European Baroque Research Articles

Allegory and dismemberment: reading Djuna Barnes' Nightwood through the forms of the baroque Trauerspiel

From the earliest reviews of ‘Nightwood’ by Graham Greene and T.S. Eliot, Barnes criticism has repeatedly acknowledged the novel's affinity with seventeenth century aesthetic forms. Not until Monika Kaup's 2005 article, in which she examines Barnes’ writing in the context of a Latin-American baroque, and suggests ‘Ladies Almanack’ as a parody of baroque hagiography, was this connection given detailed consideration. This article will examine the forms and techniques of ‘Nightwood’ in the context of the German seventeenth century Trauerspiel, or play of mourning, placing Barnes’ writing within a broader European baroque context. In an early section of discarded manuscript for the novel, Barnes introduces the idea of a ‘baroque sentence’, a form of expression characteristic of a particular era. Paying close attention to Walter Benjamin's study ‘The Origin of German Tragic Drama’, I will consider the character of Robin Vote as a signifier situated between symbol and allegory, Barnes’ preoccupation with the fractured human body, and the enigmatic figure of Dr O'Connor. If ‘Nightwood’ is to be considered as a modern counterpart to the Trauerspiel in many of its details, I will conclude by asking how does this affect Barnes’ identity as a modern writer?

Baroque New Worlds: Representation, Transculturation, Counterconquest (review)

Reviewed by: Baroque New Worlds: Representation, Transculturation, Counterconquest Pamela H. Long Lois Parkinson Zamora and Monika Kaup, eds., Baroque New Worlds: Representation, Transculturation, Counterconquest Durham: Duke University Press, 2010 Recently I did a brief Google search for the terms "Baroque" and "literature" and found an interesting database website that listed links to articles on Baroque accomplishments [End Page 261] in Western Civilization within the realms of cultural production such as art, literature, music, philosophy, science and "miscellaneous." Eager to see what the cataloguers of the site found of interest in the Spanish-speaking world, I was amused to find they had clumped Spain and Portugal together, but had completely eliminated Luso-Hispanic America from their definition of "Western Civilization." Russian historical and scientific notables were included under "Other," and the US was grouped with England. However, there were no links whatsoever to articles on cultural production anywhere in the Spanish or Portuguese colonies. I'm not surprised. I've seen the glazed eyes of colleagues who study European and American cultures when I mention the Hispanic Baroque. Our systems of education in the English-speaking world rarely expose us to Lope de Vega, Velázquez or Victoria, much less to Sor Juana, Villalpando or Sumaya. The culture of the United States came of age in the Enlightenment, with its accompanying disdain for the previous age's aesthetic of centrality and absolutism, summarily dismissing the cultural production of all of the Seventeenth Century and much of the early Eighteenth Century under the rubric of "Bad Taste." What Zamora and Kaup have done is make available to the English-reading public a series of critical essays that contextualize the Baroque of the New World–both the centripetal impulses of the Seventeenth Century, and the centrifugal fragmentation of the Neobaroque of the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries. As William Egginton has noted, Zamora's and Kaup's repositioning of the Baroque and the Neobaroque as "bookends to the modern period" conceptualizes the Baroque of the New World as an aesthetic of immense cultural value. The editors' introduction is a marvelous summary of the historical approaches to examining the culture of the Baroque, beginning with a reference to Cuban poet and cultural critic José Lezama Lima's parodic encapsulation of aesthetic movements: "The earth is Classical, the sea is Baroque." From here they guide the reader through the labyrinth of critical approaches, focusing on understanding the contemporary incarnations of the Baroque as being rooted and flowering in the cultural expression of Latin America: "excess, exaltation, exuberance." The book's subtitle, "Representations, Transculturation, Counterconquest," serve as the three divisions into which the editors organize the essays. Essays in the "Representation" section cover the European Baroque, the New World Baroque and Neobaroque in foundational essays by Nietzche, Wöfflin, Benjamin and Wellek as well as newly translated works by Latin American authors such as Alfonso Reyes, Severo Sarduy and Pedro Henríquez Ureña. "Transculturation" includes commentary on colonial practices by José Pascual Buxó and Jorge Ruedas de la Serna that have not previously been accessible to the English-reading audience. Especially useful and groundbreaking are the essays in "Counterconquest" by Roberto González Echevarría [End Page 262] and Irleman Chiampi. The translation of a chapter from Gonzalo Celorio's Ensayo de contraconquista opens new dialogue in the area of transculturation as a strategy for counterconquest. Zamora and Kaup's book represents a new refashioning of the term Baroque, as well as usefully engaging the term "Neo-Baroque" that reinvigorates and resituates discussions in the field of aesthetics and cultural criticism. [End Page 263] Pamela H. Long Auburn University Montgomery Copyright © 2011 Southern Comparative Literature Association

“In an Easy and Familiar Style:” Music Education and Improvised Accompaniment Practices in the U.S., 1820–80

A complimentary review of a performance by the Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1871 of William Bradbury's popular choral work, Esther, the Beautiful Queen, drew particular attention to the ensemble's accompanist, Ella Sheppard. The critic noted that Sheppard, an organist, played with true artistic touch, showing consummate skill and taste as well as a thorough knowledge of rules, as to and modulations. An examination of Bradbury's score reveals the abundance of musical rules Sheppard followed with considerable facility, for most of the work's numbers lack fully written-out accompaniments and none include figured bass symbols. The comments regarding Sheppard's performance, especially the observation of her familiarity with progressions and modulations, strongly imply that she improvised accompaniments. Ultimately, her unimpeachable ability at the keyboard improved the effect of the Singers' production of Esther, the Beautiful Queen. (3) Regardless of how much or how little of the accompaniment to Esther Sheppard may have worked out in advance, the fact remains that Bradbury's music manifests accompaniment practices commonplace in the U.S. during the years spanning approximately 1820 to 1880. Much of the music published in this time period consisted of tune book choral scores printed without accompaniment, or with accompaniments merely suggested by the use of figured bass symbols. In the absence of figured bass, a keyboard player of modest ability could create a functional accompaniment by simply doubling the pitches of some of the voice parts with little, if any, elaboration. Tune book scores not only facilitated these practices, but their format also reveals that American musicians retained certain fundamental expectations and assumptions associated with the European Baroque accompaniment tradition. In the very least, to realize an accompaniment from a tune book score required a basic knowledge of diatonic harmony and, in some cases, that the player be able to comprehend figured bass symbols. There were discernible differences between European and American accompaniment practices, however. In the U.S., the performance of improvised accompaniment endured decades beyond the European transition from the Baroque to the Classical style period. Aside from the matter of longevity, improvised accompaniment practices in Europe were largely associated with cultivated concert, operatic, sacred, or court repertoire. Conversely, tune book content consisted mostly of uncomplicated music not normally considered to represent the cultivated tradition, such as popular and religious songs and instructional pieces. Those who performed tune book accompaniments were usually amateurs, teachers, or church musicians, whereas European musicians who realized accompaniments, especially during the Baroque period, had generally learned their art through extensive, specialized training, often in a conservatory environment. In the discussion below I consider salient aspects of tune book accompaniment notation and practices prevalent in nineteenth-century U.S. during the era associated with Lowell Mason and the early decades of the music education movement. Tune books printed with standard notation rather than shape-notes will comprise the subject of this discussion. I will focus on a format common in tune books of this period: four-voice scores with each voice printed on a separate staff. Tune Books We have tune books without number, ... and a new tune book is wanted every year, just as the makers of them intend. James M. Hewins (1856) (4) Throughout the nineteenth century, the American publishing industry flooded the market with thousands of inexpensive tune books crammed with popular songs. (5) The commercially-driven format prevailed, in part, because Americans did not import the system of aristocratic and royal patronage that supported many celebrated European composers, performers, and publishing ventures. …

Composing Claims on Musical Instrument Development: A Science and Technology Studies' Contribution

The historiography of musical instrument design has long been dominated by organology: the science of musical instruments and their classification. Recently, however, scholars from Science & Technology Studies (STS) have also taken up the study of musical instrument development. This article reviews the newest organological and STS literature on musical instruments to show which questions and approaches STS has added to the rich work of the organologists. We first address the contribution of theories on innovation to the organologists' discussions of what counts as a genuinely new musical instrument, as well as to their explanations for the rise of such instruments. Second, our argument will show how STS scholars have studied settings of musical instrument design that are beyond the dominant paradigm of the organologists. One example is the recent interest in STS for the use and development of musical instruments in the context of the laboratory. Another example is the study of contemporary practices of 'retro-innovation': the reconstruction of early musical instruments, such as the replica design and restoration of North European baroque organs, and the reinvention of obsolete instruments. This article concludes with a few suggestions for the future study of musical instrument design from the perspective of STS.

Arnold Hauser e a literatura espanhola

A leitura da obra de Arnold Hauser, particularmente de seu livro Der Manierismus, de 1964, ao voltar-se para a história da literatura espanhola, nos permitiu superar as habituais catalogações embasadas apenas na cronologia, que predominam nos manuais dessa especialidade. Hauser chama de "Maneirismo" a crise da Renascença e distingue esse movimento dos Barrocos europeus. Alguns autores e obras espanholas dos séculos XVI e XVII, graças ao seu perspectivismo, à presença do paradoxo, à sua construção cerebral, à descoberta do leitor moderno, à sua autonomia como obras literárias, à superação dos gêneros clássicos, ao uso do diálogo, etc., respondem às características desse Maneirismo e, assim sendo, podem ser lidas como fundamentos da Modernidade literária.

Some drawings by Johann Georg Bergmüller (1688–1762) and his circle in the Silesian Regional Museum in Opava

The Silesian Regional Museum in Opava keeps, due to the acquisitions of its late director E. W. Braun, a small collection of Central European Baroque drawings. This study treats three drawings, whose common feature is a closer or freer bond to the work of the South German painter J. G. Bergmüller. A hitherto anonymous sheet depicting Christ as the heavenly judge can be newly included in his Oeuvre as a second preliminary study for the now damaged fresco in Barfüsserkirche in Augsburg (1723–1724). The second drawing with the scene of the Vision of Peter of Koblenz, traditionally attributed to Bergmüller, has been probably created by a master of his circle. The last drawing was then determined as a copy after the engraving by G. B. Göz, which reproduces Bergmüller's drawing.

Hispano-Incaic Architecture: A Wölfflinian View

In a pioneering application of Wölfflin’s style categories, Guido compares the development of architecture in Spain and Latin America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Developing from the “linear” towards the “painterly,” Spain’s architecture is identified as the “European Baroque” par excellence. The Hispano-Inca style, although prompted and influenced by the Spanish Baroque, inverts its qualities by returning to a “non-painterly,” “linear,” and almost Renaissance-like style. Although some “painterly” qualities can be found in what Guido labels the “Hispano-Aztec Baroque,” it is a “pseudo-painterly” style that is more restrained than its Spanish counterpart. In conclusion, the interpretation of the Spanish Baroque by Quechuas and Aymaras led to a new and distinct style.

The (Neo)Baroque Effect: A Critical Inquiry into the Transformation and Application of a Conceptual Field to Comparative American Studies

This essay was written in 1987 in French by the late Polish theorist and critic Marie-Pierrette Malcuzynski and translated by Wendy B. Faris. Malcuzynski explores the theories of the New World Baroque and Neobaroque developed by the Cuban writers Alejo Carpentier and Severo Sarduy and the Brazilian poet and essayist Haroldo de Campos from the 1960s through the 1980s. Together, they represent a specifically Latin American combination of postmodernism and postcolonialism, a combination that is based in the historical and literary realities of the region. The author moves from a definition of the European Baroque, including a detailed discussion of its various possible etymologies, to the American Baroque and places Carpentier, Sarduy, and de Campos in the company of a number of European theorists to test their American arguments and applications. Mikhail Bakhtin is primary among the European theorists, but Saussure and Kristeva are also central to her evaluation of Sarduy. While Malcuzynski remains critical of certain aspects of these theories, she also implies that their historical rootedness in Latin America and the Caribbean make them more useful analytical tools than, say, Foucault, Lyotard, Bhabha, or Spivak—postmodernist and postcolonial theorists all too eagerly adopted in Latin America after passing through the “gate” of U.S.-American and European academia.

From Saint Genesius to Kean: Actors, Martyrs, and Metatheater

Since Lionel Abel published his seminal work in 1963, considerable attention has been paid to metatheater, although there is still no firm consensus on a general definition of the phenomenon. (1) Even though some scholars claim to have found metatheater in antiquity and in non-Western drama, it is generally agreed that the European baroque (late sixteenth through mid-seventeenth century) and modernism (late nineteenth through mid-twentieth century) represent the most important and the most productive periods for a theater that comments on itself through self-conscious awareness of its own theatricality, usually through the medium of a play within the play. Comparatively examining individual plays from these two eras may eventually lead us to a better understanding of both baroque and modernist metatheater. One of the important contributions baroque playwrights made to theater was the introduction of actors as characters, even protagonists, in plays in which they play scenes--a genre that might be considered a subset of metatheater. The actor as character can of course be found in other periods as well, but baroque and modernist plays probe the nature of theater and illusion through these characters as others do not. Luigi Pirandello is the chief modernist example, although his variation might be called the character as actor. Jean-Paul Sartre, not usually thought of as either modernist or metatheatrical, acknowledges Pirandello's influence on his theater and displays his affinities with the baroque in the title of his monumental biography Saint Genet: Comedien et martyr, taken from Jean Rotrou's Le veritable Saint Genest, and in his play Le diable et le bon dieu, adapted from Cervantes's El rufian dichoso. (2) However, it is Sartre's adaptation of Alexandre Dumas's Kean, written just after the publication of Saint Genet, that best exemplifies a twentieth-century metatheatrical rewriting of the actor as saint and martyr as portrayed in Le veritable Saint Genest, itself an adaptation of a play by Lope de Vega. In order to understand Sartre's Kean through Rotrou's Genest, we must first look at Rotrou's models in the legend of Saint Genesius. Although the very existence of Saint Genesius is called into question by the Catholic Encyclopedia, he has a feast day (25 August) and continues to be venerated, especially as the patron saint of actors. (3) According to most accounts, Genesius was not only an actor, but also the equivalent of a director of a troupe of actors. Knowing of Diocletian's antipathy toward Christians, in the persecution of whom Genesius had participated, he prepared a satiric comedy on the subject in honor of the emperor's visit to Rome. While imitating a ceremony of baptism, Genesius suddenly lay down on the stage as if sick, saying that he felt a great weight on himself. He then asked to receive baptism in order to die as a Christian. Diocletian, thinking that this was all part of the comedy, laughed. Actors representing a priest and an exorcist came to the actor's side and performed a stage baptism; actors playing soldiers presented the Genesius to the emperor to be martyred. Genesius then revealed the truth: while he was being washed with the baptismal water, he had a vision of a company of angels who recited all of his sins from a book, then washed the book clean. He was thus really baptized by an angel. Genesius then admonished Diocletian and all present to believe in Jesus Christ, whereupon the enraged emperor ordered him to be beaten and then turned over to Plautian, the prefect of the praetorium, who had him put on the rack, torn with iron hooks, and burned with torches. The martyrdom occurred either in 286 or in 300. It is no surprise that at least since the thirteenth century, Genesius, who discovered truth through illusion, has been the patron saint of actors. His story seems perfectly suited to theatrical adaptation. Of course, the hagiographical legend can be glossed in either a pro- or anti-theatrical manner: Genesius may be seen as saved from the corrupting and sinful milieu of the theater through divine grace, or, on the contrary, the illusionary world of theater might function as the means of his salvation. …

Tile Renovation of Exterior Walls for the Taiwan Governor's Office

Completed in 1919, the Taiwan Governor's Office has been regarded as the symbol of authority in Taiwan from the colonization by Japan to the present. Its brilliant appearance of intertwined red bricks and white stones, originating from the European Baroque style in the 18th and 19th centuries, has been eroded by the harsh weather for more than 80 years. The exterior wall of red unglazed tiles is the most important material in the renovation project. It was originally manufactured by Shinagawa Shirorenga Co., Ltd. However, tile production ceased completely in Taiwan and Japan in 1935. The end of production resulted in the loss of this traditional manufacturing technology. Research has found that the most important factors for re-making the tiles successfully are: (i) firing temperature, (ii) reconstruction of manufacturing technologies and (iii) firing improvement. This made possible the reemergence of the original beautiful style and features of the Governor's Office. The conclusions of this research can be shared and referenced by those who are devoted to the renovation and preservation of historical buildings.

Musical Ritual in Mexico City: From the Aztec to NAFTA

This comparative study combines historical and ethnographic evidence to describe the uses of music and the shifting meanings of musical traditions across almost seven centuries of Mexican history (especially in Mexico City). Despite this colossal scope, Pedelty does not attempt to write a comprehensive history of Mexico through musical practices; in fact, his study is even more ambitious. Rather than providing a plain historical narrative, Pedelty seeks to explain the role of musical rituals as performances that emerge from specific historical, cultural, and political circumstances but are also agents of social change, cultural identification, and political resistance. His comparative approach emphasizes the contemporary coexistence of many of these musical traditions and the ways in which Mexicans have resignifed them according to their current political and social circumstances.Pedelty divides Mexican history into six large periods: the Aztec Empire, New Spain, the nineteenth century, the 1910 revolution, the modern period (1921 – 68), and the contemporary period (1968 – 2002). The book’s structure, alternating chapters of history and comparative ethnography, is conducive to Pedelty’s interdisciplinary goals. His intent is to first describe a particular music tradition historically and then explore its contemporary resonances ethnographically. He explains his theoretical apparatus in a separate appendix, allowing him to maintain a clear and concise prose throughout the main body of his text and scrupulously avoid jargon.Pedelty presents his argument most effectively in the sections devoted to the Aztec period and modern Mexico. The first interprets contemporary Conchero and Mexica dancers as metaphors of indigenous people’s needs to produce a sense of inclusion or autonomy, respectively, in a racially discriminatory society. The section on modern Mexico focuses on the urban success of bolero and danzón and their role in “gaining cultural citizenship in modernizing Mexico” (p. 149). His interesting discussion of bolero is momentarily disturbed by the sloppy selection of some of his musical examples (Agustín Lara’s “Noche de ronda” and “Farolito” are not boleros but stylized triple-meter waltzes and therefore articulate a different history than boleros). But Pedelty’s argument about cabaretera movies in relation to bolero, gender construction, and legendary feminine icons in Mexican popular culture (Coyolxauhqui, La Malinche, La Vírgen de Guadalupe, La Llorona, and La Adelita) is particularly appealing and informative.Most problematic is Pedelty’s treatment of colonial musical practices, nineteenth-century musics, and twentieth-century art music. Although he constructs a complex mosaic of colonial Mexican music by addressing a large variety of secondary sources, he fails to acknowledge some of the most attractive current work on the relationship between contemporary Mexican folk music and European baroque musical practices. His reliance on classic music scholarship to the expense of more recent work prevents him from articulating some of the scholarly discussions that might have better supported his goals. If he had engaged this scholarship (Antonio Corona, Eloy Cruz), he might have been able to illustrate the current life of colonial secular music in the instrumental and vocal techniques of the huapango or son jarocho traditions instead of relying on a single government-supported concert by the Hinojosa-Villey Duo. The survey of nineteenth-century Mexican music in part 3 lacks substance and is marred by a few factual errors. Antonio Gomezanda was not “a precursor of 20th-century nationalist composers” (p. 105), as Pedelty argues, but rather a nationalist composer (only a conservative, less modernistic one) active during the first part of the twentieth century. Nor was Cenobio Paniagua’s Catalina de Guisa (1859) the first Mexican opera (p. 105): Manuel Covarrubias composed Reinaldo y Elina o La sacerdotisa peruana more than ten years earlier, and Manuel de Sumaya’s La Parténope premiered in 1711, more than two centuries before Paniagua’s first opera. The discussion of Carlos Chávez and Silvestre Revueltas in chapter 12 is also problematic, as it reproduces a series of myths (Chávez as a nationalist/indigenista composer or the dichotomy of “sophisticated urban Chávez” versus “straightforward rural Revueltas”) that have been challenged by recent scholarship (Eduardo Contreras Soto, Alejandro L. Madrid, and Leonora Saavedra). Some of these weaknesses might be attributed to the lack of engagement with more up-to-date scholarship, but others are clearly the result of a careless reading of sources.Regardless of its shortcomings, Pedelty’s interdisciplinary effort should be noted. It would be interesting to read more texts combining ethnography and history as part of larger interpretative projects. This out-of-the-ordinary contribution to the study of musical cultures in Mexico would make an interesting reading for those concerned with Mexican music, culture, and history.

Interpretative symbiosis on organ

Several recent CDs featuring music from European Baroque traditions, played on superb organs, here illustrate the fundamental links between instrument, composition and performance practice. Recordings are especially vital for organists, who have a vast legacy of historical instruments from which to learn first hand about convincing playing styles for early music. In many cases the best way to demonstrate the application of various performance techniques is to document them with a recording made on a surviving organ in an acoustical setting; together these elements may reflect the appropriate sound aesthetic of the repertory. What is most striking about the recordings reviewed here is the strong symbiosis between the interpretations—each organist's choice of tempo and rhythmic flexibility, articulation, ornamentation—and the instruments, vividly bringing the music off the page and into our living rooms. It is heartening that well-informed and dedicated organists are making recordings of this calibre, enabling early music enthusiasts to experience, perhaps for the first time, performances where the interpretative style is directly inspired by the instrument's capabilities.

Influences baroques européennes dans l’art brancovane

The Brancovan style has developed under the sign of the Baroque -an artistic style manifested between the XVII-th and the XVIII-th centuries. For almost two centuries all Europe became baroque and through it, a good part of the entire world. The Brancovan style is famous in Europe through the assimilation of Baroque elements and trying an acquisition of new artistic conceptions, of a synthesis of influences. It was, though, a Baroque of a special essence, we can say a Baroque turned into a Romanian manner. Looking into the creations of different genres of the Brancovan art and trying to compare them with what is normally called Baroque, we notice that, this definition corresponds only to same artistic Brancovan manifestations, as for example, work techniques or some decorative motifs taken isolately : in sculpture and silverware, narrative motifs, pathetic and decorative schemes in painting. All these elements are part of a general compositional scheme, with a strong classic character. This study presents the European Baroque influences in architecture, in monumental sculpture, in wood sculpture, artistic genres that have known remarkable achievements in the Brancovan art. As far as the ornamental repertoire is concerned, the difference between western decoration and the Brancovan one, resides in the diversity of the elements used in the Romanian territories, the selection being made according to the Romanian decorative art tradition. The western influences prove to be, for the Brancovan art, prominent and this was done according to the general opening of the Brancovan times for forms, ideas and artistic conceptions of the western world.

Gregg Lambert. The Return of the Baroque in Modern Culture

The Great British-printed back-cover description that accompanies the serious work of interdisciplinary scholarship, The Return of the Baroque in Modern Culture, by the Syracuse University Associate Professor of English and Textual Studies, Gregg Lambert, spotlights that the tome “explores the re-invention of the early European Baroque within the philosophical, cultural and literary thought of postmodernism in Europe, the United States, the Caribbean and Latin America”. In so doing it adduces...

Imagining a More Expansive Narrative of American Art

Previous articleNext article No AccessCommentaryImagining a More Expansive Narrative of American ArtTomás Ybarra‐FraustoTomás Ybarra‐Frausto Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Art Volume 19, Number 3Fall 2005 Sponsored by the Smithsonian American Art Museum Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/500227 Views: 143Total views on this site Citations: 61Citations are reported from Crossref PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article: Introduction, (Jan 2019): 1–10.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-001 Introduction, (Jan 2019): 13–17.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-003 Looking for Alternatives, (Jan 2019): 19–29.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-004 Con Safo (C/S) Artists, (Jan 2019): 30–31.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-005 El Arte del Chicano, (Jan 2019): 32–34.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-006 Notes on an Aesthetic Alternative, (Jan 2019): 35–36.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-007 A Critical Perspective on the State of Chicano Art, (Jan 2019): 37–44.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-008 Response, (Jan 2019): 45–53.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-009 Post-Chicano, (Jan 2019): 54–57.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-010 The New Chicano Movement, (Jan 2019): 58–65.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-011 Post-movimiento, (Jan 2019): 66–71.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-012 Introduction, (Jan 2019): 75–79.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-015 The Politics of Popular Art, (Jan 2019): 81–84.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-016 Rasquachismo, (Jan 2019): 85–90.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-017 Domesticana, (Jan 2019): 91–99.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-018 Chicano Humor in Art, (Jan 2019): 100–103.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-019 Points of Convergence, (Jan 2019): 104–116.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-020 Graffiti Is Art, (Jan 2019): 117–122.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-021 Inventing Tradition, Negotiating Modernism, (Jan 2019): 123–134.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-022 Negotiated Frontiers, (Jan 2019): 135–145.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-023 Deus ex Machina, (Jan 2019): 146–164.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-024 Celia Alvarez Muñoz, (Jan 2019): 165–173.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-025 Introduction, (Jan 2019): 177–181.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-028 Mel Casas, (Jan 2019): 183–193.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-029 Drawing Offensive/Offensive Drawing, (Jan 2019): 194–207.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-030 The Pachuco’s Flayed Hide, (Jan 2019): 208–218.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-031 Writing on the Social Body, (Jan 2019): 219–236.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-032 Ojo de la Diosa, (Jan 2019): 237–249.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-033 Art Comes for the Archbishop, (Jan 2019): 250–262.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-034 Introduction, (Jan 2019): 267–270.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-037 The Enacted Environment of East Los Angeles, (Jan 2019): 271–277.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-038 Space, Power, and Youth Culture, (Jan 2019): 278–291.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-039 Pseudographic Cinema, (Jan 2019): 292–303.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-040 Whose Monument Where? Public Art in a Many-Cultured Society, (Jan 2019): 304–309.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-041 La Memoria de Nuestra Tierra, (Jan 2019): 310–313.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-042 The Donkey Cart Caper, (Jan 2019): 314–318.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-043 Public Audit, (Jan 2019): 319–330.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-044 Introduction, (Jan 2019): 335–339.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-047 Border Arte, (Jan 2019): 341–350.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-048 The Spaces of Home in Chicano and Latino Representations of the San Diego-Tijuana Borderlands (1968-2002), (Jan 2019): 351–373.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-049 Straddling la otra frontera, (Jan 2019): 374–393.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-050 Borders, Border Crossing, and Political Art in North Carolina, (Jan 2019): 394–401.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-051 Excerpts from Codex Espangliensis, (Jan 2019): 402–405.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-052 187 Reasons Why Mexicanos Can’t Cross the Border (Remix), (Jan 2019): 406–409.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-053 Introduction, (Jan 2019): 413–416.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-056 Los Four, (Jan 2019): 417–419.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-057 MARCH to an Aesthetic of Revolution, (Jan 2019): 420–422.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-058 Resisting Modernism, (Jan 2019): 423–426.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-059 Our America at the Smithsonian, (Jan 2019): 427–429.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-060 Alex Rivera, Philip Kennicott Debate Washington Post Review of Our America, (Jan 2019): 430–433.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-061 What Do We Mean When We Talk about “Latino Art”?, (Jan 2019): 434–435.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-062 Chicano Art, (Jan 2019): 436–439.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-063 Readers’ Forum Letter to the Editor in Response to Shifra Goldman’s Exhibition Review, (Jan 2019): 440–441.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-064 Readers’ Forum Response to Judithe Hernández’s Letter to the Editor, (Jan 2019): 442–443.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-065 “All Roads Lead to East L.A.,” Goez Art Studios and Gallery, (Jan 2019): 444–454.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-066 From CARA to CACA, (Jan 2019): 455–469.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-067 On Museum Row, (Jan 2019): 470–483.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-068 Strangeways Here We Come, (Jan 2019): 484–494.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-069 Further Reading, (Jan 2019): 495–495.https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478003403-070Stacey Van Dahm Barrio art: Telling the story of Latino Philadelphia through murals, Latino Studies 13, no.33 (Sep 2015): 421–433.https://doi.org/10.1057/lst.2015.28STEPHANIE LEWTHWAITE Art across Frontiers: Cross-cultural Encounters in America. Introduction, Journal of American Studies 47, no.22 (Apr 2013): 301–311.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021875813000108

How Should We Study the Nexus of Architecture and Mathematics

Sandro Caparrini and David Speiser critique the 1996 paper of John Clagett on “Transformational Geometry and the Central European Baroque Church” in order to shed light on how to study the Nexus of Architecture and Mathematics.

Ordini religiosi, santita e culti: prospettive di ricerca tra Europa e America Latina. Atti del Seminario di Roma 21-22 giugno 2001 (review)

Reviewed by: Ordini religiosi, santità e culti: prospettive di ricerca tra Europa e America Latina. Atti del Seminario di Roma 21–22 giugno 2001 Jeffrey Klaiber Ordini religiosi, santità e culti: prospettive di ricerca tra Europa e America Latina. Atti del Seminario di Roma 21–22 giugno 2001. Compiled by Gabriella Zarri . [Università degli Studi di Lecce—Studi Storici, 59.] (Galatina [Lecce], Italy: Congedo Editore. 2003. Pp. vii, 193. €16,00 paperback.) Holiness and sainthood have recently become popular themes among scholars who recognize their importance for understanding Latin American colonial society. New studies on Rose of Lima, for example, analyze the popularity of the first American saint and attempt to answer the question why she was canonized so quickly, before Toribio de Mogrovejo, the Spanish archbishop who confirmed her, or other missionaries who belonged to influential religious orders. In line with these studies, the authors of Ordini religiosi, santità e culti, a collection of essays produced by a seminar organized by the Italian Association for the Study of Saints, Cult, and Hagiography, aim to propose new avenues of research on popular images of holiness and religiosity in Catholic Europe and colonial Latin America. The essays do not pretend to be finished studies, but rather guides for future research. One of the authors, Giuseppe Dalla Torre, underlines the historical importanceof the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, which was Rome's response to the royal patronage of the Spanish and the Portuguese. Rome attempted to wrest control over missionary activity in the New World from the tight grip exercised by the Spanish and Portuguese monarchs who often subordinated evangelization to their own political interests. Another author, Giacomo Dalla Torre, describes in detail the history and the holdings of the library and the [End Page 830] archives of Propaganda Fide, neither of which are well known. Jaime Valenzuela Márquez suggests new lines of research into seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Latin America: processions, confraternities, shrines, convents, popular notions of sin, etc. Two authors, Claudia Rolle and Paolo Broggio, deal with the Jesuits. Roble studies the "policy of holiness" in the Jesuit missions in Paraguay and Bolivia. The missionaries fell prey to a "utopian temptation" when they held up the primitive church as their basic model for the mission Indians. Paolo Broggio shows that the Jesuits applied European baroque piety and practices to their urban missions in Latin America, but there were differences, too. In the New World the sacrament of confession played a key role in the evangelization of the Indians. Francesca Cantù addresses the question of why Rose of Lima became so popular not only among the Creole élite, but also among the Indians. Rose, of course, became one of the first symbols of a Creole identity, but she also seemed to fulfill several messianic prophecies. Sara Cabibbo reviews the curious but not uncommon case of María d'Ágreda, the seventeenth-century Spanish contemplative who was "transported" in her mystical visions to the New World. In an age in which women could not do missionary work, some of them fulfilled that need in their visions. Oscar Beozzo studies the cult of the saints and the Virgin during the first stages of the evangelization of Brazil. Beozzo carries out a detailed study of the names of parishes from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century as a way of determining the popularity of certain saints and Marian titles. He also proposes further research into the possible connections between certain saints and African cults. This is not an organically unified work, but rather a collection of essays dealing with the same general subjects. Indeed, the two chapters on Propaganda Fide and its library and archives, although very informative, do not really seem to belong with the other essays. In any case, the individual essays, which the editor terms as "works in progress," contain up-to-date bibliographies and in most cases provide interesting and new avenues for research. Jeffrey Klaiber The Pontifical Catholic University of Peru Lima Copyright © 2004 The Catholic University of America Press

Empire of emptiness: Buddhist art and political authority in Qing China

Imperial Manchu support and patronage of Buddhism, particularly in Mongolia and Tibet, has often been dismissed as cynical political manipulation. Empire of Emptiness questions this generalization by taking a fresh look at the huge outpouring of Buddhist painting, sculpture, and decorative arts Qing court artists produced for distribution throughout the empire. It examines some of the Buddhist underpinnings of the Qing view of rulership and shows just how central images were in the carefully reasoned rhetoric the court directed toward its Buddhist allies in inner Asia. The multilingual, culturally fluid Qing emperors put an extraordinary range of visual styles into practice - Chinese, Tibetan, Nepalese, and even the European Baroque brought to the court by Jesuit artists. Their pictorial, sculptural, and architectural projects escape easy analysis and raise questions about the difference between verbal and pictorial description, the ways in which overt and covert meaning could be embedded in images through juxtaposition and collage, and the collection and criticism of paintings and calligraphy that were intended as supports for practice and not initially as works of art.

Introduction: The authority of likeness

Waiter Benjamin's essay ‘The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction’ has itself developed both an aura of originality and the familiarity brought about by frequent citation.1 By electing to paraphrase Benjamin with the title of this collection, Bart Thurber and I intend to characterize our vision for these texts as one mediated but not overwhelmed by contemporary concerns. Calling the period customarily known as the European Renaissance and Baroque ‘an age of mechanical reproduction’, we wish to highlight the astonishing shifts effected by the broad development of reproducible media between 1450 and 1700.2 Focusing on the medal and the print, we have sought to reframe discussions of these media by assembling essays addressing the novel manner in which they transformed — and to some degree produced — the genre of portraiture.

Poeta Calculans: Harsdorffer, Leibniz, and the mathesis universalis

Poeta Calculans: Harsdörffer, Leibniz, and the mathesis universalis Jan C. Westerhoff This paper seeks to indicate some connections between a major philosophical project of the seventeenth century, the conception of a mathesis universalis, and the practice of baroque poetry. I shall argue that these connections consist in a peculiar view of language and systems of notation which was particularly common in European baroque culture and which provided the necessary conceptual background for both poetry and the mathesis universalis. 1 Because such a work, especially when attempted within the scope of a paper, needs a clearly determined focal point, I shall concentrate on the works of two baroque savants, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Georg Philipp Harsdörffer. The reason for the choice of Leibniz is obvious: there is no single philosopher whose entire intellectual career, from his earliest youth to his death-bed, was so deeply connected with the idea of a mathesis universalis. Harsdörffer has the advantage of being not only a poet but also a language-theorist and scientist, and this informs the conceptual background of his poetry. In order to explain that background I shall also rely to some extent on the works of Justus Georg Schottel, a fellow language theorist and personal acquaintance of Harsdörffer’s. Three of Harsdörffer’s works will be at the center of our attention, the Frauenzimmer Gesprächsspiele, 2 an eight-volume series of dialogues about social, poetic, and scientific matters, which incorporates much of Harsdörffer’s [End Page 449] own poetry and even entire plays; the Delitiae Mathematicae et Physicae, 3 a three-volume scientific work, of which Harsdörffer edited the last two volumes and which deal with a number of sciences in question-and-answer form; and the Poetischer Trichter, Harsdörffer’s magnum opus on the theory of poetry. 4 The Idea of the mathesis universalis The Leibnizian project of the mathesis universalis took off from the idea of finding a method of deciding all questions, whether they belonged to physics, 5 to metaphysics, 6 or to any other science, 7 with mathematical certainty. This should be brought about by inventing a universal system of notation, which would allow the detection of errors of thinking as purely grammatical or syntactical errors. 8 This system should consist of two parts, the lingua characteristica and the calculus ratiocinator. 9 The lingua characteristica 10 was supposed to act as a system of notation for “the alphabet of human thoughts,” 11 i.e., for the primitive concepts. 12 For Leibniz all conceptual complexity arises as the result of a combination of simple concepts. 13 By combining the primitive concepts one can produce more complex ones and thus gain new knowledge. Similarly, every concept can be resolved into [End Page 450] the most simple concepts that constitute it in a unique way. 14 The lingua characteristica was supposed to make this conceptual constitution obvious, so that there could not possibly be any doubt left about what a given concept entailed. Furthermore, it should be a means of visualizing proofs, to enable people to check the correctness of a derivation at a glance. 15 The aim of the calculus ratiocinator 16 was to provide a means of systematic work with the notational system of the lingua universalis, i.e., the recombination of the primitive signs according to specific rules. 17 The latter was intended as a means of obtaining a clear expression of concepts, the former as an auxiliary for their transformation, i.e., the process of reasoning and thinking. The idea of the calculus ratiocinator thus comes quite close to the modern idea of formal logic. Leibniz tried to design this calculus similar to those of arithmetic so that it would literally be possible to “calculate” the correctness of an inference in a purely mechanical way without needing any ingenuity. 18 His most famous design was based on the idea of assigning prime numbers to the simple concepts and to represent complex concepts as products of these. Because every number can be uniquely reduced to its prime factors, the “characteristic number” of each concept could be uniquely resolved into the primitive concepts which compose it. 19 Leibniz also...