Antoine Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy (1755-1849) was the most important Neoclassical art historian in the generation after Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768). It is difficult now to appreciate his importance, due in part to the lack of translations of his 21 published books: three were rendered into English in the 19th century, and one in the 21st. The Moral Considerations has long been considered the most shattering polemic against public museums ever written. But I will show that Quatremère’s polemic was aimed, not against museums per se, but rather against the imperialist and secularist curatorial purposes of Parisian museums in the age of Revolution. His Neoclassical commitments maintained the centrality of religion, and of incarnation, to any proper understanding of the place and purpose of the fine arts.

Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy was widely regarded as the pre-eminent art theorist of his day and exerted tremendous influence over the development of the arts in nineteenth-century France, publishing over twenty books over his career. Translated into English for the first time by Michel-Antoine Xhignesse, this 1837 treatise on imitation in the arts represents one of his major theoretical works. Quatremère de Quincy argues, against the prevailing opinion of the day, that artistic imitation aims at communicating the essence of the thing represented (ideal imitation), rather than merely faithfully reproducing its life appearance (real imitation). In order to communicate the essence, he argues, the artist must prioritize the contributions of her imagination over the choice and appearance of her model. This represented a significant departure from other accounts of ideal imitation, such as Batteux’s or Winckelmann’s, which instead advocated combining the best features of several different models.

Quatremère's Moral Considerations (1815) highlights fine art as it was then being displayed in public art museums and questions whether public art museums can properly serve the fine arts or can only serve imperialism. Ruprecht provides an English translation of this work that is still relevant today.

Aesthetics: 50 Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Thought Experiments is a teaching-focused resource, which highlights the contributions that imaginative scenarios—paradoxes, puzzles, and thought experiments alike—have made to the development of contemporary analytic aesthetics. The book is divided into sections pertaining to art-making, ontology, aesthetic judgements, appreciation and interpretation, and ethics and value, and offers an accessible summary of ten debates falling under each section. Each entry also features a detailed annotated bibliography, making it an ideal companion for courses surveying a broad collection of topics and readings in aesthetics. Key Features: Uses a problem-centered approach to aesthetics (rather than author- or theory-centered) making the text more inviting to first-time students of the subject Offers stand-alone chapters, allowing students to quickly understand an issue and giving instructors flexibility in assigning readings to match the themes of the course Provides up-to-date, annotated bibliographies at the end of each entry, amounting to an extensive review of the literature on contemporary analytic aesthetics

Anne Carson (b. June 21, 1950, in Toronto, Canada) is one of the most versatile of contemporary classicists, poets, and translators in the English language. In Reach without Grasping, Louis A. Ruprecht Jr. explores the role played by generic transgressions on the one hand, and by embodied spirituality on the other, throughout Carson’s ambitious literary career. Where others see classical dichotomies (soul versus body, classical versus Christian), Carson sees connection. Like Nietzsche before her, Carson decries the images of the Classics as merely bookish and of classicists as disembodied intellects. She has brought religious, bodily erotics back into the heart of the classical tradition.

Drawing from nature experience, dance, anthropology, and shamanism, Dr. Eline Kieft explores improvised movement as a pathway to insight, healing, transformation, and direct interaction with source. Dancing in the Muddy Temple takes the reader on a journey through multiple layers of embodied spirituality based in movement and embedded in the land. Addressing existential questions outside of mainstream religions, the book seeks possibilities for a spirituality that dances with the sacred life force within and all around us. Starting within the body, and always using movement as a way of knowing, Kieft expands on further concrete and subtle layers of connection. A sensorial immersion in the land develops into an expansion of consciousness and meeting intangible aspects of nature. After exploring the role of ceremony in contemporary times, the book concludes with an unexpected chapter on healing, drawing together insights for a dynamic approach to health and wholeness as innate part of an embodied spirituality. Moving seamlessly between her personal, professional, and academic background, Kieft creates an unusual scholarship in which bodily and autobiographical narrative are neatly interwoven with interdisciplinary literature. Its uniqueness lies in a radical integration of theory and practice, which brings an aliveness to the material that stirs an inquisitive desire to move, rooted in language that inspires confidence for personal inquiry into a rich and complex territory. This inspiring book offers an intricate road map to explore and strengthen the interwovenness of various layers of self, surroundings and the sacred, distilling tools for a practical, moving spirituality of the everyday.

Teyler’s Foundation in Haarlem and its ‘Book and Art Room’ of 1779, edited by Ellinoor Bergvelt and Debora Meijers, examines for the first time this remarkable institution in the context of scientific, museological, political, artistic, religious and philosophical developments.