Emblems and Impact Volume I
Emblems and Impact Volume I

Author: Ingrid Hoepel

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2017-11-06

Total Pages: 650

ISBN-13: 1527504352

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The art of the emblem is a pan-European phenomenon which developed in Western and Central Europe in the early modern period. It adopted meanings and motifs from Antiquity and the Middle Ages as part of a general humanistic impulse. Technological developments in printing that permitted the combination of letterpress with woodblock, and later copperplate, images, ensured that the emblem spread rapidly by way of printed collections. With time, emblematic ideas moved beyond Europe, conveying their insights and wisdom in the compact form of the book. These same books came to influence artists and designers working in the decoration of buildings, furniture, and household items, so that emblems entered personal life; they infiltrated festive culture, too. In such environments beyond the book, emblems were transported, adapted, and embedded in new functional contexts shaped by social, political, or religious conditions, but also by architectonical and regional art historical parameters. The results of these transformations are often of an intricate and complex meaning. The combination of word and image that constitutes the emblem still has resonance in contemporary art and architecture. The study of emblems allows us to look back at the collaborative endeavours of creative minds of earlier times from across Europe and beyond. At a time when that continent is under strain, and the world in general seeks to come to terms with globalization, emblems allow reflection on strongly shared cultural values and connections.

A Book of Emblems
A Book of Emblems

Author: Andrea Alciati

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2015-11-12

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 078642706X

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Andrea Alciati's Emblematum Liber was an essential work for every writer, artist and scholar in post-medieval Europe. First published in 1531, this illustrated book was a collection of emblems, each consisting of a motto or proverb, a typically enigmatic illustration, and a short explanation. Most of the emblems had symbolic and moral applications. Scholars depended on Alciati's book to interpret contemporary art and literature, while writers and artists turned to it to invest their work with an understood didactic sense. This new edition of the Emblematum Liber includes the original Latin texts, highly readable English translations, and the illustrations belonging to each of the 212 emblems. The editor's introduction explains both the importance and the cultural contexts of Alciati's book, as well as its innumerable artistic applications. For instance, close study of the emblems reveals--to cite only two examples--why statues of lions are traditionally placed before government buildings, and what underlying political message was conveyed by innumerable equestrian portraits during the Baroque era. The collection includes as an appendix the formerly suppressed emblem, "Adversus Naturam Peccantes," accompanied by a translation of the learned commentary applied to it by Johann Thuilius in 1612. An extensive bibliography points the student to scholarly research specifically dealing with artistic applications of Alciati's emblems. Altogether, this new edition of Alciati's seminal work is an essential tool for modern students of the liberal arts.

Gender Matters
Gender Matters

Author: Mara R. Wade

Publisher: Rodopi

Published: 2013-12-05

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 9401210233

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Gender Matters opens the debate concerning violence in literature and the arts beyond a single national tradition and engages with multivalent aspects of both female and male gender constructs, mapping them onto depictions of violence. By defining a tight thematic focus and yet offering a broad disciplinary scope for inquiry, the present volume brings together a wide range of scholarly papers investigating a cohesive topic—gendered violence—from the perspectives of French, German, Italian, Spanish, English, and Japanese literature, history, musicology, art history, and cultural studies. It interrogates the intersection of gender and violence in the early modern period, cutting across national traditions, genres, media, and disciplines. By engaging several levels of discourse, the volume advances a holistic approach to understanding gendered violence in the early modern world. The convergence of discourses concerning literature, the arts, emerging print technologies, social and legal norms, and textual and visual practices leverages a more complex understanding of gender in this period. Through the unifying lens of gender and violence the contributions to this volume comprehensively address a wide scope of diverse issues, approaches, and geographies from late medieval Japan to the European Enlightenment. While the majority of essays focus on early modern Europe, they are broadly contextualized and informed by integrated critical approaches pertaining to issues of violence and gender.