The Mannerist Mind

Departing from a discussion on what it would be a mannerist attitude in the architecture of today, and theorizing around it, this book analyzes some works of contemporary European practices including Lutjens Padmanabhan, architekten de vylder vinck taillieu, TEd’A, Maio, 6a architects and AOffice KGDVS. Art critics between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries imprinted a long-standing derogatory meaning to the word “mannerism”. Even though scholars such as John Shearman or Wolfgang Lotz rehabilitated the term to a certain degree during the twentieth century, it is still uncommon nowadays to find the expression “mannerist” used without certain pejorative connotations. This book provides a contemporary revision of the mannerist attitude for the present, creating a framework to analyze and shed light not only on the work that these practices are carrying out, but also on the less evident filiations and affinities, as well as on their deeper implications.

Departing from a discussion on what it would be a mannerist attitude in the architecture of today, and theorizing around it, this book analyzes some works of contemporary European practices including Lutjens Padmanabhan, architekten de vylder vinck taillieu, TEd'A, Maio, 6a architects and AOffice KGDVS. "Art critics between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries imprinted a long-standing derogatory meaning to the word "mannerism". Even though scholars such as John Shearman or Wolfgang Lotz rehabilitated the term to a certain degree during the twentieth century, it is still uncommon nowadays to find the expression "mannerist" used without certain pejorative connotations. This book provides a contemporary revision of the mannerist attitude for the present, creating a framework to analyze and shed light not only on the work that these practices are carrying out, but also on the less evident filiations and affinities, as well as on their deeper implications.

This 1996 book offers an original approach to Shakespeare's so-called 'problem plays' by contending that they can be viewed as experiments in the Mannerist style. The plays reappraised here are Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, All's Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure. How can a term used to define a movement in art history be made relevant to theatrical analysis? Maquerlot shows how famous painters of sixteenth-century Italy cultivated structural ambiguity or dissonance in reaction to the classical canons of the High Renaissance. Close readings of Shakespeare's plays, from the period 1599 to 1604, reveal intriguing analogies with Mannerist art and the dramatist's response to Elizabethan formalism. Maquerlot concludes by examining Othello, which marks the end of Shakespeare's Mannerist experiments, and the less equivocal use of artifice in his late romances.

Mestizo: a person of mixed blood; specifically, a person of mixed European and American Indian ancestry. Serge Gruzinski, the renowned historian of Latin America, offers a brilliant, original critique of colonization and globalization in The Mestizo Mind. Looking at the fifteenth-century colonization of Latin America, Gruzinski documents the mélange that resulted: colonized mating with colonizers; Indians joining the Catholic Church and colonial government; and Amerindian visualizations of Jesus and Perseus. These physical and cultural encounters created a new culture, a new individual, and a phenomenon we now call globalization. Revealing globalization's early origins, Gruzinski then fast forwards to the contemporary mélange seen in the films of Peter Greenaway and Wong Kar-Wai to argue that over 500 years of intermingling has produced the mestizo mind, a state of mixed thinking that we all possess. A masterful alchemy of history, anthropology, philosophy and visual analysis, The Mestizo Mind definitively conceptualizes the clash of civilizations in the style of Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak and Anne McClintock.

Occasionally a man emerges from history without us knowing him. Duke Vespasiano Gonzaga (1531–91) of Sabbioneta escaped the net of sixteenth century Italy, its history of wars and conflicts, to fashion a life that was uniquely different. He set out to change the way urban man lived. Importantly, he was the first man to build a Città ideale. Sabbioneta is the prototype of all planned cities of the modern era. As a confidant of King Philip II of Spain and a traveller, he quickly acquired a cosmopolitan worldview, which led him to become a uomo universale. It was in this capacity that he designed Sabbioneta as a genuine “little Athens.” His life was fraught with tragedy, however. Not only did he suffer from syphilis, but his personal troubles left him emotionally damaged. The mysterious death of two wives, including the beautiful Diana of Cardona, forced him to find solace in the construction of his ideal city. As nephew to the legendary Giulia Gonzaga – and with her encouragement – the Duke managed to forge a career as a poet, bibliophile, antiquarian, condottiero, urban planner and diplomat, all against the backdrop of New World discovery, the Protestant Reformation, and the Inquisition. This book reveals another fascinating story: Vespasiano Gonzaga’s link to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Like the Prince of Denmark, he reflects the emergence of our modern consciousness. He was a true Renaissance man whose legacy remains with us to this day. As a self-fashioned personality, the Duke made every attempt to place himself at the forefront of events of his time. His life tells us a great deal about how late-Renaissance men exteriorised their inner world in a bid to achieve immortality.

"Strokes of Genius: Italian Drawings from the Goldman Collection was published in conjunction with an exhibition of the same title organized by and presented at the Art Institute of Chicago from November 1, 2014, to February 1, 2015."

This volume catalogues more than 400 decorative objects in the Robert Lehman Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, including painted enamels, snuffboxes, porcelain, pottery, ceramics, jewellery, furniture, cast metal, and textiles from throughout Europe and Asia, with the majority dating from the late seventh century to the 20th century.