Power In Art

Introduction to Art: Design, Context, and Meaning offers a deep insight and comprehension of the world of Art. Contents: What is Art? The Structure of Art Significance of Materials Used in Art Describing Art - Formal Analysis, Types, and Styles of Art Meaning in Art - Socio-Cultural Contexts, Symbolism, and Iconography Connecting Art to Our Lives Form in Architecture Art and Identity Art and Power Art and Ritual Life - Symbolism of Space and Ritual Objects, Mortality, and Immortality Art and Ethics

This volume examines the ways that sovereign rulers have employed well-defined symbols, attributes, and stereotypes to convey their power to their subjects and rivals, as well as to leave a legacy for subsequent generations to admire. Legendary rulers from antiquity such as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Constantine have been looked to as models for their display of imperial power by the rulers of later eras. From medieval sovereigns such as Charlemagne and France's Louis IX to the tsars of Russia and the great European royal dynasties of the Hapsburgs, the Bourbons, and the Tudors, the rulers of each period have appropriated and often embellished the emblems of power employed by their predecessors. Even the second-tier lords who ruled parts of France and Italy during the Renaissance, such as the dukes of Burgundy, the Gonzaga of Mantua, and the Medici of Florence became adept at manipulating this imagery. The final chapter is reserved for Napoleon I, perhaps the ultimate master of symbolic display, who assumed the attributes of Roman emperors to project an image of eternal and immutable authority. The author examines not only regal paraphernalia such as crowns, scepters, thrones, and orbs, but also the painted portraits, sculptures, tapestries, carved ivories, jewelry, coins, armor, and, eventually, photographs created to display their owner's sovereign power, a vast collection of works that now forms a significant portion of the cultural heritage of Western civilization.

A new book by Boris Groys acknowledges the problem and potential of art's complex relationship to power. Art has its own power in the world, and is as much a force in the power play of global politics today as it once was in the arena of cold war politics. Art, argues the distinguished theoretician Boris Groys, is hardly a powerless commodity subject to the art market's fiats of inclusion and exclusion. In Art Power, Groys examines modern and contemporary art according to its ideological function. Art, Groys writes, is produced and brought before the public in two ways—as a commodity and as a tool of political propaganda. In the contemporary art scene, very little attention is paid to the latter function. Arguing for the inclusion of politically motivated art in contemporary art discourse, Groys considers art produced under totalitarianism, Socialism, and post-Communism. He also considers today's mainstream Western art—which he finds behaving more and more according the norms of ideological propaganda: produced and exhibited for the masses at international exhibitions, biennials, and festivals. Contemporary art, Groys argues, demonstrates its power by appropriating the iconoclastic gestures directed against itself—by positioning itself simultaneously as an image and as a critique of the image. In Art Power, Groys examines this fundamental appropriation that produces the paradoxical object of the modern artwork.

The Canada Council for the Arts is the country’s largest provider of grants for artists and arts organizations, benefiting not only writers, visual artists, performers, and musicians but Canadian culture as a whole. In The Roots of Culture, the Power of Art Monica Gattinger outlines the history of the Canada Council, the impetus for its foundation, and the ongoing debate about its goals and impact. Tracing the Council’s gradual shift from focusing on artistic supply and building the roots of Canadian arts and culture in its early years to its expanded focus on the power of the arts in society over time, Gattinger describes how leaders have navigated core tensions inherent in the Council’s activities. She examines the arguments for and against “art for art’s sake” and pursuing broader social and economic aims through the arts, as well as the inherent political conflicts between serving the needs of the artistic community and the needs of Canadian society, between leadership and followership, between autonomy and collaboration, and between emerging and established artistic practices. Combining lively storytelling with insightful analysis, and beautifully produced with dozens of photos of the art, people, and events that have shaped the organization through the years, The Roots of Culture, the Power of Art is essential reading for those with an interest in Canadian arts and culture and cultural policy.

* 'Great art has dreadful manners...' Simon Schama observes at the start of his epic exploration of the power, and whole point, of art. 'The hushed reverence of the gallery can fool you into believing masterpieces are polite things, visions that soothe, charm and beguile, but actually they are thugs. Merciless and wily, the greatest paintings grab you in a headlock, rough up your composure and then proceed in short order to re-arrange your sense of reality...' * With the same disarming force, Power of Art jolts us far from the comfort zone of the hushed art gallery, as Schama closes in on intense make-or-break turning points in the lives of eight great artists who, under extreme stress, created something unprecedented, altering the course of art for ever. * The embattled heroes - Caravaggio, Bernini, Rembrandt, David, Turner, Van Gogh, Picasso and Rothko - faced crisis with steadfast defiance. The masterpieces they created challenged convention, shattered complacency, shifted awareness and changed the way we look at the world. With powerfully vivid story-telling, Schama explores the dynamic personalities of the artists and the spirit of the times they lived through, capturing the flamboyant theatre of bourgeois life in Amsterdam, the passion and paranoia of Revolutionary Paris, and the carnage and pathos of civil-war Spain. * Most compelling of all, Power of Art traces the extraordinary evolution of eight world-class works of art. Created in a bolt of illumination, such works 'tell us something about how the world is, how it is to be inside our skins, that no more prosaic source of wisdom can deliver. And when they do that they answer, irrefutably and majestically, the nagging question of every reluctant art-conscript... "OK, OK, but what's art really for?"'

Stephanie J. Smith brings Mexican politics and art together, chronicling the turbulent relations between radical artists and the postrevolutionary Mexican state. The revolution opened space for new political ideas, but by the late 1920s many government officials argued that consolidating the nation required coercive measures toward dissenters. While artists and intellectuals, some of them professed Communists, sought free expression in matters both artistic and political, Smith reveals how they simultaneously learned the fine art of negotiation with the increasingly authoritarian government in order to secure clout and financial patronage. But the government, Smith shows, also had reason to accommodate artists, and a surprising and volatile interdependence grew between the artists and the politicians. Involving well-known artists such as Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros, as well as some less well known, including Tina Modotti, Leopoldo Mendez, and Aurora Reyes, politicians began to appropriate the artists' nationalistic visual images as weapons in a national propaganda war. High-stakes negotiating and co-opting took place between the two camps as they sparred over the production of generally accepted notions and representations of the revolution's legacy—and what it meant to be authentically Mexican.

This collection brings together contemporary Indigenous knowledge holders with extraordinary works of historical Northwest Coast art. The photographs and commentaries speak to the connections between tangible and intangible cultural belongings; how "art" remains part of Northwest Coast peoples' ongoing relationships to their territories and governance; Indigenous experiences of reconnection, reclamation, and return; and critical and necessary conversations around the role of museums. Residence: Vancouver, B.C. Print run 3,500.

Compelling, comprehensive, and accessible, Lewis and Lewis's THE POWER OF ART, International Edition features an exciting new layout and gorgeous images. Students continue to praise the engaging, conversational writing style that will make it easy for you to both understand and enjoy reading the material. THE POWER OF ART delivers a brief, yet comprehensive survey, demonstrating that art is all around you and relevant to you - no matter what your major happen to be. The text incorporates global material throughout to demonstrate cultural intersections and mutual influences. "Art News" boxes present real events that connect art to your life. In addition to excellent art history coverage, THE POWER OF ART features a diverse mix of artists and spotlights the latest technologies used to create art. With the best price in the market, THE POWER OF ART delivers unrivaled value.