Dignity and Decadence

Dignity and Decadence
Title Dignity and Decadence PDF eBook
Author Richard Jenkyns
Publisher
Pages 392
Release 1992
Genre Art
ISBN

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The starting point for Richard Jenkyns's latest work is his contention that the Victorian age, which we think of as the great age of Gothic, was so shot through with the influence of the classical past that we should instead think of Victorian art and architecture as the continuing flow forward of two stylistic streams--the Gothic and the classical, side by side. In advancing his argument Jenkyns turns our accepted notions of the Victorians upside down, presenting Ruskin as an admirer of Greek statuary, the Houses of Parliament as a classical rather than a Gothic composition, and Thomas Woolner, the only sculptor among the original Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, as a neo-Hellenic carver and poet. Jenkyns moves effortlessly between the general and the particular and is refreshingly unafraid to make judgments. Here are some of the best descriptions of Victorian painting, sculpture, and architecture to have appeared in recent years. From the very gradual changes throughout the paintings of Leighton and Alma-Tadema, to the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan, the 'aesthetic scripture' of Pater, and even the advertisements for Beecham's pills, Jenkyns shows how what had been merely eclectic became a distinctive fin-de-siecle style and eventually began to point the way for Modernism. These are grand themes, presented by a masterly guide. Above all Jenkyns is entertaining: Dignity and Decadence is one of the most illuminating and enjoyable books about the Victorians yet to appear.

Performing the Body/Performing the Text

Performing the Body/Performing the Text
Title Performing the Body/Performing the Text PDF eBook
Author Amelia Jones
Publisher Routledge
Pages 322
Release 2005-08-12
Genre Performing Arts
ISBN 1134655932

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This book explores the new performativity in art theory and practice, examining ways of rethinking interpretive processes in visual culture. Since the 1960s, visual art practices - from body art to minimalism - have taken contemporary art outside the museum and gallery; by embracing theatricality and performance and exploding the boundaries set by traditional art criticism. The contributors argue that interpretation needs to be recognised as much more dynamic and contingent. Offering its own performance script, and embracing both canonical fine artists such as Manet, De Kooning and Jasper Johns, and performance artists such as Vito Acconci and Gunter Brus, this book offers radical re-readings of art works and points confidently towards new models for understanding art.

Reframing Decadence

Reframing Decadence
Title Reframing Decadence PDF eBook
Author Peter Jeffreys
Publisher Cornell University Press
Pages 272
Release 2016-02-19
Genre Art
ISBN 1501701258

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During his sojourn in England during the 1870s, a young Cavafy found himself enthralled by the aesthetic movement of cosmopolitan London. It was during these years that he encountered the canvases and personalities of Pre-Raphaelite painters, including Burne-Jones and Whistler, as well as works of aesthetic writers who were effecting a revolution in British literary culture and channeling influences from France that would gradually coalesce into an international decadent movement. In Reframing Decadence, Peter Jeffreys returns us to this critical period of Cavafy’s life, showing the poet’s creative indebtedness to British and French avant-garde aesthetes whose collective impact on his poetry proved to be profound. In the process, Jeffreys offers a critical reappraisal of Cavafy’s relation to Victorian aestheticism and French literary decadence. Foremost among the tropes of decadence that captivated Cavafy were the decline of imperial Rome, the rise of Christianity, and the lingering twilight of Byzantium. The influence of Walter Pater on Cavafy’s view of classical and late-antique history was immense, inflected as it was with an unapologetic homoerotic aesthetic that Cavafy would adopt as his own, making Pater’s imaginary portraits an important touchstone for his own historicizing poetry. Cavafy would move beyond Pater to explore a more openly homoerotic sensuality but he never quite abandoned this rich Victorian legacy, one that contributed greatly to his emergence as a global poet. Jeffreys concludes by considering Cavafy’s current popularity as a gay poet and his curious relation to kitsch as manifest in his ongoing popularity via translation and visual media.

The Wheel of Ideals

The Wheel of Ideals
Title The Wheel of Ideals PDF eBook
Author David Bishop
Publisher Lulu.com
Pages 474
Release 2006-08-01
Genre Education
ISBN 184728535X

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The Wheel of Ideals shows three families of ideals, the heroic, civic and altruistic, that sometimes work together and sometimes conflict. Every ideal has its true believers, and unbelievers: some people believe in it strongly, others less strongly, and others not at all--or so they claim. As ideals divide, people also divide. We can't all get along, perfectly, all the time, even with ourselves. Why not? Do we need conflict to make progress? Is perfect peace too peaceful? As ideals can be ignored or betrayed, they can also be carried too far, into decadence: dionysian overheating and the apollonian deep freeze. If you carried an ideal too far, how would you come to realize your mistake? How would you feel the gravity, the balancing pull, of the ideal calling you home? Without failure, without going too far, what is lost? What is the good of all these ideals, and these forms of decadence? The Wheel of Ideals suggests that we will go on asking these questions.

Punch

Punch
Title Punch PDF eBook
Author
Publisher
Pages 510
Release 1928
Genre English wit and humor
ISBN

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The Dignity of Labour

The Dignity of Labour
Title The Dignity of Labour PDF eBook
Author Jon Cruddas
Publisher John Wiley & Sons
Pages 143
Release 2021-04-08
Genre Political Science
ISBN 1509540806

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Does work give our lives purpose, meaning and status? Or is it a tedious necessity that will soon be abolished by automation, leaving humans free to enjoy a life of leisure and basic income? In this erudite and highly readable book, Jon Cruddas MP argues that it is imperative that the Left rejects the siren call of technological determinism and roots it politics firmly in the workplace. Drawing from his experience of his own Dagenham and Rainham constituency, he examines the history of Marxist and social democratic thinking about work in order to critique the fatalism of both Blairism and radical left techno-utopianism, which, he contends, have more in common than either would like to admit. He argues that, especially in the context of COVID-19, socialists must embrace an ethical socialist politics based on the dignity and agency of the labour interest. This timely book is a brilliant intervention in the highly contentious debate on the future of work, as well as an ambitious account of how the left must rediscover its animating purpose or risk irrelevance.

Nietzsche on the Decadence and Flourishing of Culture

Nietzsche on the Decadence and Flourishing of Culture
Title Nietzsche on the Decadence and Flourishing of Culture PDF eBook
Author Andrew Huddleston
Publisher
Pages 206
Release 2019
Genre Philosophy
ISBN 0198823673

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Andrew Huddleston presents a striking challenge to the standard view of Nietzsche as the champion of the great individual, and preoccupied with his own quasi-artistic self-cultivation. Huddleston focuses on Nietzsche's idea of a flourishing culture to bring out the deep social and collectivist character of his thought.