The Arts Of Empire

"This publication is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)"--Page v.

This book focuses its reading of the poetics and politics of colonial expansion in Renaissance England on the lives and writings of such diverse figures as Sir Walter Ralegh, John Donne, Richard Hakluyt, Samuel Purchas, William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, and John Milton. It studies a wide range of texts, including The Discoverie of Guiana, Virginia's Verger, Othello, The Faerie Queene, A View of the Present State of Ireland, Paradise Lost, and Paradise Regained. It also examines the inscription in these writings of themes, motifs, and tropes frequently found in colonial texts: the land as desiring female body and object of desire; the masculinist gaze responding to the exotic; and the experience of the thrilling sensations of wonder.

In recent years, art historians such as Johannes Deckers (Picturing the Bible, 2009) have argued for a significant transition in fourth- and fifth-century images of Jesus following the conversion of Constantine. Broadly speaking, they perceive the image of a peaceful, benevolent shepherd transformed into a powerful, enthroned Jesus, mimicking and mirroring the dominance and authority of the emperor. The powers of church and state are thus conveniently synthesized in such a potent image. This deeply rooted position assumes that ante-pacem images of Jesus were uniformly humble while post-Constantinian images exuded the grandeur of power and glory. The Art of Empire contends that the art and imagery of Late Antiquity merits a more nuanced understanding of the context of the imperial period before and after Constantine. The chapters in this collection each treat an aspect of the relationship between early Christian art and the rituals, practices, or imagery of the Empire, and offer a new and fresh perspective on the development of Christian art in its imperial background.

Presented in conjunction with the September 2000 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum, this volume presents the complex story of the proliferation of the arts in New York and the evolution of an increasingly discerning audience for those arts during the antebellum period. Thirteen essays by noted specialists bring new research and insights to bear on a broad range of subjects that offer both historical and cultural contexts and explore the city's development as a nexus for the marketing and display of art, as well as private collecting; landscape painting viewed against the background of tourism; new departures in sculpture, architecture, and printmaking; the birth of photography; New York as a fashion center; shopping for home decorations; changing styles in furniture; and the evolution of the ceramics, glass, and silver industries. The 300-plus works in the exhibition and comparative material are extensively illustrated in color and bandw. Oversize: 9.25x12.25". Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

This richly illustrated book reveals how Joséphine, Napoléon Bonaparte’s empress, shaped the arts of early nineteenth-century France and beyond. Her incomparable sense of style, her passion for collecting, her love of gardens, and her commissions of works by major artists such as Antonio Canova, Jacques-Louis David, Pierre-Paul Prod’hon, and Pierre-Joseph Redouté set the standard for a new aesthetic. On these pages the opulence of Salon culture is set against the tumultuous era of Revolution and Empire, romance and tragedy—a world in which Joséphine rose to her own momentous role in history with singular grace and elegance.

First edition published in 1998 by Oxford University Press with the title Imperial Rome and Christian triumph: the art of the Roman Empire, AD 100-450.

The subject matter and iconography of much of the art in the U.S. Capitol forms a remarkably coherent program of the early course of North American empire, from discovery and settlement to the national development and westward expansion that necessitated the subjugation of the indigenous peoples. In Art and Empire, Vivien Green Fryd's revealing cultural and political interpretation of the portraits, reliefs, allegories, and historical paintings commissioned for the U.S. Capitol, the reader is given an enhanced appreciation for the racial and ethnic implications of these works. This latest contribution to the United States Capitol Historical Society's Perspectives on the Art and Architectural History of the United States Capitol series provides an affordable and accessible insight into one of our most visited, viewed, and revered national buildings. Professor Fryd demonstrates how the politics of our history is written in stone and painted on the walls of these hallowed halls.

The Fruits of Empire is a history of American expansion through the lens of art and food. In the decades after the Civil War, Americans consumed an unprecedented amount of fruit as it grew more accessible with advancements in refrigeration and transportation technologies. This excitement for fruit manifested in an explosion of fruit imagery within still life paintings, prints, trade cards, and more. Images of fruit labor and consumption by immigrants and people of color also gained visibility, merging alongside the efforts of expansionists to assimilate land and, in some cases, people into the national body. Divided into five chapters on visual images of the grape, orange, watermelon, banana, and pineapple, this book demonstrates how representations of fruit struck the nerve of the nation’s most heated debates over land, race, and citizenship in the age of high imperialism.