Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Art Discourse in the Sixteenth-Century Netherlands examines the later images by Bruegel in the context of two contemporary discourses - art theoretical and convivial. The first concerns the purely visual interactions between artists and artistic practices that unfold in pictures, which often transgress the categorical boundaries modern scholars place on their work, such as sacred and profane, antique and modern, and Italian and Northern. In this context, the images themselves - those of Bruegel, his contemporaries and predecessors - make up the primary source material from which the author argues. The second deals with the dialogue that occurred between viewers in front of pictures and the way in which pictorial strategies facilitated their visual experience and challenged their analytical capabilities. In this regard, the author expands his base of primary sources to include convivial texts, dialogues and correspondences, and texts by rhetoricians and Northern humanists addressing art theoretical issues. Challenging the conventional wisdom that the artist eschewed Italianate influences, this study demonstrates how Bruegel's later peasant paintings reveal a complicated artistic dialogue in which visual concepts and pictorial motifs from Italian and classical ideas are employed for a subject that was increasingly recognized in the sixteenth century as a specifically Northern phenomenon. Similar to the Dutch rhetorician societies and French Pl?de poets who cultivated the vernacular language using classical Latin, the function of this interpictorial discourse, the author argues, was not simply to imitate international trends, a common practice during the period, but to use it to cultivate his own visual vernacular language. Although the focus is primarily on Bruegel's later work, the author's conclusions are applied to sketch a broader understanding of both the artist himself and the vibrant artistic dialogue occurring in the Netherl

The late Renaissance sculptor Leone Leoni (1509-1590) came from modest beginnings, but died as a nobleman and knight. His remarkable leap in status from his humble birth to a stonemason's family, to his time as a galley slave, to living as a nobleman and courtier in Milan provide a specific case study of an artist's struggle and triumph over existing social structures that marginalized the Renaissance artist. Based on a wealth of discoveries in archival documents, correspondence, and contemporary literature, the author examines the strategies Leoni employed to achieve his high social position, such as the friendships he formed, the type of education he sought out, the artistic imagery he employed, and the aristocratic trappings he donned. Leoni's multiple roles (imperial sculptor, aristocrat, man of erudition, and criminal), the visual manifestations of these roles in his house, collection, and tomb, the form and meaning of the artistic commissions he undertook, and the particular successes he enjoyed are here situated within the complex political, social and economic contexts of northern Italy and the Spanish court in the sixteenth century.

In June 2012, scholars from a number of disciplines and countries gathered in Stockholm to discuss the representation of ancient mythology in Renaissance Europe. This symposium was an opportunity for the participants to cross disciplinary borders and to problematize a well-researched field. The aim was to move beyond a view of mythology as mere propaganda in order to promote an understanding of ancient tales and fables as contemporary means to explain and comprehend the Early Modern world. W ...

This groundbreaking collection of essays by a host of international authorities addresses the many aspects of the Danse Macabre, a subject that has been too often overlooked in Anglo-American scholarship. The Danse was once a major motif that occurred in many different media and spread across Europe in the course of the fifteenth century, from France to England, Germany, Scandinavia, Poland, Spain, Italy and Istria. Yet the Danse is hard to define because it mixes metaphors, such as dance, di ...

Twelve studies by eminent art historian James S. Ackerman. This collection contains studies written by art historian James Ackerman over the past decade. Whereas Ackerman's earlier work assumed a development of the arts as they responded to social, economic, political, and cultural change, his recent work reflects the poststructural critique of the presumption of progress that characterized Renaissance and modernist history and criticism. In this book he explores the tension between the authority of the past—which may act not only as a restraint but as a challenge and stimulus—and the potentially liberating gift of invention. He examines the ways in which artists and writers on art have related to ancestors and to established modes of representation, as well as to contemporary experiences. The "origins" studied here include the earliest art history and criticism; the beginnings of architectural drawing in the Middle Ages and Renaissance; Leonardo Da Vinci's sketches for churches, the first in the Renaissance to propose supporting domes on sculpted walls and piers; and the first architectural photographs. "Imitation" refers to artistic achievements that in part depended on the imitation of forms established in practices outside the fine arts, such as ancient Roman rhetoric and print media. "Conventions," like language, facilitate communication between the artist and viewer, but are both more universal (understood across cultures) and more fixed (resisting variation that might diminish their clarity). The three categories are closely linked throughout the book, as most acts of representation partake to some degree of all three.