Iconology Neoplatonism And The Arts In The Renaissance

The mid-twentieth century saw a change in paradigms of art history: iconology. The main claim of this novel trend in art history was that renowned Renaissance artists (such as Botticelli, Leonardo, or Michelangelo) created imaginative syntheses between their art and contemporary cosmology, philosophy, theology, and magic. The Neoplatonism in the books by Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola became widely acknowledged for its lasting influence on art. It thus became common knowledge that Renaissance artists were not exclusively concerned with problems intrinsic to their work but that their artifacts encompassed a much larger intellectual and cultural horizon. This volume brings together historians concerned with the history of their own discipline – and also those whose research is on the art and culture of the Italian Renaissance itself – with historians from a wide variety of specialist fields, in order to engage with the contested field of iconology. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, Renaissance history, Renaissance studies, historiography, philosophy, theology, gender studies, and literature.

In Studies in Iconology, the themes and concepts of Renaissance art are analysed and related to both classical and medieval tendencies.

Titian's great late painting of Apollo and Marsyas has been included in several recent exhibitions of Venetian painting in Europe and the United States. In this study, art historian Edith Wyss sheds light on the perception of the theme in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Renaissance artists knew several outstanding antique sculptures representing the myth and drew often on these prestigious models for inspiration. Only from the third decade of the sixteenth century onward did autonomous artistic interpretations of the myth assert themselves. Among the artists who devoted their skills to this myth are Perugino, Raphael, and several of his followers - Giulio Romano, Parmigianino, Bronzino, Salviati, Tintoretto, and Titian. Wyss demonstrates that some depictions encode messages that transcend the obvious exhortation against pride. Taking their cue from a popular edition of the Metamorphoses, some patrons and artists viewed the myth as an allegory of the revelation of truth. Others, following Pythagorean teachings, perceived the sun god's lyre music as the music of the spheres. In this perception, Apollo's victory assures the continued harmonious functioning of the universe, and Marsyas's defiance of the sun god's authority called for the severest retribution. In a few instances the author demonstrates that the Pythagorean allegorical reading of the myth was borrowed for political ends, with Apollo's victorious lyre standing as metaphor for the supposedly harmonious government of the ruling power. The discussion allows the Marsyas myth to unfold in a theme of extraordinary richness and depth and touches on issues that were at the core of the Renaissance culture.

This book provides new impetus to the study of female art in regional areas. It will expand research beyond studies of women’s lives, careers, socio-political patronage, and specific gender issues to look at emblematic, historical, and spiritual aspects of their work. Through an analysis of the paintings of Barbara Longhi, the book reveals the importance of devotional art and the ample creativity of female painters. It highlights the importance of Longhi’s artistic contribution in the study of iconography and iconology on art and devotion in some of her paintings. Although there is limited information about her personal life, through the records of her two Wills and Testaments, we learn about her administrative ability, family dedication, and, most of all, about her Christian religiosity and devotion to the Virgin Mary (La Madonna).

Through a series of cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary interventions, leading international scholars of history and art history explore ways in which the study of images enhances knowledge of the past and informs our understanding of the present. Spanning a diverse range of time periods and places, the contributions cumulatively showcase ways in which ongoing dialogue between history and art history raises important aesthetic, ethical and political questions for the disciplines. The volume fosters a methodological awareness that enriches exchanges across these distinct fields of knowledge. This innovative book will be of interest to scholars in art history, cultural studies, history, visual culture and historiography.

Modern Art in Cold War Beirut: Drawing Alliances examines the entangled histories of modern art and international politics during the decades of the 1950s and 1960s. Positing the Cold War as a globalized conflict, fraught with different political ideologies and intercultural exchanges, this study asks how these historical circumstances shaped local debates in Beirut over artistic pedagogy, the social role of the artist, the aesthetics of form, and, ultimately, the development of a national art. Drawing on a range of archival material and taking an interdisciplinary approach, Sarah Rogers argues that the genealogies of modern art can never be understood as isolated, national histories, but rather that they participate in an ever contingent global modernism. This book will be of particular interest to scholars in art history, Cold War studies, and Middle East studies.

This book offers microhistories related to the transnational circulations of impressionism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The contributors rethink the role of "French" impressionism in shaping these iterations by placing France within its global and imperialist context and arguing that impressionisms might be framed through the mobility studies’ concept of "constellations of mobility." Artists engaging with impressionism in France, as in other global contexts, relied on, responded to, appropriated, and resisted elements of form and content based on fluid and interconnected political realities and market structures. Written by scholars and curators, the chapters demand reconsideration of impressionism as a historical construct and the meanings assigned to that term. This project frames future discussion in art history, cultural studies, and global studies on the politics of appropriating impressionism.