The Saints Of Modern Art

Asceticism seen as a powerful force in the art and thought of our time.

This book demonstrates that numerous prominent artists in every period of the modern era were expressing spiritual interests when they created celebrated works of art. This magisterial overview insightfully reveals the centrality of an often denied and misunderstood element in the cultural history of modern art.

This lively work of cultural history tells the stories of five young art patrons who, in the last 1920s and 1930s, were instrumental in bringing modern painting, sculpture, and dance to America. A combination of wealth, Harvard education privilege, and family connections enabled Lincoln Kirstein, Edward M. M. Warburg, Agnes Mongan, James Thrall Soby, and A. Everett (Chick) Austin, Jr., to introduce the work of Picasso, Balanchine, Calder, and other important artists to the United States.

Baroque Tendencies in Contemporary Art is a collection of essays by an international cadre of scholars addressing current trends within the field of contemporary art and how artists and architects reflect upon past traditions and fold them into the present. Often referred to as the Neo-Baroque, scholarship on this topic first emerged in the 1980s with the publication of several notable studies in France (but not translated into English until the 1990s); in addition, a number of recent exhibitions have focused on contemporary responses to the Baroque. The Baroque and the Neo-Baroque are frequently defined as having a propensity for instability, seriality, reflexivity, fluidity, and spectacle. This is perhaps partly why, in the millennial period, there is so much interest in the Baroque—we are seeking ways to find parallels between the art of then and the art of our own diverse, pluralistic culture. This book provides context for how contemporary artists meet and deal with the Baroque both formally and conceptually. Among others, it provides discussions of the work of American artists John Currin, Jeff Koons, Frank Stella, Lisa Yuskavage; American architect, Frank Gehry; European artists Lucian Freud, Jenny Saville, Emilio Vedova; Latin American artists Monica Castillo, Raphael Cauduro, Yishai Judisman; and New Zealand artists, Richard Reddaway and Joanna Langford.

A collection of original essays, Saints, Sinners, and Sisters showcases the diverse questions currently being asked by gender scholars dealing with French, Netherlandish and German art from the medieval and early modern periods. Moving beyond the reclamation of personalities and oeuvres of 'lost' female artists, the contributors pose questions about gender and sex within specific historical contexts, addressing such issues as intended audience, use of the object, and patronage. These avenues of inquiry intersect with larger cultural questions concerning societal control of women. The book's three sections, 'Saints,' 'Sinners,' and 'Sisters, Wives, Poets' are each preceded by a concise introductory essay, detailing themes and offering reflective comparisons of theses and information. In 'Saints,' contributors look at women who were positive exemplar used by society to uphold standards. In the second section, the essays focus on the power of women's sexuality. The third section expands beyond the customary dichotomous division of the first two to examine women in diverse roles not widely studied as positions of women in those times. This final section expands our definitions of women's responsibilities and realigns them historically; it argues that women, and thus gender, need to be understood within a much broader historical context and beyond simplistic approaches sometimes superimposed by present-day readers on past times. This volume answers an acute need for research on the art of Northern Europe prior to the 20th century, and highlights the possibilities of new directions in the field. The effect of the new scholarship presented here is to broaden the discursive field, allowing fluidity of disciplinary boundaries, resulting in a volume that is illuminating to historians of more than art alone.

An art historian develops a theological, philosophical, and historical framework within which to experience and interpret modern and contemporary art that is in dialogue with the Christian faith.

Christianity Today Book of the Year Award of Merit - Culture and the Arts For many Christians, engaging with modern art raises several questions: Is the Christian faith at odds with modern art? Does modernism contain religious themes? What is the place of Christian artists in the landscape of modern art? Nearly fifty years ago, Dutch art historian and theologian Hans Rookmaaker offered his answers to these questions when he published his groundbreaking work, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture, which was characterized by both misgivings and hopefulness. While appreciating Rookmaaker's invaluable contribution to the study of theology and the arts, this volume—coauthored by an artist and a theologian—responds to his work and offers its own answers to these questions by arguing that there were actually strong religious impulses that positively shaped modern visual art. Instead of affirming a pattern of decline and growing antipathy towards faith, the authors contend that theological engagement and inquiry can be perceived across a wide range of modern art—French, British, German, Dutch, Russian, and North American—and through particular works by artists such as Gauguin, Picasso, David Jones, Caspar David Friedrich, van Gogh, Kandinsky, Warhol, and many others. This Studies in Theology and the Arts volume brings together the disciplines of art history and theology and points to the signs of life in modern art in order to help Christians navigate these difficult waters. The Studies in Theology and the Arts series encourages Christians to thoughtfully engage with the relationship between their faith and artistic expression, with contributions from both theologians and artists on a range of artistic media including visual art, music, poetry, literature, film, and more.