By Richard W. Unger (NHC Fellow, 2008–09) Renaissance map-makers produced ever more accurate descriptions of geography, which were also beautiful works of art. They filled the oceans Europeans were exploring with ships and to describe the real ships which were the newest and best products of technology. Above all the ships were there to show … Continued
By Barbara A. Hanawalt (NHC Fellow, 1997–98) A brisk narrative of battles and plagues, monastic orders, heroic women, and knights-errant, barbaric tortures and tender romance, intrigue, scandals, and conquest, The Middle Ages: An Illustrated History mixes a spirited and entertaining writing style with exquisite, thorough scholarship. Barbara A. Hanawalt, a renowned medievalist, launches her story with the … Continued
By Annabel Jane Wharton (NHC Fellow, 1985–86; 2002–03; 2016–17)
By Jaroslav Folda (NHC Fellow, 1988–89; 1998–99; 2006–07) This book tells the story of the Architecture and the Figural Art produced for the Crusaders after the battle of Hattin and the fall of Jerusalem in 1187, during the one hundred years that Acre was the capital of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1191–1291. It is … Continued
By Daniel J. Sherman (NHC Fellow, 1999–00) For over a century, the idea of primitivism has motivated artistic modernism. Focusing on the three decades after World War II, known in France as “les trentes glorieuses” despite the loss of most of the country’s colonial empire, this probing and expansive book argues that primitivism played a … Continued
By Marcel Gutwirth (NHC Fellow, 1985–86) Why do we laugh? Do we really want to know why? We are torn between desire to understand the joyous human response of laughter and reluctance to expose the secret of our spontaneity to the rigors of intellectualizing, the labors of analysis. Marcel Gutwirth here offers a fresh approach … Continued
By Elizabeth K. Helsinger (NHC Fellow, 1997–98; 2007–08) Focusing on two of the most influential figures in the Pre-Raphaelite movement, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Morris, this book explores new ways of considering art and literature together. Elizabeth Helsinger traces the unusually close relationship between the poetry and poetics of two poet-artists and their contemporary practice … Continued
By Dominic McIver Lopes (NHC Fellow, 2000–01) Images have power–for good or ill. They may challenge us to see things anew and, in widening our experience, profoundly change who we are. The change can be ugly, as with propaganda, or enriching, as with many works of art. Sight and Sensibility explores the impact of images on what … Continued
By Isabel Wünsche (NHC Fellow, 2007–08) The artists of the Organic School of the Russian avant-garde found inspiration as well as a model for artistic growth in the creative principles of nature. Isabel Wünsche analyzes the artistic influences, intellectual foundations, and scientific publications that shaped the formation of these artists, the majority of whom were … Continued
By Meredith J. Gill (NHC Fellow, 2003–04) The late antique Church father, Augustine, fascinated writers of the Italian Renaissance. They perceived him to be a conduit of classical and Christian truths, and an example of the life of the intellect reconciled to a life of faith. This book traces the availability and the reception of … Continued