The article presents two trends in stuccowork, both based on models from France. One dates back to the early days of a renewal in the use of stucco in central and northern Germany after the Renaissance, while the other emerges only at the turn of the eighteenth century. These two trends, however, are distinct not only chronologically but also in their use of materials: lime stucco versus gypsum stucco. The article explains why this distinction developed, and how it influenced both the visual quality of the executed works and the artistic demands placed on the craftsmen. While the older stylistic trend was based on works executed in France — mostly known in the area under study only through hearsay and typically recreated using locally available material mixtures — the later trend drew primarily on French copperplate engravings. These prints served as inspiration for a reorientation of stucco decoration shortly before the eighteenth century. The article traces the origins of these influences and, where known, briefly introduces the artists and their specific material mixtures. Finally, the significance of stucco decoration is discussed within the context of the Baroque Gesamtkunstwerk — an integrated work of art combining architecture, painting, sculpture, stuccowork and garden design. The article also introduces a previously little-known source from the mid-eighteenth century that confirms this significance. This source helps to dispel a commonly held art historical prejudice by revealing which design models were truly famous in Central Germany at the time.
In sixteenth‑century Florence, public sculpture underwent a significant transformation of the male ideal: the graceful and refined figure of the ephebe, rooted in classical antiquity and celebrated by humanist thought, gradually gave way to a more virile and muscular form drawn from Herculean imagery. This shift, initiated by Michelangelo and developed by sculptors in the service of the Medici, mirrored the consolidation of ducal power. The male nude emerged as a key instrument of political legitimation, blending classical beauty, martial energy, and erotic charge into a symbolic sculptural language. The Florentine urban space was thus reconfigured as an ideological stage, where domination was enacted through the representation of the male body.
Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform
The subject of the study is the bronze encolpion crosses found at the Vodyanskoe settlement, an urban culture monument of the Golden Horde era. Material and spiritual culture of the Russian Golden Horde urban population of the 14th century is the object under study of this paper. The author analyzes personal godliness practice items of the Russian cult copper sculpture connected with spread of Christianity. The encolpions under study and their fragments were found during archaeological excavations and artefactual remains collection at Vodyanskoye settlement at different times. The aim of the study is introduction into scholarly discourse, morphological description, typological and technological characterization of these finds from the Vodyanskoe settlement. Methods and approaches used in the study include description, typological analysis, metrical approach and measurement agenda used in staurometry, system approach including morphological analysis, chemical and technological Energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDXA). A comparison of the investigated material with the known encolpion crosses is performed. The research shows that the encolpions including their ornaments of leafs and parts discovered at the Vodyanskoe settlement are complete analogues in composition and iconography to the types of the encolpions found in the mediaeval Russian sites as well as in the other Golden Horde settlements. They can be attributed to the most numerous late Russian cross group dating back to no earlier than 13th century. Electron microprobe analysis (EMPA) of the two leafs showed that they were made up of leaded tin bronze with composition corresponding to the alloys used in Russia for encolpion casting. Winged crosses were cast into clay molds created from an impression of the finished product. The studied artifacts were interpreted in the context of the known data; they complement a handful of similar sample of items specific to the Russian population spiritual life in the 14th century. These bronze encolpion crosses are of different types the fact testifies to stylistic trends diversity in the mediaeval cult copper sculpture production of this period.
Introduction: Astronomical instruments were made in different eras to observe the condition of stars, to identify the time, and to predict the future. They were produced for observatories in large dimensions and for scientists in small and portable sizes. Following the development of Islam and the need to know the religious times and determine the direction of Qibla, the production of non-observational instruments such as Qiblanama (Qibla compass), compass, and sundials flourished with the cooperation of astronomers and metalworking artists. Since most of the studies conducted in this field have been focused on observational instruments, especially astrolabes, the present study considered designs of «non-observational instruments» of the Safavid period. The purpose of this research is to examine the form, type, material, especially motifs, and decorative techniques of non-observational instruments of the Safavid period (due to the remarkable progress of astronomy and related instruments in this period).Research Method: The current research is descriptive-analytical and comparative. The data collection was conducted through library sources and field surveys in museums inside or on the sites of museums outside Iran. In the current research, 35 instruments from the mentioned period have been examined.Results: The data of the research indicates that the non-observational astronomical instruments are primarily in four types of celestial spheres, Qiblanama (Qibla compass), compass, and sundials, and they are mainly made of brass. In the Safavid period, along with the shapes of constellations and inscriptions, plant motifs, prayers, and Persian poems in Naskh or Nastaliq were used for decoration. Also, the decorative techniques used in the instruments of this period, in addition to carving, were stone loading, silver inlay, gold inlay, and latticework.Conclusion: Most of the non-observational instruments made in the Safavid period had a personal function and were mainly used to find the way and recognize the direction of the Qibla and to identify the religious times, and were also used as gifts. It seems that the reason for the construction and production of these objects in the Safavid period was the significant expansion of commercial and political relations, the increase in travel, and the prosperity of communication with Europeans, and these relations influenced the presence of Roman script on some of these items.
This paper explores Oscar Nemon’s Center of Universal Ethics project, a visionary but unrealized endeavor within his utopian movement advocating for universal ethics. Drawing heavily from interwar modernist and avant-garde architecture, particularly Russian constructivism, the design resonates with Konstantin Melnikov’s architectural oeuvre. Through comparative analysis, the paper proposes hypotheses regarding the project’s origins and its relationship with Melnikov’s innovative architectural concepts.
Abstract Two deep water new species of turriforms are described from south Brazilian coast. One of them is the turrid Polystira tupan sp. nov., one of the largest species of the genus (~80 mm), with proper sculpture, shallow anal notch, collected off Santa Catarina, 350 m. The other is a cochlespirid that has been confused with Cochlespira elegans, a north Atlantic species; as it has different sculpture, shape, peripheric spines, etc., a new species, Cochlespira notomaris sp. nov., is introduced, occurring so far from off Santa Catarina to Rio Grande do Sul, 200-1,000 m. For comparative purposes, the holotype of C. elegans is also illustrated.
Images in film, paintings, sketches, and sculpture sometimes drive ideas home in ways that words on the page do not, prompting more visceral reactions and the desire to enact change instead of thinking about subjects on a more abstract level. This essay explores how the visual arts were used in a Fall 2020 course on Afrofuturist literature to supplement conventional readings, class discussions, and writing assignments, helping students to grasp many of the central principles of genre, such as re-visioning reality and undermining the “logics” established by colonial regimes, neo-colonial powers, and systemic racism; the ways that the past permeates the present; the possibilities of Africanist existence in a rich and productive future; how intersections of race, gender, and class influence artists' reconfigurations of artistic forms long dominated by White men. Several creative research projects, produced by students at the end of the semester, are described at length and analyzed to illustrate how they proccessed course concepts, and how Afrofuturist texts resonated in powerful ways during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Problem Definition: Among the schools of miniature paintings, those paintings left from the Shiraz school of the eighth century AH are significant and unique due to the preservation of the artistic traditions of ancient Iran and their expressive approach. Considering that the composition of the paintings based on the arrangement of the figures was one of the main features of the Shiraz school of miniature painting in the Al-Inju period, this study aimed to study and compare the method of characterization in the paintings of two illustrated manuscripts left from the Shiraz school, namely Samak-e Ayyār with 80 images and the Shāhnāmeh 733 AH with 52 images. In addition, it provides explanations about the characterization and design of the figures in Al-Inju miniature paintings and addresses the similarities and differences between the images of these two illustrated manuscripts.Objective: The present study aimed to identify and investigate the characterization of the Shiraz school of miniature painting through the visual analysis of the two illustrated manuscripts of Shāhnāmeh 733 (St. Petersburg) and Samak-e Ayyār (Oxford).Research Method: This research is qualitative in terms of the nature of data and is fundamental considering the purpose. Data collection is a library-based approach, and various instruments such as observation and checklist have been used in compiling the data and writing the research results.Results: The characters in the studied paintings can be divided into six groups based on their social status: kings, court women, non-court women, female Ayyār, servants, and warriors. The results of this study indicate that each of these six groups differs in following the visual conventions in terms of the type of costume and their physical placement mode in the paintings; the style and position of the characters in the two versions of paintings show their personality traits and social status in each story. In this way, the appearance and design of human characters are the same in both manuscripts, but the way the painter deals with the characters in each version is different. The painter of the Samak-e Ayyār illustrated manuscript has provided more painting space for high-ranking characters, including kings. He portrayed kings, both good and evil, sitting on thrones while the painter of Shāhnāmeh 733 AH manuscript has considered the throne as a place to show royal oppression; the kings were not depicted seated on the throne in Shāhnāmeh manuscript unless they were on the side of evil.
Traditionally, indigenous evangelization has been directly associated with the religious image, context that has turned visual discourse into the link that overcame the language barriers present between the Spanish friars and the natives of the new lands. Taking such affirmation as a starting point in this article, we ask ourselves about the visual discourse established within the doctrinal field and its possible functionality within the framework of the “catechesis” of the indigenous. Starting from the inventories of the doctrine temples belonging to the Tunja zone, carried out within the framework of the Visit carried out by Andrés Verdugo and Oquendo between 1755 and 1756, this text then seeks to reconstruct the iconographic horizon of the doctrine in New Granada from 18th Century. From this, the role that devotion and the miracle played, will be determined, not only as axes of the visual discourse of the doctrine, but also as the nucleus of catechesis itself.
The Zagreb Green Horseshoe, or Zelena potkova in Croatian, is an original urban evocation of the Ringstraße in Vienna that represents an effort to create a characteristic urban space during the era of Historicism. This distinctive 19th century urban project provided an appropriate setting for monuments and sculptural decoration. Squares, parks and main streets thus became a stage where contemporaries encountered monuments to personalities whose memory was to be preserved. The evocation of historical figures as a part of the collective memory is one of the fundamental ideas behind erecting monuments in any public place. Zagreb, as a national metropolis, favoured monuments dedicated to persons who recalled the nation’s glorious past and to highly regarded individuals, artists and poets. This paper focuses on thirteen monuments that were erected from 1866 to 1914 in this model part of the city and discusses issues related to the clients, the artists and the individuals to whom they were dedicated. The monuments that extend along the Zelena potkova can match the monuments on the Ringstraße, both examples are part of a common heritage from the reign of Franz Joseph I of Austria.
The article follows the history of the Hirshhorn Museum of Art's Sculpture Garden in Washington DC and explores the highlights of the proposal that is being considered that will change the present sculpture garden design and layout. There is a summary of sculpture garden design throughout history and a review of the original garden that was designed by Gordon Bundshaft in 1974 and why it was changed by Lester Collins in 1981. It also explores how it has evolved into the present sculpture garden. It discusses the proposed garden design and the critical change the new design will have on the current garden and what are the supposed benefits and criticisms the new plan has caused.
Em seu difundido texto “O Artista como Etnógrafo,” Hal Foster evidencia nesta tendência da arte contemporânea, problemáticas recorrentes e de difícil resolução. Como versar artisticamente sobre o “outro,” sem infringir noções éticas? Ao fomentar a visibilidade das “minorias,” articulações em torno da alteridade são favoráveis à constituição de um contexto democrático. Entretanto, abordagens deste tipo servem, muitas vezes, à instrumentalização do “outro” pelo poder hegemónico. Para reflexionar sobre este dilema, o presente artigo observa aspetos do Indianismo e do Indigenismo sob perspetivas pós-coloniais. Além disso, a modo de conclusão, ensaia-se uma apreciação da arte contemporânea brasileira sob a perspetiva da abordagem metacultural.
Sculpted Renaissance medallions, inspired by ancient coins and clipeatae imagines, were developed in French monuments from around 1500 to 1550. First applied to the surface of the wall and restricted to a face, they showed, around 1530-1540, transformations related to the adaptation and variation of the body in the decoration. Characters in very high relief, sometimes represented up to the hips, were multiplied, freed from their frame, addressing the viewer and creating illusion games when they were placed in false windows. These decorations thus testify to the relationship between structure and sculpture and the growing humanisation of the wall.
Quando de suas primeiras reflexões sobre os gregos, Nietzsche concluiu que o aspecto formal das esculturas pré-helênicas revelava desejo de eternidade ou “otimismo”. Nesse artigo irei aproximar essas reflexões ao estilo que ficou conhecido entre nós como “Modernista”, haja vista algumas similaridades formais. Pretendo argumentar que esse estilo teve caráter de “necessidade”, todavia uma necessidade que não encontrou paralelo nos ideais dos seus criadores e críticos. Entendê-lo como “necessário” levará à constatação de sua “inocência”. Com esses argumentos pretendo questionar o modo como a “Pós-modernidade”, ao referir-se ao “Modernismo” como algo a ser “corrigido”, desconsidera seu caráter “necessário”, negando-lhe a “inocência”.
When Nietzsche first reflected about Greeks, he concludes that the formal aspect of Pre-Hellenic sculpture reveled desire for eternity or “optimism”. In this paper, I will approach those reflections to one Style, which among us, became known as “Modernist”, given some formal similarities. I intend to argue that this Style was necessary, but not in that way its creators and critics expect it happen. Understand it as necessary will make us realize it was also innocent. With these arguments I intend to question the way that “Post-Modernity”, when it refers to “Modernism”, claims it should be corrected, and in doing that deny its “innocence”.
This article examines the depiction of archaeology in Henry James’s short story “The Last of the Valerii” (1874). Looking, at the same time, back to Prosper Merimée’s use of the fantastic in “La Venus d’Ille” (1837) and forwards to Sigmund Freud’s parallel between archaeology and psychoanalysis in “The Aetiology of Hysteria” (1896), James sets up an intricate set of relations and metaphorical correspondences between stone and language, sculpture and literature, antiquity and modernity, aesthetics and psychology. “The Last of the Valerii” participates in a literary tradition of the archaeological fantastic that developed alongside the rise of classical archaeology as a tool of Altertumswissenschaft, in which authors employ narratives of the return of material objects from antiquity in order to explore difficult questions to do with transgressive desires, repression and sexual identity.
Agnès Le Gac, Sofia Pessanha, Maria Luísa de Carvalho
Portable energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (EDXRF) was used in the Alcobaça Monastery, in order to study the chromatic coatings applied to terracotta statues that belong to two seventeenth-century monumental groupings. The main goal of this scientific approach consisted in determining the elemental composition of the constitutive layers and in trying to reconstitute the existing polychromy, taking into account the technical aspects observed at naked eye. The measurements carried out by EDXRF allowed a first material characterization of these artworks. By comparing the results obtained in each statue, it was possible to attest the application of a seventeenth-century coating to each one and at least a subsequent intervention in the form of a refurbishment or a new polychromy. According to the materials employed in their production, it appears that the refurbishment is likely dated from the 19th century while the new polychromy is still dated from the 18th century.