Renaissance Invention and the Haunted Infancy examines how and why a vast range of fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century European images of Christ's infancy allude either to his death or to the devil, and sometimes to both. Written as an essay on interpretation, the book addresses the bottomless ingenuity with which artists worked to embody two central yet ultimately elusive ideas: the sacrifice for which the Incarnation was necessary and evil poised to thwart the scheme of salvation. Because both are nominally nonexistent or suppressed in the moment pictured--a death not yet present for the Infant and a menace resisted by his coming--they convey absence or imminence in ways rarely attempted in earlier art. Although both kinds of allusion became pervasive in painting, prints, and sculpture and are widely familiar to modern observers, neither has ever been systematically addressed in art historical scholarship. With this gap as a core question, the study seeks answers among unmapped distances between Renaissance and modern approaches to meaning in religious images. Framed by an opening chapter that examines changing conceptions of subject matter and a concluding one that seeks to account for Renaissance fascination with these themes, the heart of the study is given to close scrutiny of an unusual variety of images (by such central figures as Bosch, Botticelli, Bruegel, Campin, Donatello, Gossaert, Michelangelo, and van der Weyden, among many others) and the means by which they engineer representation to guide singular kinds of thought. New perspectives emerge not only on certain core dynamics of meaning, but also on elementally related aims of a host of major works from the period.

A radical re-examination of 2,500 years of European art, deconstructing and demystifying its long history from ancient to present How has art evolved from the pursuit of the 'ideal' human form to a black square on a white canvas? Why is a banana duct-taped to a wall worth more on the art market than a beautiful seventeenth-century landscape? By taking art for what it actually is -- a piece of stone or wood, a sheet of paper with some lines drawn on it, a painted canvas -- this lively and accessible account shows how seemingly meaningless objects can be transformed into celebrated works of art. Breaking with conventional notions of artistic genius, Koenraad Jonckheere explores how stories and emotions give meaning to objects, and why changing historical circumstances result in such shifting opinions over time. Tracing its story from ancient times to present, A New History of Western Art reframes the evolution of European art and radically reshapes our understanding of art history. Published in association with Hannibal Books

The renaissance period has so much to share and to teach today’s young children. This book is all about the crazy but really impressive inventions made during the said period. Bring renaissance back to life in the eyes of your little ones when you buy this book. Go ahead and get a copy today.

Sensation is the subject of a burgeoning field in the humanities. This volume examines its role in the religious changes and transformations of early modern Europe. Sensation was not only central to the doctrinal disputes of the Reformation, but also critical in shaping new or reformed devotional practices. From this vantage point the book explores the intersections between the world of religion and the spheres of art, music, and literature; food and smell; sacred things and spaces; ritual and community; science and medicine. Deployed in varying, often contested ways, the senses were essential pathways to the sacred. They permitted knowledge of the divine and the universe, triggered affective responses, shaped holy environments, and served to heal, guide, or discipline body and soul. Contributors include Alfred Acres, Barbara Baert, Andrew R. Casper, Wietse de Boer, Sven Dupré, Iain Fenlon, Laura Giannetti, Christine Göttler, Jennifer R. Hammerschmidt, Joseph Imorde, Rachel King, Jennifer Rae McDermott, Walter S. Melion, Matthew Milner, Sarah Joan Moran, Yvonne Petry, and Klaus Pietschmann.

‘Quid est sacramentum?’ Visual Representation of Sacred Mysteries in Early Modern Europe, 1400–1700 investigates how sacred mysteries (in Latin, sacramenta or mysteria) were visualized in a wide range of media, including illustrated religious literature such as catechisms, prayerbooks, meditative treatises, and emblem books, produced in Italy, France, and the Low Countries between ca. 1500 and 1700. The contributors ask why the mysteries of faith and, in particular, sacramental mysteries were construed as amenable to processes of representation and figuration, and why the resultant images were thought capable of engaging mortal eyes, minds, and hearts. Mysteries by their very nature appeal to the spirit, rather than to sense or reason, since they operate beyond the limitations of the human faculties; and yet, the visual and literary arts served as vehicles for the dissemination of these mysteries and for prompting reflection upon them. Contributors: David Areford, AnnMarie Micikas Bridges, Mette Birkedal Bruun, James Clifton, Anna Dlabačková, Wim François, Robert Kendrick, Aiden Kumler, Noria Litaker, Walter S. Melion, Lars Cyril Nørgaard, Elizabeth Pastan, Donna Sadler, Alexa Sand, Tanya Tiffany, Lee Palmer Wandel, Geert Warner, Bronwen Wilson, and Elliott Wise.

In Gardens of Love and the Limits of Morality in Early Netherlandish Art, Andrea Pearson demonstrates how garden imagery defined bodily desire as a fundamental problem of human salvation, in which artists, patrons, and viewers alike had an interpretive stake.

Dramatic changes during the Reformation era in Northern Europe, such as witchcraft and new global discoveries, are examined through visual culture, both prints and paintings.