Why do images of entertainers abound in European literature and art since Romanticism? From Baudelaire to Picasso, from Daumier to Fellini, mimes, clowns, aerialists, and jesters recur in major works by continental artists. In Art as Spectacle, Naomi Ritter investigates this phenomenon and offers explanations that transcend the array of works discussed. Her analysis implies much about the triangle of creator, work, and audience that inevitably controls art. Although a broadly comparative study underlies Art as Spectacle, the book focuses mainly on examples from Germany and France. Three areas of argument-identification, primitivism, and transcendence-account for the performer's ubiquity in the arts of the last two centuries. Ritter shows that writers, painters, choreographers, and filmmakers have persistently identified with the entertainer, whose roots lie in primitive ritual: a source of all art. Accordingly, the artist also sees the player as morally or spiritually elevated. With three chapters on literature, a chapter comparing poetry to painting, and a chapter each on dance, the visual arts, and film, Art as Spectacle offers unprecedented scope on a compelling topic in comparative studies. By integrating such varied material into an original commentary on the image of the entertainers, this book provides an invaluable resource for all the disciplines it touches.

Art History, Italy and France, 15th to 19th centuries.

The studies in which history of art and theatre are considered together are few, and none to date investigate the evolution of the representation of clouds from the early Renaissance to the Baroque period. This book reconsiders the origin of Italian Renaissance and Baroque cloud compositions while including the theatrical tradition as one of their most important sources. By examining visual sources such as paintings, frescos and stage designs, together with letters, guild-ledgers, descriptions of performances and relevant treatises, a new methodology to approach the development of this early modern visuality is offered. The result is an historical reconstruction where multiple factors are seen as facets of a single process which led to the development of Italy?s visual culture. The book also offers new insights into Leonardo da Vinci?s theatrical works, Raphael?s Disputa, Vasari?s Lives, and Pietro da Cortona?s fresco paintings. The Spectacle of Clouds, 1439-1650 examines the different ways Heaven has been conceived, imagined and represented from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, crossing over into the fields of history, religion and philosophy.

Examines the interrelationships between art, politics, and visual culture post-9/11.

The studies in which history of art and theatre are considered together are few, and none to date investigate the evolution of the representation of clouds from the early Renaissance to the Baroque period. This book reconsiders the origin of Italian Renaissance and Baroque cloud compositions while including the theatrical tradition as one of their most important sources. By examining visual sources such as paintings, frescos and stage designs, together with letters, guild-ledgers, descriptions of performances and relevant treatises, a new methodology to approach the development of this early modern visuality is offered. The result is an historical reconstruction where multiple factors are seen as facets of a single process which led to the development of Italy?s visual culture. The book also offers new insights into Leonardo da Vinci?s theatrical works, Raphael?s Disputa, Vasari?s Lives, and Pietro da Cortona?s fresco paintings. The Spectacle of Clouds, 1439-1650 examines the different ways Heaven has been conceived, imagined and represented from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, crossing over into the fields of history, religion and philosophy.

Leading social critic Carol Becker offers a timely analysis of the nature of art and its role in politics and society. Completed just before the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center catastrophe, this book is remarkably prescient of the new concerns that have now become foremost in our thoughts since the attack. Becker raises the question of the place of art and the function of public intellectuals in a society desperately in need of creativity and leadership. Visit our website for sample chapters!

Published in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name, held February 10 to May 21, 2017, at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum in St. Louis.

A Village Voice Best Book, a "lucid and provocative work...that allows us to glimpse the stirrings and upheavals in the hothouse of modern art". Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.