The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume III: From the "Age of Discovery" to the Age of Abolition, Part 1: Artists of the Renaissance and Baroque
Brand: Brand: Belknap Press
Categories: Books, Politics & Social Sciences, Social Sciences


Used Book in Good Condition

Dimensions: 10.04 x 1.43 x 11.2 inches
ISBN-13: 978-0674052611
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0674052617
Publisher: Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press
Print length: 432 pages
Publication date: November 1, 2010
subtitle: Hardcover – Illustrated, November 1, 2010
author: David Bindman Henry Louis Gates Jr. Karen C. C. Dalton Joseph Leo Koerner Paul H. D. Kaplan Victor Stoichita Elmer Kolfin Joaneath Spicer
review: Editorial Reviews Review “A fascinating story of the changing image of Africa's people in Western art. The images are simply extraordinary and the scholarship inspiring. Anyone who cares about Western art or about Africa and her diaspora ought to know these magnificent volumes.” ― Kwame Anthony Appiah “In addition to being an indispensable guide to the evolving meanings of racial difference, these dazzling volumes filled with extraordinary images and rich arguments contribute to an alternative history of the Western world. An invaluable gift for both specialists and general readers.” ― Paul Gilroy, author of The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness “One of the most thorough collections depicting the African-American in works of art...The books build on the research and photo project started by art patron Dominique de Menil in the 1960s, which grew out of a frustration with segregation. The collection was then transferred and continued to grow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University. De Menil's original volumes have been updated by David Bindman and Henry Louis Gates Jr. and now include more detailed descriptions and provide a larger context of the artwork that spans more than 5,000 years, including the Roman Empire to present-day pieces, filling in tremendous gaps in de Menil's collection, according to some art historians. The images, printed in full-color on high-quality pages, are available for the masses to see and understand how African-Americans not only fit into the various societies of the Western world, but how those relationships evolved throughout the ages.” ― Kirkus Reviews “The volumes so far are a treasury of paintings and sculptures of people down the ages, taking in many strands of ritual, classicism, artlessness and humanity.” ― William Feaver , Spectator “Harvard is known to be reluctant to publish art books but if this is anything to go by, it should do so more often.” ― Jaynie Anderson , Australian Literary Review “This volume is breathtaking in its scope and scholarship.” ― K. Mason , Choice “Monumental and groundbreaking volumes...[with] beautifully reproduced and thought-provoking images…A vast array of different "Images of the Black" appear in these volumes, from statues of black saints such as St. Maurice or St. Benedict the Moor, to portraits of notable African ambassadors and kings, poets and musicians, or drawings of literary characters such as Shakespeare's Othello, Aphra Behn's Oroonoko, or Yarico from George Colman's Inkle and Yarico...Africans have been painted and sculpted by some of the most eminent artists in the Western tradition, including Titian, Tiepolo, Rubens, Rembrandt,Van Dyck, Reynolds, Hogarth, Watteau and Gainsborough. More importantly, they have not been caricatured, but sensitively portrayed by these masters, their humanity captured on canvas for all to see...In placing such a vast variety of different images together, both positive and negative, these volumes show that the "Image of the Black" was not at all homogenous but rather reflected the wide range of the Western response to the "other."...Seen through the prism of "Western Art," these "Images of the Black" often tell us more about the Europeans and their agendas than the Africans they portray. Nonetheless, the cumulative effect of the images is to demonstrate a continuous black presence in the Western imagination and experience…This series will pose new questions to scholars of art, history and literature and provoke us all to reconsider the role of "the Black" in Western civilization.” ― Miranda Kaufmann , Times Literary Supplement About the Author David Bindman is Emeritus Professor of the History of Art at University College London. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is the author of numerous books and has written extensively on the history of race and anti-Black racism in the Enlightenment. His most recent works include Stony the Road and The Black Church . He is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University.