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The ArtsNovember 2009Portraiture and social identity in eighteenth-century Rome
by Sabrina Eliasson
Portraiture and Social Identity in Eighteenth-Century Rome sheds new light on the relationship between portraiture, social affirmation and the myth of Antiquity as it was experienced and elaborated in eighteenth-century Rome. Drawing upon a wealth of unpublished documents and previously unexamined literary texts, it offers new insights and readings into how the experience of the City in terms of abstract or concrete appropriation affected the ways of portraying native or visiting elite sitters. The Grand Tour portrait, usually discussed as a purely British phenomenon, is here put in its original context of production and compared to the portraits of the Romans themselves. Portraiture and social identity in eighteenth-century Rome will become essential reading for anyone with a particular interest in eighteenth-century art and its social use. ;
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March 2026Marks she made
The art and architecture of Begum Samru
by Mrinalini Rajagopalan
Begum Samru (b. circa 1750-d. 1836) was a north Indian woman ruler who used art and architecture to facilitate her social, political, and financial station in early modern India. Rising from the ranks of courtesans in Mughal Delhi to become the commander of her own mercenary army, she later became the ruler of an independent territory of Sardhana (60 km northwest of Delhi). The begum (Urdu/ Hindustani title for noblewoman) was a trusted ally to the Mughal emperor and the English East India Company, two of the dominant political powers in north India at the time. As a sovereign ruler, she corresponded with two popes and King Louis Philippe of France, exchanging portraits, architectural drawings, and letters with these powerful men in addition to her Mughal counterparts in India. Art and architecture played a key role in establishing Begum Samru as a powerful but non-threatening ruler; as an upholder and patron of the Catholic faith in India; as a political ally to several European and Indian factions that were vying for power; and as ruling matriarch of a cosmopolitan household, court, and army. In narrating the story of a single woman in nineteenth-century India, this book offers a path to think of the creative ways in which women participated in public and political spheres. It also illustrates how women without pedigree, women who did not bear biological children or produce male heirs, and women who lived in contravention of gendered norms found alternative methods of recognition, dignity, power, and sometimes, as in the case of Begum Samru, global visibility.
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July 2007Adorno-Portraits
Erinnerungen von Zeitgenossen
by Stefan Müller-Doohm
Viele seiner Freunde und Wegbegleiter haben das Schulkind, den Studenten und späteren Professor, den Institutsdirektor und Musikliebhaber in schriftlichen Erinnerungsportraits festgehalten, die für diese Sammlung geschrieben wurden. Die Autorinnen und Autoren, die durchaus verschiedenen Generationen angehören, haben jeweils aus ihrer Erfahrungsperspektive Portraits von Adorno entworfen, Charakterisierungen von Aspekten seiner Person versucht, eigenwillige Reflexionen seines Werks und seiner Wirkung angestellt.
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The ArtsOctober 2013Placing faces
The portrait and the English country house in the long eighteenth century
by Gill Perry, Kate Retford, Jordan Vibert
This book explores the rich but understudied relationship between English country houses and the portraits they contain. It features essays by well-known scholars such as Alison Yarrington, Gill Perry, Kate Retford, Harriet Guest, Emma Barker and Desmond Shawe-Taylor. Works discussed include grand portraits, intimate pastels and imposing sculptures. Moving between residences as diverse as Stowe, Althorp Park, the Vache, Chatsworth, Knole and Windsor Castle, it unpicks the significance of various spaces - the closet, the gallery, the library - and the ways in which portraiture interacted with those environments. It explores questions around gender, investigating narratives of family and kinship in portraits of women as wives and daughters, but also as mistresses and celebrities. It also interrogates representations of military heroes in order to explore the wider, complex ties between these families, their houses, and imperial conflict. This book will be essential reading for all those interested in eighteenth-century studies, especially for those studying portraiture and country houses. ;
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The ArtsJanuary 2013The face of the city
Civic portraiture and civic identity in early modern England
by Robert Tittler, Peter Lake, Anthony Milton, Jason Peacey, Alexandra Gajda
Our conventional understanding of English portraiture from the age of Holbein and Henry VIII on to Reubens, VanDyck and Charles I clings to the mainstream images of royalty and aristocracy and to the succession of known practitioners of 'Renaissance' portraiture. In almost every respect, the 'civic' portraits examined here stand in sharp contrast to these traditional narratives. Depicting mayors and aldermen, livery company masters, school and college heads, they were meant to be read as statements about the civic leaders and civic institutions rather than about the sitters in their own right. Displayed in civic premises rather than country homes, exemplifying civic rather than personal virtues, and usually commissioned by institutions rather than their sitters, they have yet to be considered as a type of their own, or in their appropriate social and political context. This fascinating work will appeal to both art historians and historians of early modern Britain. ;
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The ArtsMay 2016Representations of Renaissance monarchy
Francis I and the image-makers
by Lisa Mansfield
Representations of Renaissance monarchy analyses the portraits and personal imagery of Francis I, one of the most frequently portrayed rulers of sixteenth-century Europe. The distinctive likeness of the Valois king was widely disseminated and perceived by his French subjects, and Tudor and Habsburg rivals abroad. Complementing studies on the representation of Henry VIII, this book makes a dynamic contribution to scholarship on the enterprise of royal image-making in early-modern Europe. The discussion not only highlights the inventiveness of the visual arts in Renaissance France but also alludes to the enduring politics of physical appearance and seductive power of the face and body in modern visual culture. Coinciding with the five hundredth anniversary of Francis I's accession, this book will appeal to scholars and students of medieval and Renaissance art, the history of portraiture or anyone interested in images of monarchy and the history of France. ;
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2021Our Democracy in Danger
Hatred and attacks against volunteers,journalists and politicians
by Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger,Gunna Wendt
We experience in our online world as well as in our ‘real lives’ an increase in slander and abuse, intimidation, hatred and even physical violence against individuals who are committed to our society. If such attacks discourage people from getting involved, this endangers our democracy that depends on participation. Lawyer Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger and the writer Gunna Wendt interviewed ten committed volunteers about the causes, circumstances and consequences of hatred and violence. These visceral portraits provide a telling insight into the dangers, while showing that we can and must counter the degradation of political rhetoric with composure, respect and tolerance – and with effective measures to protect those at risk.
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Humanities & Social SciencesSeptember 1997Understanding the mafia
by Joe Farrell
An anthology of writings in Italian which examine the origins, nature and culture of the Sicilian mafia. Separate chapters are devoted to the culture from which the mafia emerged, the economic and business activities in which it is now engaged, its relations with politics and politicians, as well as its structure and historical evolution. There are portraits of prominent mafiosi as well as of the people and organizations that have struggled against mafia crime. The individual pieces come from a diverse range of sources, including newspapers, historical and sociological works. There is an introduction in English, as well as a full vocabulary and a glossary of terms associated with the mafia.
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The ArtsJune 2026Borderline bodies in art and visual culture
Unsettling identity and place since 1800
by Keren Hammerschlag, Natasha Ruiz-Gómez, Tania Anne Cleaves
Borderline bodies offers original interpretations of visual representations of human bodies as bounded and unbounded, fortified and permeable, mobile and static-subject to borders and able to traverse and challenge them. It also takes as its focus images and objects that might be considered 'borderline' because they sit at the intersection of disciplines or sit outside accepted notions of what constitutes serious 'art.' By mapping the ways human bodies traverse borders and straddle-even dismantle-categories, this volume's essays approach afresh the relationship of bodies to traditional modes of representation, especially in art and medicine, and encourage us to think anew about how we understand the relationship between human corporeality, identity and place. Critical transdisciplinary and transnational analyses of objects and images from a range of geographies shed new light on the themes of: bodies and identity; typologies of the body; racialised bodies; 'normal' and 'abnormal' bodies; encounters between bodies; bodies in transition; bodies and mobility; and the bounded and unbounded human body. The outcome is a fresh approach to depictions of the human body produced for the purposes of artistic and medical education, aesthetic edification, and scientific and professional advancement, which disrupts assumptions about the normative human body perpetuated through Western image-making traditions.
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The ArtsDecember 2010Chantal Akerman
by Marion Schmid, Diana Holmes, Robert Ingram
Chantal Akerman is widely acclaimed as one of the most original and important directors working in Europe today. A towering figure in women's and feminist film-making, she has produced a diverse and intensely personal body of work ranging from minimalist portraits of the everyday to exuberant romantic comedies, and from documentaries and musicals to installation art. This book traces the director's career at the crossroads between experimental and mainstream cinema, contextualising her work within the American avant-garde of the 1970s, European anti-naturalism, feminism and the post-modern aesthetics. While offering an in-depth analysis of her multi-faceted film style, it also stresses the social and ethical dimension of her work, especially as regards her representation of marginal groups and her exploration of exilic and diasporic identities. Particular attention is given to the inscription of the Holocaust and of Jewish memory in her films. ;
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Humanities & Social SciencesApril 2010Orangism in the Dutch Republic in word and image, 1650–75
by Jill Stern, Joseph Bergin, Penny Roberts, Bill Naphy
This remarkable study represents a completely original presentation of the language and imagery used by the Orangists in the critical period in the mid-seventeenth century Netherlands as they sought the restoration of the stadholderate in the person of the young prince William III. Stern argues that the Orangists had no desire for the prince to become a monarch, rather that they viewed the stadholderate as an essential component of the Dutch constitution, the Union of Utrecht, and fulfilling a key role as defender of the rights and privileges of the citizenry against an overwheening urban oligarchy. Source material is drawn not only from books and political pamphlets but also from contemporary drama, poetry, portraits, prints, and medals. This enables the author to examine the imagery used by the supporters of the House of Orange, in particular the symbols of rebirth and regeneration which were deployed to propagate the restoration of the stadholderate in the person of William III. ;
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History of art & design styles: c 1800 to c 1900June 2011The Wanderers and Critical Realism in Nineteenth Century Russian Painting
Critical realism in nineteenth-century Russia
by David Jackson
The rise of critical realism in nineteenth-century Russia culminated in 1870 with the formation of the Wanderers, Russia's first independent artistic society. Through depictions of the harsh lives of the peasantry, the fate of political activists, Russian history, landscapes, and portraits of the nation's cultural elite, such as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, the society became synonymous with dissident sentiments. Yet its members were far from being purveyors of anti-Tsarist propaganda and their canvases reflect also a warm humanity and a fierce pride for such nationalistic themes as Russian myth and legend. Through close readings of single canvases, investigations of major themes and a multi-disciplinary integration of the Wanderers within Russian society, this book gives the first comprehensive analysis of the crucial cultural role played by one of the most successful and genuinely popular schools of art, the legacy of which comprises a fascinating panorama of life and thought in pre-revolutionary Russia.
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The ArtsJanuary 2016Face: shape and angle
Helen Muspratt, photographer
by Jessica Sutcliffe
Born into a civil service family in India in 1907, Helen Muspratt was a lifelong communist, a member of the Cambridge intellectual milieu of the 1930s, and a working mother at a time when such a role was unusual for women of her class. She was also a pioneering photographer, creating an extraordinary body of work in many different styles and genres. In partnership with Lettice Ramsey she made portraits of many notable figures of the 1930s in the fields of science and culture. Her experimental photography, using techniques such as solarisation and multiple exposure, bears comparison with the innovations of Man Ray and Lee Miller. This book reproduces some of Helen Muspratt's most important photographic images, including documentary records of the Soviet Union and the Welsh valleys. The accompanying text by Jessica Sutcliffe is an intimate and revealing memoir of her mother that offers a fascinating insight into her life, work and politics. ;
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NursingOn Female Territory
Portraits of Male Care Workers
by Sabine Meisel / Edita Truninger
The book portrays men between the ages of 23 and 65, who work in caring professions in different areas, such as nursing homes, acute care clinics, home care, outpatient care and psychiatry, providing readers with an insight into their biographies. The protagonists recount in a candid way what motivated their career choice. Did they become aware of it through their environment or through personal experience? Which barriers did they have to overcome in the process of choosing a career? What do they think of their role as an exotic species in female-dominated teams? At which point did they begin to question the prevailing norms of gender identities?And what did that do for their own idea of masculinity? These portraits are enriched by five personal essays written by representatives from the Swiss healthcare sector who have been in the caring profession for a long time.
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MedicineHumanitarian Aid
Encounters with People in Need
by Joachim Gardemann
Joachim Gardemann outlines his encounters and experiences as a pediatrician in crisis zones while working for the Red Cross all over the world. He describes people in existential emergency situations, who have been traumatized but survived a genocide on the border with Rwanda. People who have fled from civil wars in Congo or escaped from the Kosovo war. He traces the suffering of people in Iran, China and Haiti after losing their relatives and all their possessions in severe earthquakes. At their moments of greatest vulnerability, in the shelters and dirt of a refugee camp in Jordan, he meets people who have fled from the turmoil of the civil wars in Sudan and Syria. He sketches poignant portraits of the victims of the tsunami disaster in Sri Lanka. He gives a striking account of the devastation wrought by the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone. He creates a worthy memorial to those who died of Ebola, who lost their lives as doctors and nurses in the fight against Ebola as well as to those who survived.
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Humanities & Social SciencesApril 2015Images of Oliver Cromwell
Essays for and by Roger Howell, Jr
by Essays for and by Roger Howell, Jr.
Oliver Cromwell has been both applauded and reviled and his memory invoked in periods and in countries other than his own. This complex historiography has left us today with many different versions of Cromwell as man, general and statesman of which the conflicting images are the subject of this book. Available in paperback for the first time, this classic study is based on the unfinished magnum opus of the leading scholar of seventeenth-century history, Roger Howell (1936?89). It includes chapters by a team of leading international experts on a broad range of subjects originally planned by Howell himself. It includes Howell's studies of the reactions to Cromwell in the Restoration period and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Added to these are reprints of his essays on psychohistorical approaches to Cromwell and on Cromwell's contribution to English liberty. Further historiographical portraits of the Protector are offered in chapters which consider Cromwell and the Glorious Revolution; Carlyle's Cromwell; Irish images of the Protector; American interpretations; and the comparisons made between Cromwell and the twentieth-century dictators. ;
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January 1987Literarische Portraits
Von Grimmelshausen bis Brecht
by Herausgegeben von Hinderer, Walter
