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Giotto’s Arena Chapel and the Triumph of Humility takes its lead from three features of the famous monument that each engage the question of time, material, and immateriality: 1. the painted, faux marble panels that line the interior of the chapel, 2. the faded polychrome relief figures of the virtues and vices in the lowest […]
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The HBO series Game of Thrones is perhaps the most recent expression of the general view that the Middle Ages were rape-prone. Humiliation and exploitation of female (and male) characters repeatedly come together with direct sexual violence, which is only partially reframed through a series of revenge-sequences in the last season. The cinematic quality of […]
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The Renaissance theorist and architect Leon Battista Alberti imagined houses as living beings: when they are happy they welcome you to their ‘bosom’, the central hall; when they are badly sited they feel humiliated, ‘enjoying no dignity’ and ‘taking no pleasure’. Gendered as feminine, the building loves to ‘gaze out’ at her surrounding landscape, ‘both […]
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Around 1248, the merchants of Flanders submitted a complaint to the French king Louis IX about the malfeasance of customs agents at the Franco-Flemish border at Bapaumes. Among the specific complaints regarding their overreaching exercise of power is the anecdote of a young man from Bruges who was travelling with 28 headless and tailless herrings, […]
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Architecture and Material Politics in the Fifteenth-century Ottoman Empire stems from my research on Ottoman architecture, which I began in summer 2014, shortly before the publication of my first book, Rebuilding Anatolia after the Mongol Conquest. That book addresses buildings located in Turkey, which were built for Muslim patrons in the second half of the […]
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Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus is a darling of the art world. The windblown goddess appears on calendars, magnets, aprons, and handbags. At Epcot (Disney Land Resorts), visitors can step inside the painting and pose as Venus – clothing is required! In addition to kitsch reproductions, the Birth of Venus has also inspired original works […]
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Katharina Lorenz recounts her research process in answering the question: how – or by what analytical means – can we use mythological imagery reliably to write about ancient societies? And examines the benefits of this. Her book, Ancient Mythological Images and their Interpretation, is available now.
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Stuart Sillars, author of Shakespeare and the Visual Imagination, examines how concepts in visual art are portrayed in Shakespeare’s plays and poetry, from the Reclining Venus in A Midsummer Night’s Dream to the emblematic depiction of Lavinia in Titus Andronicus. You can also find out more about Stuart Sillars’ books on his collection page.
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