Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2019 - Humanities — Art & Architecture — Classical Studies

This timely book is very much a product of the present era, which is marked by inexplicable violence worldwide and a determination to understand the root causes of violence and the mechanisms that allow it to perpetuate. A specialist in art of the Italian Renaissance, Nethersole (Courtauld Institute of Art, UK) examines select images, and their themes, produced in Florence, mostly during the 15th century. The Florentine public was accustomed to both wanton and staged violence, witnessing frequent belligerencies and, on average, about ten public executions each year. And Christian and classical stories offered up plentiful literary accounts of war, rape, and murder to depict. Even so, questions remain regarding issues such as the copiousness and range of violent imagery, the derivation of pleasure or catharsis in viewing these scenes, the artistry and beauty contemporaneous viewers found in the depiction of violence, and the consequences of regularly visualizing brutality inflicted on women, children, saints, and the innocent. The author takes a broad contextual, non-politicized approach, making a significant contribution to the literature. Including excellent illustrations, this book should raise awareness of the subject.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

This is an extraordinary and valuable book for understanding both Leonardo da Vinci's drawings and the processes and techniques for analyzing Renaissance drawings more generally. Donnithorne (formerly, head of paper conservation, Royal Collection Trust, and a Da Vinci expert) brings rare specialized knowledge to the subject, particularly in terms of the scientific analysis of materials. He details the basic properties of Renaissance drawings--from the papers used to brushes, inks, and charcoals--and provides insights into artistic creation as gleaned from creative choices and characteristics of an artist's strokes or the handling of different media. He also includes revelatory images obtained with the help of scientific instruments featuring examples of infrared, ultraviolet, and multispectral imaging; optical microscopy; Raman spectroscopy; X-ray fluorescence, and XRF microanalysis. Nowhere else will one find such an easily accessible amalgamation of scholarly information. This book offers relevant information for those untrained in conservation and those lacking in-depth knowledge of Renaissance drawings. Beautifully produced with detailed illustrations unavailable elsewhere, this is an indispensable resource for all students of art.Summing Up: Essential. All readers.

This lusciously illustrated dictionary is a must for anyone interested in jewelry--antiquarians, scholars, appraisers, and amateurs alike. Included are terms related to different types of jewelry pieces, traditional manufacturing techniques, materials used in manufacturing jewelry, and major historical styles of jewelry. Brief, well-written entries provide concise definitions, historical context of the term, and references to examples from a museum collection. The volume is part of the Getty's "Looking At" series, which includes titles on various types of collectibles. Gansicke (antiquities conservator at the Getty) and Markowitz (curator emer. of jewelry, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) are prominent scholars of jewelry. In addition, Gansicke has extensive experience as a lecturer at both Harvard and MIT, and Markowitz has written numerous other volumes on jewelry. Their expertise is evident throughout this beautiful dictionary.Summing Up: Essential. All readers.

Though much is known about French (1850-1931)--the seminal public artist who designed more than 100 public monuments, including the iconic seated colossus of Abraham Lincoln in Washington, DC--until now no one has offered the extensive research and analysis on the prolific sculptor that Holzer does in Monument Man. Holzer first details French's early training under May Alcott, his single year of coursework at MIT, his apprenticeship with John Quincy Adams Ward, and his subsequent study in Italy. The author then transitions to French's works. He provides a detailed analysis of French's first major commission, Minute Man (1874), a centennial monument in French's hometown of Concord, MA. He goes on to look at Statue of the Republic, created as the centerpiece of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893), and Abraham Lincoln, created for the Lincoln Memorial (dedicated 1922), discussing them in conjunction with French's professional service as a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1903-31). A phenomenal book, Monument Man will interest those researching history and public history, public art, art history, memory studies, monuments, and American studies.Summing Up: Essential. All readers.

During his lifetime (1606-69), Rembrandt singlehandedly took printmaking to the highest levels, thanks to his creativity and constant search for innovation. Loyal clients who eagerly sought out the special editions and prints on exotic papers that Rembrandt fashioned with them in mind spurred his success. This story of a pioneering printmaker and his eager clients is superbly told by Rembrandt specialists Rutgers and Standring, who examine the prints from many angles, technical and aesthetic: states and condition, subject and iconography, audience and patronage. Anticipating the 350th anniversary of the artist's death, the Denver Art Museum's exhibition--for which this is the exceptionally handsome catalogue--drew heavily on the holdings of the Bibliotheque Nationale de France in Paris, which possesses one of the most important collections of Rembrandt prints in the world. The sumptuously illustrated volume showcases 130 prints, drawings, and paintings spanning the artist's career, from 1625 to 1665. As one has come to expect and appreciate in art books published by Yale University Press, the volume is beautifully produced: it includes more than 150 excellent reproductions, all in lavish color--even those reproducing ostensibly black-and-white etchings.Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers.

Given the centrality of the male and female nude in the teaching and scholarship of Renaissance art, it is about time this book appeared. Burke (Univ. of Edinburgh, UK) makes a major contribution to the literature by presenting the nuanced reactions, in both textual and visual form, of viewers of the nude between about 1400 and 1530 in the Italian peninsula. The emergence of workshop model books in Florence in the 1470s appears to be the earliest flourishing of the nude study in early modern Western art; these involved live male and female models and the imaginative re-creation of antique poses. The consequence of this development would become most evident in Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling, to cite just one example. One of Burke's focuses in this wide-ranging discussion is nude combatants as savages, including some reference to world exploration and contact with Africans and natives of the Caribbean; Antonio del Pollaiuolo's engraving of ten fighting nude men is a major example. Another focus is the conflict between attraction and sinfulness of Christianity and nudity. By bringing the literary reception and contemporaneous events to the fore, Burke provides clear connections between artwork and viewer.Summing Up: Essential. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; faculty and researchers; general readers.

In this elegant book McCormick (Japanese art and culture, Harvard) reproduces in color a 1510 Japanese album that includes paired passages of calligraphy and painted illustrations from the 54 chapters of Murasaki Shikibu's classic The Tale of Genji from Heian-era Japan. It is the earliest surviving complete album, a traditional format at the time, and was intended to complement a reading of the novel. Commissioned by a patron from Suo province, the album was illustrated in rich mineral pigments by Tosa Matsunobu, with passages of prose and poetry inked on Chinese paper by six different calligraphers. Accompanying each pair of leaves reproduced in this volume are English translations of the Japanese, Romanization, and contemporary Japanese script, and McCormick's sensitive discussion of the calligraphy and painting, fuller details of the Genji story, and the context for the novel and the album. Also included are an annotated introduction, a key to the calligraphers' work, a glossary of Japanese words, and works referenced in each chapter. The book evokes Murasaki's novel and the distant time in which she wrote. It will fascinate anyone with an interest in Japanese culture.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.