Secular Sacred


Book Description

"Published in conjunction with an exhibition of the same title at the McMullen Museum of Art from February 19 to June 4, 2006, this volume explores multiple ways in which medieval and early modern objects communicated both sacred and secular messages to their audiences. Focusing on paintings, illuminated texts, tapestries, silks, sculptures, ceramics and metalwork, many previously unpublished, from the collections of two distinguished Boston institutions, the authors of the volume's thirteen essays take an inventive and interdisciplinary approach to the study of the subjects, functions, and receptions of works of art from the eleventh through the sixteenth century. By re-thinking scholars' traditional division of objects into secular and sacred categories and by examining the history of these classifications, the authors decode images from various perspectives, revealing how lines between the two categories blur for individual works."--BOOK JACKET.







A Secular Age


Book Description

The place of religion in society has changed profoundly in the last few centuries, particularly in the West. In what will be a defining book for our time, Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean, and what, precisely, happens when a society becomes one in which faith is only one human possibility among others.




Negotiating Secular and Sacred in Medieval Art


Book Description

Offering original analysis of the convergence between 'sacred' and 'secular' in medieval works of art and architecture, this collection explores both the usefulness and limitations of these terms for describing medieval attitudes. The modern concepts of 'sacred' and 'secular' are shown to be effective as scholarly tools, but also to risk imposing false dichotomies. The authors consider medieval material culture from a broad perspective, addressing works of art and architecture from England to Japan, and from the seventh to the fifteenth century. Although the essays take a variety of methodological approaches they are unified in their emphasis on the continuing and necessary dialectic between sacred and secular. The contributors consciously frame their interpretations in terms and perspectives derived from the Middle Ages, thereby demonstrating how the present art-historical terminology and conceptual frameworks can obscure the complexity of medieval life and material culture. The resonance among essays opens possibilities for productive cross-cultural study of an issue that is relevant to a diversity of cultures and sub-periods. Introducing an innovative approach to the literature of the field, this volume complicates and enriches our understanding of social realities across a broad spectrum of medieval worlds.




Sacred Possessions


Book Description

This innovative study explores how interpretations of religious art change when it is moved into a secular context.




Baroque Seville


Book Description

Baroque art flourished in seventeenth-century Seville during a tumultuous period of economic decline, social conflict, and natural disasters. This volume explores the patronage that fueled this frenzy of religious artistic and architectural activity and the lasting effects it had on the city and its citizens. Amanda Wunder investigates the great public projects of sacred artwork that were originally conceived as medios divinos—divine solutions to the problems that plagued Seville. These commissions included new polychromed wooden sculptures and richly embroidered clothing for venerable old images, gilded altarpieces and monumental paintings for church interiors, elaborate ephemeral decorations and festival books by which to remember them, and the gut renovation or rebuilding of major churches that had stood for hundreds of years. Meant to revive the city spiritually, these works also had a profound real-world impact. Participation in the production of sacred artworks elevated the social standing of the artists who made them and the devout benefactors who commissioned them, and encouraged laypeople to rally around pious causes. Using a diverse range of textual and visual sources, Wunder provides a compelling look at the complex visual world of seventeenth-century Seville and the artistic collaborations that involved all levels of society in the attempt at its revitalization. Vibrantly detailed and thoroughly researched, Baroque Seville is a fascinating account of Seville’s hard-won transformation into one of the foremost centers of Baroque art in Spain during a period of crisis.




The Sacred and the Secular University


Book Description

This secularization has long been recognized as a decisive turning point in the history of American education. John Roberts and James Turner identify the forces and explain the events that reformed the college curriculum during this era.".




The Gothic Image


Book Description

Emile Male's book aids understanding of medieval art and medieval symbolism, and of the vision of the world which presided over the building of the French cathedrals. It looks at French religious art in the Middle Ages, its forms, and especially the Eastern sources of sculptural iconography used in the cathedrals of France. Fully illustrated with many footnotes it acts as a useful guide for the student of Western culture.




Painted Palaces: The Rise of Secular Art in Early Renaissance Italy


Book Description

Even many Renaissance specialists believe that little secular painting survives before the late fifteenth century, and its appearance becomes a further argument for the secularizing of art. This book asks how history changes when a longer record of secular art is explored. It is the first study in any language of the decoration of Italian palaces and homes between 1300 and the mid-Quattrocento, and it argues that early secular painting was crucial to the development of modern ideas of art. Of the cycles discussed, some have been studied and published, but most are essentially unknown. A first aim is to enrich our understanding of the early Renaissance by introducing a whole corpus of secular painting that has been too long overlooked. Yet "Painted palaces" is not a study of iconography. In examining the prehistory of painted rooms like Mantegna's Camera Picta, the larger goal is to rethink the history of early Renaissance art.




On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art


Book Description

Can contemporary art say anything about spirituality? John Updike calls modern art "a religion assembled from the fragments of our daily life," but does that mean that contemporary art is spiritual? What might it mean to say that the art you make expresses your spiritual belief? On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art explores the curious disconnection between spirituality and current art. This book will enable you to walk into a museum and talk about the spirituality that is or is not visible in the art you see.