Visar resultat för..."Angelus III"

With bracing clarity, James Elkins explores why images are taken to be more intricate and hard to describe in the twentieth century than they had been in any previous century. Why Are Our Pictures Puzzles? uses three models to understand the kinds of complex meaning that pictures are thought to possess: the affinity between the meanings of paintings and jigsaw-puzzles; the contemporary interest in ambiguity and 'levels of meaning'; and the penchant many have to interpret pictures by finding images hidden within them. Elkins explores a wide variety of examples, from the figures hidden in Renaissance paintings to Salvador Dali's paranoiac meditations on Millet's Angelus, from Persian miniature paintings to jigsaw-puzzles. He also examines some of the most vexed works in history, including Watteau's "meaningless" paintings, Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling, and Leonardo's Last Supper.

The Fourth Crusade (1202-4) was one of the key events in medieval historyThe fall of Constantinople to the Venetians and the soldiers of the fourth crusade in April 1204 was its climax. It ensured that Byzantium’s days as a great power were over. It equally ensured that westerners would dominate the Levant – the lands of the old Byzantine Empire –until the end of the middle ages. This book asks just how important was the Fourth as a turning point in the Middle East.. The broad setting is the encounter of Byzantium with the West within the framework of the crusades. Differences of outlook and interest meant that this encounter was soon overburdened with mutual distrust. 1204 was some kind of a solution and created situations scarcely conceivable even two years before when the fourth crusade set sail from Venice.

Déodat de Séverac (1872-1921) is best known for his piano music but his compositions included orchestral and vocal works, including opera, cantata and incidental music. Claude Debussy described Séverac's music as "exquisite and rich with ideas." The early works were influenced by Impressionist harmonies, church modes, cyclic techniques, folk-like melodies and Andalusian motives. Séverac's style changed dramatically in 1907 when he left Paris and began to include Catalan elements in his compositions - a transition that has hitherto gone unrecognized. Robert Waters provides a much-needed study of the life and works of Séverac, focusing on the composer's regionalist philosophy. Séverac's engagement with folk music was not a patriotic gesture in the vein of nationalistic composers, but a way of expressing regional identity within France to counter the restrictive styles sanctioned by the Paris Conservatory. His musical philosophy mirrored larger social and political debates regarding anti-centralist positions on education, politics, art and culture in fin de siècle France. Such debates involved political and social leaders whom Séverac knew and personally admired, including the writer Maurice Barrès and the poet Frédéric Mistral. The book will appeal to those specializing in French music, European ethnic musics, piano music and French music history.