Medieval & Renaissance History Archive

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    An Imperfect World

    Follow @yaleSCIbooks The early days of scientific investigation resulted in extraordinary collaborations between the artistic community and the scientific one.  Many examples of these concerted efforts to explore, chart, map, […]

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    Images of Space: Then and Now

    Photographs from this month’s Perseid meteor shower from the International Space Station follow a long tradition of science and art blurring boundaries between each other. As curator Susan Dackerman argues in Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe, the catalog for Harvard Art Museums’ exhibition opening September 6, art and science often have a close relationship with only vaguely definable boundaries.

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    Postcard from Rome

    Anyone who has been to Rome knows how vital water is to the city’s landscape: among the must-see tourist destinations are the Tiber River, Rome’s aqueducts, and its many public […]

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    Rembrandt’s Revolutionary Jesus

    How could a man who lived a millennium and a half after Jesus have drawn him from life? Because Rembrandt was the first artist to use a live model for Christ, the origins of his portraits remained a mystery for a long time. Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus, edited by Lloyd DeWitt, discusses these paintings and drawings from an exhibition opening tomorrow at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

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    Invention and Reinvention in the French Renaissance

    Many early perceptions of French culture saw France as “a secondary player or latecomer” to the Renaissance. Kings, Queens, and Courtiers: Art in Early Renaissance France, edited by Martha Wolff, asserts that French aristocrats and artists formed their artistic identity “by means of selective assimilation” and deserves a place as an originator of the Renaissance.

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    The Invention of France: Happy Bastille Day!

    Before the trois-couleurs, before the Eiffel Tower, before the Larousse Gastronomique, a 15th-century artist named Jean Fouquet was at work creating images that were utterly and exclusively French – though, at that time, saying “That is so… French!” might not have been very meaningful to many people. In a new book entitled Jean Fouquet and the Invention of France: Art and Nation after the Hundred Years War, Erik Inglis shows us that Fouquet was, in fact, shaping a national identity through his court painting for Charles VII and Louis XI.

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  • Roberta Smith reviewed “Set in Stone: The Medieval Face in Sculpture” in the New York Times today. The exhibit is currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and […] 0

    Set in Stone

    Roberta Smith reviewed “Set in Stone: The Medieval Face in Sculpture” in the New York Times today. The exhibit is currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and […]

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