Jerrilynn Dodds (Edit.) - Al-Andalus: The Art Of Islamic Spain (Inglês)

A goal of this book, the first publication in over forty years to study the art and architecture of al-Andalus in depth, is to reveal the value of these arts as part of an autonomous culture and also as a presence with deep significance for both Europe and the Islamic world. Toward this end, twenty-four international scholars have contributed a wide-ranging series of essays and catalogue entries in which the art, architecture, and cultural climate of al-Andalus are approached from a broad variety of perspectives. A significant achievement of this volume, in fact, is that it brings together American and European scholars, two groups that until now have worked largely in isolation from each other. Most of the art and architecture that remains from Islamic Spain was produced for palatine settings and aristocratic patrons; representing, as these works do, almost eight centuries of history, they issue from diverse rules and traditions. The lavishly illustrated essays and catalogue entries present the full spectrum of the art of al-Andalus: intricately carved ivories, metalwork, and ceramics, luxurious textiles, jewelry, arms, marble capitals, stucco panels, and tiles, as well as major monuments of religious and secular architecture such as the Great Mosque of Córdoba, the palace city of Madinat al-Zahra, and the Alhambra. The texts unfold chronologically to trace the brilliant architecture and courtly arts of the Umayyad caliphate, the refined and original accomplishments of the succeeding Taifa kingdoms, the more rigorous contributions of the Almoravids and Almohads who followed, and, finally, the opulent palaces and objects created for the Nasrids of Granada, the last Muslim dynasty in Spain.

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Kurt Weitzmann (Edit.) - Age Of Spirituality: A Symposium (Inglês)

In 1977 The Metropolitan Museum of Art presented Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century, the largest exhibition ever to focus on the period that spans the transition between the classical and medieval ages. In keeping with the didactic spirit of the exhibition, the Museum held a symposium in November 1977 to provide the public with a broad background for appreciation of this little-known field and to offer art historians the provocative speculations and conclusions of their colleagues. In addition to art history, the distinguished scholars who participated in the symposium discussed the theology, literature, politics, economics, and architecture of the first centuries of the Christian Era. With its treatment of this complex period in scope and depth, Age of Spirituality: A Symposium is an ideal companion volume to the comprehensive exhibition catalogue, published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in association with Princeton University Press.

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Metropolitan Museum Journal Vol. 49 (Inglês)

The Metropolitan Museum Journal is issued annually by The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Its purpose is to publish original research on works in the Museum’s collection. Articles are contributed by members of the Museum staff and other art historians and specialists.

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Katell Le Bourhis (Edit.) - The Age Of Napoleon: Costume From Revolution To Empire, 1789–1815

This book was published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1989. However, it is more than simply an exhibition catalogue, and in fact there isn't even a full listing in the book of the items that were on display. However, what this book does do is explore the changes of costume in France and America that occurred during the years of Napoleon's rule in France from 1789 to 1815.

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Kate Ezra - African Ivories (Inglês)

This publication details a 1984 special exhibition of African ivories drawn from outside institutions and meant to augment the understanding of the permanent collection of the arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas in The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The exhibition is an assemblage of more than seventy works, a selection of ivories from sub-Saharan Africa that, in craftsmanship and invention, are of an especially high level. We cannot help but marvel at the skill with which African artists have exploited ivory for maximum expressive and luxuriant effects. As a material, ivory also possesses qualities and associations that enhance the meanings of objects carved from it. The value of ivory as an article of trade, its identification with an animal as powerful as the elephant, and its physical properties such as color and hardness contribute to the signficance of ivory in African art. Because of its durability, ivory is one of the media in African art that has best survived the ravages of time and climate. A number of pieces in this exhibition date as far back as the late fifteenth century and testify to the courtly and structured societies that flourished in Africa. This evocation of the past is underscored by the wonderful tonal range in the patinas—those tawny, russet, or aureate surfaces often created through contact with human hands. [This book was originally published in 1984 and has gone.

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Eric Kjellgren & Carol S. Ivory - Adorning The World: Art Of The Marquesas Islands (Inglês)

Known for the elegance and complexity of their decorative art, Marquesan artists were described by Paul Gauguin as possessing "an unheard of sense of decoration" in all they created. The extraordinary ways in which Marquesans adorned their world are reflected in virtually every type of object they made and used—from sacred figures of gods and ancestors to items that were purely functional. Long admired by artists, writers, and scholars, the art and culture of the Marquesas Islands have until recently been unfamiliar to larger audiences. However, the artists of the Marquesas archipelago were among the most accomplished in the Pacific. Their work was fashioned from a diversity of materials in forms ranging from delicate ivory ornaments and luxuriant featherwork to imposing figural sculpture in wood and stone. The human body was also an important focus for artistic expression. Adorned with finely crafted ornaments, elaborate coiffures, and intricate tattoos that sometimes covered the entire body, Marquesans themselves became living art forms. The vivid imagery of Marquesan art is testament to the myriad beings and creatures who inhabited the Marquesan universe—gods, ancestors, humans, lizards, turtles, fish—and to the islands' complex social and political organization. These art forms are explored in the present volume, published in conjunction with the exhibition "Adorning the World: Art of the Marquesas Islands," held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. In their catalogue essays, Eric Kjellgren, the Metropolitan's Evelyn A. J. Hall and John A. Friede Associate Curator of Oceanic Art, and Carol S. Ivory, Professor and Chair of the Department of Fine Arts at Washington State University, place the artistic traditions of the Marquesas within their cultural and historical context, giving insights into their distinctive visual imagery and their enduring influence on Western art and literature.

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Claus Virch - The Adele And Arthur Lehman Collection (Inglês)

This catalogue tries to record and thus to preserve an aspect of life and culture in New York that is fast vanishing. Most great works of art are now in educational institutions, but those still in private collections, when assembled with love and understanding and arranged in harmonious surroundings, take on a living quality and an intimate appeal that they lose in a museum. The Adele and Arthur Lehman collection is a very personal one, in which each painting, each tapestry, each piece of porcelain has its chosen place in owners’ home, giving pleasure and enhancing their lives. There are fine, antique Persian rugs, worn thin by generations of children and grandchildren, cassones and fireplaces from Italy, English eighteenth century chairs and tables, old paneling, and all the many smaller items that create a beautiful ensemble for living. This catalogue, however, is devoted mainly to the paintings.

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Paula Lieber Gerson (Edit.) - Abbot Suger And Saint-Denis (Inglês)

Suger, abbot of the French abbey of Saint-Denis, lived from 1081 to 1151. This book of essays about his life and achievements grew out of a symposium sponsored by the International Center of Medieval Art and by Columbia University. The symposium was held in 1981 simultaneously at The Cloisters and Columbia University in conjunction with an exhibition at The Cloisters that commemorated the 900th anniversary of Suger's birth. For the symposium, twenty-three medieval scholars from all parts of the world, representing a wide range of humanistic disciplines, were brought together to discuss the varied nature of Suger's activities. Suger has been best known for his contributions as a patron of art and architecture. As H.W. Janson wrote, "The origin of no previous style can be pinpointed as exactly as that of Gothic. It was born between 1137 and 1144 in the rebuilding, by Abbot Suger, of the Royal Abbey Church of Saint-Denis, just outside the city of Paris." Within decades of its "invention," the style spread throughout the Capetian domains and by the thirteenth century to all of Europe where it dominated architecture for the next two to three hundred years. Perhaps because Suger's achievements in art and architecture were so extraordinary, they have eclipsed the public's awareness of his crucial role in the growth of the Capetian monarchy and in other aspects of his participation in twelfth-century affairs. As royal advisor, Suger illustrates that superb collaboration between church and state so fundamental to an understanding of the development of the national states of Western Europe. As the essays in this volume devoted to Suger's political activities and historical writings demonstrate, he was, in addition to being a brilliantly innovative patron of architecture, an important architect of the French state. Only by bringing together differing humanistic perspectives on Suger and Saint-Denis has it been possible to achieve, for the first time, a fully rounded appreciation of a man who was, at the same time, a patron of the arts and literature, a politician who adroitly used his ecclesiastical position to enhance the growth and power of the monarchy, and a churchman consistently devoted to the promotion of the cult of Saint-Denis, the patron saint of his abbey and of France.

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