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Postcolonialist theory revisits and reframes European expectations of knowledge, authority, and visibility in representations of the colonial encounter. Photography played an important role in the formation of these expectations, one discussed in modern histories of the medium. While differing in their objectives and academic disciplines, James Ryan and Christopher Pinney both use postcolonial theory to rewrite narratives of Euro-American photographic history. Pinney's book, in particular, makes a compelling case for the questions the present poses for the study of photographs of the colonialist past. James Ryan's Picturing Empire: Photography and the Visualization of the British Empire is… Full Review

As a monograph on the portraits of Livia, the wife of the emperor Augustus, this book reflects current scholarly interests in Augustan art and in the representation of women in the Roman Empire. Although the literature on Augustan Rome is grounded in the political contexts of the monuments, the author is to be admired for casting a wider net than is typical in the scholarship on Roman portraiture, which tends to be technical in its relentless classification of portrait types and variants based, for the most part, on hairstyles (counting the locks across the forehead, etc.). Rather than merely arranging… Full Review

In the last two decades, most scholarship on ukiyo-e has appeared in exhibition catalogues. Such thematic exhibitions as the Portland Museum of Art's 1993 The Floating World Revisitedand the Worcester Art Museum's 1996 The Women of the Pleasure Quarter have whet our appetite for insightful scholarship. But while our scholarly cravings lust after challenging interpretations and controversial opinions, they must also be tempered with the knowledge that exhibition catalogues cannot be all things to all people. Accordingly, the criteria on which one reviews such publications should include some consideration of the constituency for which they are intended… Full Review

This monograph is a composite presentation by three different contributors, who describe the layout, physical structure, and painted and carved wall and ceiling decorations of a religious college (madrasa) built on the central plateau of Yemen in the sixteenth century. Included is a compendium of the inscriptions from which the pedigree of the building is derived. Insight into traditional Yemeni building practices is provided in the section dealing with the restoration work. The main author is Selma al-Radi—a prehistorian by formal training—but one who became captivated by this charming building, and who committed herself to a decade of struggles to… Full Review

Of all the major American painters to take up the brush during the late colonial and early federal periods, Gilbert Stuart (1755–1828) has been the most overlooked by contemporary art historians. Although as a painter, he was far more virtuosic than Copley, Peale, or West, the almost exclusive application of his talent to portraits has not beckoned the scholar. Not that Stuart was by any means alone in his focus on portraiture. But unlike Copley, who at least agonized over the constriction of his ambitions, Stuart, judging from the written and visual evidence, appears to have blithely churned out likenesses… Full Review

T. J. Clark's latest reflections on the complex topic of Modernism in the visual arts have been much anticipated. When he writes about a "retrospective" exhibition held by Pissarro late in his career, his words also apply to the appearance of this new book: "Pissarro knew only too well in 1892 that whatever he did in the present would be looked at comparatively, and put to the test of the 1870s" (56). The many self-reflexive comments that we find in these pages suggest that Clark, too, is aware that he must live up to his reputation as one of the… Full Review

The visual—whether extant or recorded, whether a work of art, a procession, or the body of a saint—is an essential primary source for the historian. In this study . . . we hope to have demonstrated the contribution such sources can make to an understanding of the Middle Ages. (8) In this meticulous and carefully researched book, over twenty years in the making, the team of an art historian and specialist in trecento Cortona, Joanna Cannon, and a historian known for his wide-ranging and seminal work on the canonization of saints, Andre Vauchez, work together to… Full Review

This most recent study of the painting technique of Gerard David is an admirable one with a considerable amount of new information on David's style, particularly as revealed by author Maryan W. Ainsworth's scientific investigations with infrared reflectography. As noted in Chapter One, "Designing Solutions: David's Drawings and Workshop Practice," no other painter working in fifteenth-century Bruges has left for posterity as many drawings as did Gerard David, native of the north Netherlandish town of Oudewater (born ca. 1455) and active in Bruges from 1484 to his death in 1523. The "Klinkosch sketchbook" and several other sheets give… Full Review

Cristelle Baskins has emerged as a leading scholar in the field of Italian Renaissance domestic art. She has authored a series of fascinating articles over the past decade that deal with the varied issues implicit in the function and appearance of cassone (marriage chest) and spalliera (wainscoting) panels. These articles have helped both to stimulate the field and to lead it in new and exciting directions, negating some of its earlier, marginalized, status in relation to more traditional studies of monumental Renaissance art. With this new book, Baskins expands on many of the issues examined in her previous articles; it… Full Review

This collection consists of fourteen papers presented at an international conference held in conjunction with an exhibit of drawings by Vasari and related artists at the Yale University Art Gallery in 1994. A companion catalogue by Maia Gahtan and Philip Jacks, bearing the same title as this volume (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994) describes the role of disegno in Vasari's artistic production. Conference acts (often generated by exhibitions) have become a convenient way of circulating new ideas beyond the circle of scholars who attend the proceedings. This admirable goal, however, is frequently sabotaged by a long gestation period during… Full Review