Early Modern Visual Allegory

The first book in over twenty-five years devoted solely to allegory and personification in art history, this anthology complements current literary and cultural studies of allegory. The volume re-examines early modern allegorical imagery in light of crucial material, contextual and methodological questions: how are allegories conceived; for whom; and for what purposes? Contributors consider a wide range of allegorical representations in the visual arts and material culture, of both early modern Europe and the colonial "New World" 1400-1800. Essays included here examine paintings, sculpture, prints, architecture and the spaces of public ritual while discussing the process and theory of interpretation, formation of audiences, reception history, appropriation and censorship. A special focus on the medium of the body in visual allegory unites the volume's diverse materials and methods. Contents: Introduction; Making Allegory: Giotto, de Man and the allegorical impulse in Michelangelo, Laura Camille Agoston; The ends of allegory: Winckelmann, rococo and volcanic displacement, Christiane Hertel; Allegories of race: casta paintings and models for theorizing race, Oscar E. Vázquez. Allegories of Place: Giorgione's Assault: war and rape in renaissance Venice, Paul H.D. Kaplan; Shaping civic personification: Pisa Sforzata, Pisa Salvata, Cristelle Baskins; Political allegories: redesigning Siena's palio and patron saint during the Fascist regime, Medina Lasansky. Allegory and Audience: The Devil's hem: allegorical reading in a 16th-century illustrated life of St Benedict, Evelyn Lincoln; The ideal prince or an allegorical dialogue between the City of Antwerp and the Court of Brussels, Margit Thøfner; The bellona factor: political allegories and the conflicting claims of martial imagery, Jane Kromm; Faveau's Dame Clémence, or personifying romanticism, Erica Naginski. Allegory as Carnal Knowledge: Venus's milk and the temptations of allegory in Otto van Veen's Allegory of Temptation, Lisa Rosenthal; The naked truth? The allegorical frontispiece and woman's ambition in 18th-century France, Mary Sheriff; Savage breast/salvaged breast: allegory, colonization and wet-nursing in Peru, 1532-1825, Carolyn Dean; Index.