27 research outputs found
Brilliant Effects: A Cultural History of Gem Stones and Jewellery (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).
No full textThe research for this book was commenced with a fellowship from the British Academy (1995). In that year the author gave the Haley Memorial Lecture at Princeton University on the subject of jewels; the following year she was awarded a Leverhulme fellowship. Subsequently Pointon was in receipt – specifically for the research for this book – of the following fellowship awards: Winterthur Research Institute, Delaware (1999); Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA (2004); Yale Center for British Art (2004); Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2005). The final work was completed thanks to a senior fellowship from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (2006). The Mellon Centre, for whom the book was published by Yale University Press, paid for illustrations. In 2009 the book won the single author post-c.1800 book prize of the Historians of British Art, a society affiliated to the College Art Association of America.
The appearance of this large format book with 371 mainly colour plates might easily seem to belie the depth and breadth of scholarship within its 471 pages, of which 38 are footnotes in small print. Pointon’s research for the first time establishes ‘jewels’ as a significant category through which cultural, economic, religious and aesthetic history can be mapped and evaluated. Drawing on primary sources textual and material in four European languages, Pointon opens up insights into the role of jewels in belief systems and cultural practices in France, England, Switzerland and Italy, with reference also to Germany and Flanders
‘‘Charming Little Brats’: Sir Thomas Lawrence’s Portraits of Children’ in Thomas Lawrence: Regency Power and Brilliance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), edited by Cassandra Albinson, Peter Funnell and Lucy Peltz, 55-83.
No full textThis chapter, published in 2010 by Yale University Press for the National Portrait Gallery (NPG), London and the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) is a contribution to a book that accompanied a major exhibition that was shown at both venues. The chapter builds on Pointon’s work on portraiture (and takes into new ground research on eighteenth-century child portraiture initiated by the author in ‘Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-century England’, 1993). Pointon was the only invited contributor (the three editors and other authors all being curators at the NPG and the YCBA). The book was awarded the 2012 book prize in the edited/ multi-authored category by the Historians of British Art, a society affiliated to the College Art Association of America
Language, Truth, and Rhetoric
No full textThe words of Martin Heidegger are no example of the lowest form of wit. His sentence is meant to be interpreted in two important ways that utilize different meanings of the word truth. Our common understanding of the word truth is not something innate but a product of history and culture that stretches back through the Romans to the ancient Greeks. Alētheia in ancient Greek was translated to veritas in Latin. The translation included an interpretation--as all translations do (which is why translation is rhetorical in nature)--of alētheia as a Platonic entity. Alētheia was interpreted as something transcendent; something that remains constant no matter what culture, language, time, class, gender, race, etc., one comes from. Alētheia/veritas/truth is out there somewhere and we just need to find it. We often think of truth in this way. It\u27s at the heart of phrases like the moral of the story is, or the author\u27s message is, or what the novel is really about is, --as if we fully know the author\u27s intent and that the text contains one absolute point
‘Material Manoeuvres: Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough and the Power of Artefacts,’ Art History, 32:3 (June 2009), pp. 485-515.
No full textThis article focuses on artefacts that played an important part in the life of Sarah Churchill, first Duchess of Marlborough’: the jewels
she amassed, the Turkish tent that her husband the Duke of Marlborough had used on the battlefield, and a sculpture of Queen Anne
that she erected at Blenheim. While the life of this supremely powerful woman and her role in the construction of Blenheim Palace, has
been extensively explored by historians, nobody had hitherto paid any attention to her acquisition and deployment of things. Drawing on
a wide range of manuscript and contemporary sources from her own correspondence and contemporary biographies to caricature,
Pointon examines how an elite woman of immense wealth, but little formal education, strategically employed material things to exert
influence socially and politically. The author made a special journey to Berlin to see a surviving Turkish campaign tent.
The article situates Marlborough through her universally acknowledged achievements, and in relation to the difference between her and
others of her class and era who attained independent reputations as successful women. The article examines how material things
played a part in unconventional forms of communication and in the exercise of power. It is highly significant in that it bridges studies in
material culture, seventeenth-century British political history, and popular culture. This is a period and topic relatively neglected by
historians of British art. The research benefited from time spent in 2007 as Senior Research Fellow at the Yale Center for British Art
and as a Visiting Fellow at the Lewis Walpole Library, Farmington, CT. It was first presented at the conference ‘Brilliant Women:
Gender, Intellect and Representation in Eighteenth-century Britain’, National Portrait Gallery, London (25-26.04.2008)
London in space and time: Peter Ackroyd and Will Self
No full textCopyright @ 2013 the author. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.This paper explores the treatment of London by two authors who are profoundly influenced by the concept of the power of place and the nature of urban space. The works of Peter Ackroyd, whose writings embody, according to Onega (1997, p. 208) “[a] yearning for mythical closure” where London is “a mystic centre of power” – spiritual, transhistorical and cultural – are considered alongside those of Will Self, who explores the city’s psychogeography as primarily a political, economic and cultural artefact. The paper draws on original interviews undertaken by the author with Ackroyd and Self. Both authors’ works are available for literary study during the 16-19 phase in the UK, and this paper explores how personal delineations of the urban environment are shaped by space and language. It goes on to consider how authors’ and students’ personal understandings of space and place can be used as pedagogical and theoretical lenses to “read” the city in the 16-19 literature classroom
"different sentiments & different connections supports them" : sensibility, community, and diversity in British women's Romantic-period poetry
No full textWith diversity
as an overarching theme, women writers' responses to the
cultural
feminisation and developing social climate of
late eighteenth- and early
nineteenth-century Britain
are explored through analyses of their poems on
sensibility, community, and abolition.
To determine a
focus for
expressive criticism
and recover Romantic women writers
from the social and historical
contexts that have
previously succeeded in highlighting
male literary
achievements, women's poetry is
considered a distinct
contribution to Romanticism. This dissertation analyses poems
written
by Joanna Baillie, Anna Barbauld, Harriet
and Maria Falconar, Frances
Greensted, Frances Greville, Elizabeth Hands, Eliza Knipe, Isabella Lickbarrow,
Hannah More, Amelia Opie, Priscilla Pointon, Mary Robinson, Mary Scott, Helen
Maria Williams, Ann Yearsley, and Mary Julia Young.
Although literature brought together the public and private spheres, sensibility
mediated
between the two and served as a social currency
for
women.
The
various
applications of sensibility are apparent
in its dual-gendered nature,
its link
with
reason, and the significance of economic
language. A
new genre of the "Address to
Sensibility" was prominent
in the period and
followed
a
loose formula
which
defined
sensibility,
traced its
personal
impact,
and
determined
a
link between the Romantic
culture and
heightened
emotion.
Through
explorations of poems on
intellectual
coteries, patronage, creative
influence, Reviews, and
literary
critique,
it is
evident that women poets' affiliations
with the literary
community were marked
by
a
discomfort based on their literary
associations,
the anxiety about their public reception, and the social
differences in the
literary
community.
However, the development
of social,
intellectual, literary,
and
critical communities alleviated this discomfort
and contributed
to women's
participation
in literary
culture.
In
addition, women poets expressed sensibility and used images of community
in diverse ways in their works against slavery and the trade.
Abolitionist
poetry acts
as a case study of the particular motifs,
highlighted throughout, such as the
amalgamation of masculine and
feminine, the political and economic applications of
sensibility, the association of
feeling
with reason and community, and the assertion of
individuality
amidst commonality.
Women
poets' petitions
to alleviate the sufferings
of slaves paralleled arguments
for the improvement
of
British
society to benefit
women.
The poems discussed signify the complexity of the issues of sensibility,
community, and diversity
Archaeological reconstruction illustrations: an analysis of the history, development, motivations and current practice of reconstructionil lustration, with recommendations for its future development.
No full textInitially, this study examines how archaeological reconstruction drawing evolved into its present form. Its development within the wider context of social and art history is traced from the 15th to the 201h century, with
particular attention to its various applications, and the motivations for its production. The result is a clearer understanding and definition of the present role and purposes of this branch of illustration. Secondly,the study examines how these purposes are achieved in
contemporary reconstruction artwork. By using an experiment in reconstruction, each component of the process is examined in turn: the design brief,illustrator, illustration and audience. The illustrations produced by the experiment are ranked according to performance, using
the aims of the reconstruction as criteria. Aspects are identified which appear to contribute to good performance,using the information obtained about the illustrations and illustrators. Finally, the results are reviewed as a whole to identify present and possible future trends that may be worth exploring, and to inform a set of proposed guidelines for the commissioning and production of archaeological reconstructions. At present, archaeological reconstruction artwork has received very little academic attention, and there appears to be no formal identification of its aims, agenda or working practice. This study provides the groundwork for rectifying this situation, and supplies new information in several dffferent areas
Whose problem? Disability narratives and available identities
No full textIn this article, the author demonstrates that contemporary cultural disability discourses offer few positive resources for people with impairments to draw upon in constructing positive personal and social identities. Examining the emergence of the Disability Arts Movement in Britain, consideration is given to alternative discourses developed by disabled people who have resisted the passive roles expected of them and developed a disability identity rooted in notions of power, respect and control. It is suggested that these alternative discourses provide an empowering rather than a disabling basis for community development and community arts practice and should be embraced by workers in these fields
The Effects of Simulated Interruptions on Mobile Search Tasks
No full textWhile it is clear that using a mobile device can interrupt real-world activities such as walking or driving, the effects of interruptions on mobile device use have been under-studied. We are particularly interested in how the ambient distraction of walking while using a mobile device, combined with the occurrence of simulated interruptions of different levels of cognitive complexity, affect web search activities. We have established an experimental design to study how the degree of cognitive complexity of simulated interruptions influence both objective and subjective search task performance. In a controlled laboratory study (n=27), quantitative and qualitative data were collected on mobile search performance, perceptions of the interruptions, and how participants reacted to the interruptions, using a custom mobile eye-tracking app, a questionnaire, and observations. As expected, more cognitively complex interruptions resulted in increased overall task completion times and higher perceived impacts. Interestingly, the effect on the resumption lag or the actual search performance was not significant, showing the resiliency of people to resume their tasks after an interruption. Implications from this study enhance our understanding of how interruptions objectively and subjectively affect search task performance, motivating the need for providing explicit mobile search support to enable recovery from interruptions.Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grant held by the first author (RGPIN- 2017-06446)Facultyye
