museums, and private collections. Many of these works have never been studied in depth or published before. The authors explore medieval Bologna – its porticoed streets, towers, communal buildings, main piazza, and mendicant churches – and how the city became a center for higher learning at the end of the Middle Ages. They describe the way books were made there, including identifying the pigments used by illuminators. The authors also discuss the illustrious foreign artists called to work in the city, most notably Cimabue and Giotto; the devastating impact of the Black Death; and the political resurgence of Bologna at the end of the 14th century that led to the construction of the Basilica of San Petronio, one of the largest churches in the world, in honor of the city’s patron saint.

The Klesch portrait by Titian of Guidobaldo II with his son Francesco Maria represents the duke of Urbino in his full power as supreme commander of papal troops, with his heir next to him. This rare, full-length double portrait has only recently been attributed to Titian after undergoing extensive analyses and restoration, revealing a beautiful painting in non finito manner, with bravura impasto passages entirely characteristic of the master, all of which is illustrated and explained in this new book. Titian provided portraits for the greatest men and women of Europe, Charles V and Philip II of Spain primary among them. For years the Klesch portrait was dismissed as a workshop product – partly because poor condition hid its true quality, but also because it was not believed that Titian could have deigned to create one for Guidobaldo, whose father Guidobaldo della Rovere (1514–1574) and family had a long history of patronizing the artist. Recent research, however, has thrown Guidobaldo's geopolitical significance into relief. He was supreme commander of Venice, the Papal States and then Spain. He sent thousands of soldiers to the major conflicts of his day, particularly the defense of Malta (1565) and the Battle of Lepanto (1571) and his engineers were sought throughout Europe for their ingenuity. In this volume full of new research, Ian Verstegen reveals that Guidobaldo was not peripheral but central to Italian politics and was regarded at several points in history as a key figure who could bring peace or who could influence major conflicts on the Italian peninsula, particularly the War of Siena, and then Pope Paul IV's offensive war against Spain. Anne-Marie Eze gives the first comprehensive examination of the painting's provenance, outlining the portrait's vicissitudes and reception at different moments in its near 500-year history, reexamining received wisdom about its past ownership, and presenting new documentary evidence to expand on and fill gaps in our knowledge of its whereabouts. Finally, Matthew Hayes and Ian Kennedy reflect on the technique, date, recent conservation, and authorship of the painting, proving it to be a masterpiece that only the great Titian could have created.