Power, image, and memory: historical subjects in art

Uittreksel

"This book examines a wide variety of artistic traditions, showing how art commemorating historical events can shape collective memory, and with it, the identities of social groups and nations. It organizes twelve canonical works of representational art created in a variety of media around themes of commemoration and power. The chapters begin by describing the political and historical context for a work; then move into thick description, paying special attention to narrative techniques and conventions; followed by an analysis of the work's meaning and the context of its commission; and end with a discussion of the work's legacy in art history. The chapters argue how makers intended works of art to act as propaganda. The works depict conflicts very recent to the period in which they were produced. They are representations of specific conflicts employing specific techniques intended by their makers to encourage specific ideas about how those events connected to specific political ideologies. The examples chosen for the book are exceptional in how they communicated power or represented the past; many are the "first" time a particular technique was employed. This book examines why and how certain technical developments of narrative conventions developed"-- Provided by publisher.

Inhoud

Introduction. History into art -- The Victory Stele of Naram-Sîn : the genesis of a commemorative tradition -- The Temple of Ramses II at Abu Simbel : message control in Ancient Egypt -- The Alexander Mosaic : commemorative practice in Greek polis and Macedonian empire -- The Column of Trajan : images of power at Rome's center and periphery -- The Bayeux Embroidery : stitching new identities in Medieval England -- Night attack on the Sanjō palace : unscrolling the warrior ethos of medieval Japan -- The battle of San Romano : painting and the perpetuation of memory in renaissance Florence -- The Benin Plaques : displaced memories of an African empire -- The Hünernāme : shaping identity and ensuring legacy at the Ottoman court -- The surrender of Breda : gesture and private memory in baroque Spain -- The death of General Wolfe : fashioning imperial and colonial identities in the Americas -- Guernica : modernism and Picasso's blasted allegory -- Conclusions and coda. Art into history.