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Alois Riegl’s ‘Baroque’ in the light of selected passages in his unpublished manuscripts
Full text linkThis article deals with aspects of Alois Riegl’s investigation of Baroque art in light of selected passages of his still unpublished manuscripts. The analysis of this voluminous corpus, in comparison with Riegl’s posthumous publications on the “origins” of Baroque art, reveals not only a much more comprehensive study of Baroque art, but also a far more complex idea of “Baroque”. The purpose of the article is to advance knowledge about Riegl’s actual contribution to Baroque studies. Particular attention will be paid to both core concepts of Riegl’s analysis of Baroque art and his methodological approach, by highlighting reference models as well as divergences from contemporary research
Ernst Cohn-Wiener (1882-1941) and his contribution on Islamic Art and Architecture in Central Asia
Full text linkErnst Cohn-Wiener was an unusual wide oriented art historian, whose interests spanned from European and Jewish art, to East Asian and Islamic art and architecture, the latter one is in the focus of this paper. Despite his many contributions in the area of art history he did not get the place he deserved. In the 1920s his interest turned to Islamic Art History and he decided to explore Islamic architecture in Central Asia, a widely unknown field. Two expeditions carried out by him and his wife in 1924 and 1925, resulted in his well-illustrated overview on the Medieval Islamic architecture of Turkestan, published as Turan – Islamische Baukunst in Mittelasien (1930). When he lost his position as a lecturer in 1933 due to the ‘Rassegesetze’ imposed by the ruling Nazis, he emigrated together with his wife via England to India, working for the Maharaja of Baroda until 1939. Their last move was to New York, where Cohn-Wiener died two years later in 1941
Notes on the formation of Persian art collections at the Museo Nazionale d’Arte Orientale ‘Giuseppe Tucci’, its research and expositions activities in Rome and its missions in Iran
Full text linkThis article presents a brief history of the Museum of Oriental Art in Rome. Its main focus is its collection of Persian Art: not only because of the objects it contains, but also because of the further activity it has encouraged in the form of exhibitions in Italy and abroad and collaboration with institutions in Iran itself and elsewhere in Italy. This co-operation also includes excavation and research in Iran for example in Isfahan’s Friday mosque and Arg-e Bam and participation in exhibitions in other locations in Italy and abroad
Aʽẓam Naẓarkarde, ‘Painter and artist of the Âstân-e Qods during the Afsharid period
Full text linkAlthough the translations of important scholarship on art history across the different European languages are increasingly common, the same cannot be said about the invaluable articles and books published in non-European languages. In the case of Persian art, the results of research conducted by scholars writing in Persian, Arabic or Turkish, are often inaccessible for many Western scholars. Although the translations of important scholarship on art history across the different European languages are increasingly common, the same cannot be said about the invaluable articles and books published in non-European languages. In the case of Persian art, the results of research conducted by scholars writing in Persian, Arabic or Turkish, are often inaccessible for many Western scholars. Accordingly, the aim of the translation of Aʽẓam Naẓarkarde’s work, ‘Painter and artist of the Âstân-e Qods during the Afsharid period’ is twofold. Firstly, the paper highlights the potentials of a heavily underused source for art history by introducing several official documents. Secondly, the reader gains precious insight into the art historical writing and thought within Iran. The translation may shed light on the applied theoretical framework and methodology currently observed by Iranian scholars, as well as on their approach to the study of art history
‘Iconotropy: everything or nothing?’. Review of: Iconotropy and Cult Images from the Ancient to Modern World, Routledge Research in Art and Religion, edited by Jorge Tomás García and Sandra Sáenz-López Pérez, New York and London: Routledge, 2022, 212 pp., 49 b. & w. illus. 42.36 ebk, ISBN 978-1-003-18650-2, DOI: 10.4324/9781003186502.
Full text linkThe relationship between art and religion has long been a major focus of art-historical research. The collection of essays edited by Jorge Tomás García and Sandra Sáenz-López Pérez presents a chronologically wide range of examples in Western art of changes in the appearance or interpretation of ‘cult images’ considered in the light of Robert Graves’s concept of ‘iconotropy’. The category of ‘cult image’, however, particularly as construed here, is too expansive, and the process of ‘iconotropy’ as redefined here too elastic, to contribute either to the understanding of the phenomena under study or to methodological precision
The origins of Hans Sedlmayr’s methodology and its relation to his politics: a disregarded approach
Full text linkThe paper states that a main source of Sedlmayr’s methodological as well as political thinking has largely been overlooked. It argues that Viennese philosopher and sociologist Othmar Spann, along with his own main source, romanticist theologian Franz von Baader as well as Spann’s pupil, the Viennese university teacher Johannes Sauter, were central to Sedlmayr’s art history as well as to his ideological orientation. This is concluded from a comparison of their texts and their biographical data. This approach entails a new reading of Sedlmayr’s early writings and proposes an answer to the question, whether they are related to his political behaviour in the Nazi er
Introduction to Air Pollution: Resources for Schools (KS3-4)
Full text linkAcknowledgements: WM-Air (wm-air.org.uk/) Team: Clarissa Baldo, Catherine Muller, Nicole Cowell, Suzanne
Bartington, Jian Zhong, William Bloss. Original air pollution Independent Project by Georgina Smellie and Prof. Sophie Hadfield-Hill (University of Birmingham). Schools resource reviewed by Pete Mackintosh and Mandi Slater (Birmingham City Council), Prof Sylvia Knight (RMetS) and Dr Sam Dobbie (BiFOR).
If you have further questions about this resource, you can contact the WM-Air team at:
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‘The language of beauty in African art’. Review of: The Language of Beauty in African Art, Edited by Constantine Petridis. Contributions by Yaelle Biro, Herbert M Cole, Kassim Kone, Babatunde Lawal, Constantine Petridis, Wilfried van Damme and Susan Vogel. New Haven and London: Yale UP 2022, 356 Pages, 9.00 x 12.70 in, 315 color + 30 b-w illus. ISBN 9780300260045 (hbk); 9780300269918 (ebook). $65.00.
Full text linkThis book comprises two primary objectives. First, it seeks to curate an extensive exhibition showcasing diverse African art forms sourced from public museums and private collections in the United States and Europe. The exhibition, featuring about 300 works of art from different countries in Sub-saharan Africa, focuses mainly on the sculptural tradition of Africa. However, a few other works, such as textiles, were featured in the publication supporting the landmark exhibition. Divided into eight thematic sections, the essays by seven authors advocate for an aesthetic appreciation of the arts of Africa based on concepts, criteria and vocabularies of the cultures who made them. The book adopted a contextual or anthropological approach to present cultural case studies and analyse thematic examples from sub-Saharan Africa. The final pages of the book acknowledged pioneers, the ‘fieldwork generations’ who paved the way for the scholarly study of African arts and laid the foundation for analyses of African aesthetics from African perspectives from the 1930s to the present
‘American-type art criticism’. Review of: Art Criticism and Modernism in the United States by Stephen Moonie, Routledge, 2022, 206pp. 10 colour and 30 b. & w. illus. ISBN: 9780367565411, £120.
Full text linkThis essay reviews Stephen Moonie’s book Art Criticism and Modernism in the United States (2002), which contributes to the steadily growing field of art-historical research into art criticism. Until recently, art criticism has received scant attention partly because such writing is often considered ‘literary’, ‘unacademic’, or constitutively defined by ‘subjectivity’ in comparison to its siblings art history and aesthetics. Moonie’s book focuses upon North American art criticism from the late 1940s to the early 1970s, particularly the writings produced in and around Artforum in dialogue with Clement Greenberg’s difficult legacy. Such criticism dovetailed with developments in contemporary painting, sculpture, and film, but also presented itself as avowedly more intellectual, philosophically engaged, and self-reflexive than other forms of art criticism current at the time. This review, therefore, examines how Moonie elucidates this emergent mode of art criticism, particularly in light of its recourse to philosophical concepts as interpretative aids
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