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Reading any book of art history inevitably involves looking back into at least two different periods of history: the one that produced the art discussed in the book and the one that produced the book itself. In reading a newly published book, one often assumes that it was written in something like the present. In reading the book under consideration here, however, I found that even the recent past seemed very distant. When the original French edition of this book appeared in 2013, Notre-Dame in Paris was being visited by vast crowds every day, and authors Dany Sandron and Andrew… Full Review

Jennifer A. Pruitt’s Building the Caliphate explores the Fatimids’ architectural patronage. Followers of the Ismaili subbranch of Shi‘ism, the Fatimids (909–1171) established the first dissident caliphate against the Sunni Abbasid caliphate of Baghdad (751–1258). Originating in North Africa, they conquered Egypt in 969, where they built their new capital, Cairo. They envisaged overthrowing the Abbasids, but the Seljuks ruling on the latter’s behalf put an end to that project. Egypt consequently became the permanent center of Fatimid rule. Architecture was instrumental to the construction of this rule and to the dynasty’s political-religious visual representation in the region’s traditionally Sunni context… Full Review

Located in northern China, Mount Wutai, or the Five-Terrace Mountain, is the earthly paradise of the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, commonly known as the Mahāyāna Buddhist deity of wisdom. Since the seventh century, pilgrims have encountered various apparitions of Mañjuśrī on this mountain. Not until the publication of Wen-shing Chou’s book Mount Wutai: Visions of a Sacred Buddhist Mountain did it become clear that Mount Wutai was also a key site in Inner Asian tantric Buddhist practices and lineages associated with the Gelukpa traditions that the Manchu court promoted during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). Indeed, Chou’s well-researched and finely illustrated monograph presents… Full Review

The aim of Nathaniel B. Jones’s book Painting, Ethics, and Aesthetics in Rome is to reconsider the nature of Roman wall painting by focusing on the “paintings within paintings,” or “fictive panels,” as Jones prefers to label them, that are a dominant feature of the medium. By doing so, the plan is to shed light both on the nature of Roman aesthetics and on the practical and metaphorical roles that art, particularly Greek art, played in Roman life (the “ethics” part of the title). Central to the investigation is configuring the point of the Greek nature of these panels, not… Full Review

Rebecca Bedell’s splendid book about the central place of sentimentality in American art from the revolutionary era to the First World War seems surprisingly timely in the age of social distancing. For “sentimentality,” as Bedell defines this deeply modern but much maligned pattern of feeling, “asks us to conceive of ourselves in relation to others, to imagine ourselves in their place and to feel for them, in some measure, as for ourselves, recognizing a common and shared humanity” (4). At a time when we are constantly enjoined to wash our hands after coming in contact with others, sentimentality, or whatever… Full Review

Within its front matter, this book is described as examining a range of visual expressions of Black Power across American art and popular culture from 1965 through 1972. It begins with case studies of artist groups, including Spiral, OBAC [Organization of Black American Culture], and AfriCOBRA, who began questioning Western aesthetic traditions and created work that honored leaders, affirmed African American culture, and embraced an African lineage. Also showcased is an Oakland Museum exhibition of 1968 called “New Perspectives in Black Art,” as a way to consider if Black Panther Party activities in the neighborhood might have impacted local… Full Review

The anamorphic skull that cuts an unsettling path across the foreground of Hans Holbein the Younger’s 1533 double portrait, The Ambassadors, has struck modern interpreters of the painting as a fundamental disruption of the ordered world of the two young men portrayed amid the books and instruments of liberal learning. For Jacques Lacan, the skull signifies the annihilation of the Cartesian subject. For those more inclined to historical interpretation, it signifies the undoing of a confident Renaissance humanism. Against perspectival coherence, the skull offers fragmentation; against a dream of comprehensive knowledge, it offers a melancholy reminder of death. In… Full Review

Andrea del Verrocchio is generally overshadowed by his famous pupils—particularly Leonardo da Vinci—a trend that began with Giorgio Vasari’s negative treatment of the older master in his book Lives of the Artists (first published in 1550). In response to this characterization, Christina Neilson seeks to “reassess Verrocchio’s accomplishments” in her book, Practice and Theory in the Italian Renaissance Workshop: Verrocchio and the Epistemology of Making Art (9). By examining Verrocchio’s unusual practices of making and their intended meanings, Neilson convincingly situates him as one of the most important sculptors working between the eras of Donatello and Michelangelo. The author presents… Full Review

In the last few decades, scholars have dedicated a great deal of effort to documenting and analyzing the impact of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century modernist planning ideologies throughout the world. While most ideologies were firmly rooted in a benevolent desire to improve deeply chaotic and oppressive urban environments, some—largely forgotten or ignored—deployed urban planning and architecture as racially motivated social-engineering projects. Nearly twenty years ago, Oren Yiftachel mused, “Far less attention has been devoted to the ability of planning to promote goals of an opposite nature, such as social repression, economic retardation or environmental degradation” (“The Dark Side of… Full Review

This elegant and information-packed volume, Venice Illuminated: Power and Painting in Renaissance Manuscripts by Helena Katalin Szépe, is the fullest statement we have to date of the importance placed on the holding of public office by high-ranking patricians of the Venetian state. The book presents a study of a particular category of Venetian state documents collectively referred to as ducali (dogali in Venetian dialect), prepared in large part by the ducal chancery for newly elected holders of the top three offices of the republic. These were high-quality manuscripts containing the oaths, rules, and regulations attached to each office. Over… Full Review