Caroline van Eck - Böcker

Near the end of his life, Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-78) created three colossal candelabra mainly from fragments of sculpture excavated near the Villa Hadriana in Tivoli, two of which are now in the Ashmolean Museum, and one in the Louvre. Although they were among the most sought-after and prestigious of his works, and fetched enormous prices during Piranesi's life, they suffered a steep decline in appreciation from the 1820s onwards, and even today they are among the least studied of his works. Piranesi's Candelabra and the Presence of the Past uncovers the intense investment, by artists, patrons, collectors, and the public around the start of the nineteenth century in objects that made Graeco-Roman Antiquity present again. Caroline van Eck's study examines how objects make their makers or viewers feel that they are again in the presence of Antiquity, that not only Antiquity has revived, but that classical statues become alive under their gaze. what it takes to make such objects, and what it costs to own them; and about the ramifications of such intense if not excessive attachments to artefacts. This book considers the three candelabra in depth, providing the biography of these objects, from the excavation of the Roman fragments to their entry into private and public collection. Van Eck considers the context that Piranesi gave them by including them in his Vasi, Candelabri e Cippi (1778), to rethink the processes that led to the development of neoclassicism from the perspective of the objects and objectscapes that came into being in Rome at the end of the eighteenth century.

The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries witnessed a change in the perception of the arts and of philosophy. In the arts this transition occurred around 1800, with, for instance, the breakdown of Vitruvianism in architecture, while in philosophy the foundationalism of which Descartes and Spinoza were paradigmatic representatives, which presumed that philosophy and the sciences possessed a method of ensuring the demonstration of truths, was undermined by the idea, asserted by Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, that there exist alternative styles of enquiry among which a choice is open. The essays in this book examine the circumstances, features, and consequences of this historical transition, exploring in particular new aspects and instances of the inter-relatedness of content and its formal representation in both the arts and philosophy.

The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries witnessed a change in the perception of the arts and of philosophy. In the arts this transition occurred around 1800, with, for instance, the breakdown of Vitruvianism in architecture, while in philosophy the foundationalism of which Descartes and Spinoza were paradigmatic representatives, which presumed that philosophy and the sciences possessed a method of ensuring the demonstration of truths, was undermined by the idea, asserted by Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, that there exist alternative styles of enquiry among which a choice is open. The essays in this book examine the circumstances, features, and consequences of this historical transition, exploring in particular new aspects and instances of the inter-relatedness of content and its formal representation in both the arts and philosophy.

One of the issues underlying current debates between practitioners of art history, visual culture and aesthetics is whether the visual is a unique, irreducible category, or whether it can be assimilated with the textual or verbal without any significant loss. Can paintings, buildings or installations be 'read' in the way texts are read or deciphered, or do works of visual art ask for their own kind of appreciation? This is not only a question of choosing the right method in dealing with visual works of art, but also an issue that touches on the roots of the disciplines involved: can a case be made for the visual as an irreducible category of art, and if so, how is it best studied and appreciated? In this anthology, this question is approached from the angles of three disciplines: aesthetics, visual culture and art history. Unlike many existing overviews of visual culture studies, it includes both painting and architecture, and investigates historical ways of defining and appreciating the visual in their own, contemporary terms. Dealing with the Visual will be of great use to advanced students because it offers an overview of current debates, and to graduate students and professionals in the field because the essays offer in-depth investigations of the methodological issues involved and various historical ways of defining visuality. The topics included range from early modern ways of viewing pictures and sixteenth-century views of Palladio's villas in their landscape settings to contemporary debate about whether there is life yet in painting.

This title was first published in 2002. Germain Boffrand was one of the great French architects of the early eighteenth century. His work encompassed not only the design of town and country houses for the wealthy but also mines, bridges and hospitals. His Livre d’Architecture is one of the most original books on architecture ever written in France. Taking the Art of Poetry by the Latin poet Horace as its starting point, it developed an aesthetic of architecture focused on character, style and the emotional impact of a building that influenced Blondel, Le Camus de Mezieres and Soane, and is still central to contemporary debate about the nature and meaning of architecture. Translated for the first time by David Britt, Boffrand’s text is here accompanied by an extensive introduction and notes by Caroline van Eck who situates Boffrand within the main issues of eighteenth-century architectural aesthetics. Beautifully illustrated, including all the pictures chosen by Boffrand for his original publication, this book is an invaluable tool for teaching the history of architectural theory and an essential work for any architectural library. Germain Boffrand is published with the assistance of the Getty Foundation.

One of the issues underlying current debates between practitioners of art history, visual culture and aesthetics is whether the visual is a unique, irreducible category, or whether it can be assimilated with the textual or verbal without any significant loss. Can paintings, buildings or installations be 'read' in the way texts are read or deciphered, or do works of visual art ask for their own kind of appreciation? This is not only a question of choosing the right method in dealing with visual works of art, but also an issue that touches on the roots of the disciplines involved: can a case be made for the visual as an irreducible category of art, and if so, how is it best studied and appreciated? In this anthology, this question is approached from the angles of three disciplines: aesthetics, visual culture and art history. Unlike many existing overviews of visual culture studies, it includes both painting and architecture, and investigates historical ways of defining and appreciating the visual in their own, contemporary terms. Dealing with the Visual will be of great use to advanced students because it offers an overview of current debates, and to graduate students and professionals in the field because the essays offer in-depth investigations of the methodological issues involved and various historical ways of defining visuality. The topics included range from early modern ways of viewing pictures and sixteenth-century views of Palladio's villas in their landscape settings to contemporary debate about whether there is life yet in painting.

This book was published in 2003. Although it is often assumed that British writing on architectural theory really started in the 18th century, there is in fact a large corpus of writing on architecture pre-dating the introduction of Palladianism by Lord Burlington. Some of it, such as the English editions of Serlio and Palladio, belongs to the Vitruvian tradition. But many texts elude such easy classification, such as the prolonged (but hardly studied) discussions on church architecture, which are both in form and content very different from the way that theme was handled in Italian Renaissance treatises. This collection of English writing on architecture from 1540 to 1750 offers a large selection of fragments, some of them never published before. They discuss the nature of architecture, the practicalities of building, the sense of the past, religious architecture and classicism.

This book was published in 2003.Although it is often assumed that British writing on architectural theory really started in the 18th century, there is in fact a large corpus of writing on architecture pre-dating the introduction of Palladianism by Lord Burlington. Some of it, such as the English editions of Serlio and Palladio, belongs to the Vitruvian tradition. But many texts elude such easy classification, such as the prolonged (but hardly studied) discussions on church architecture, which are both in form and content very different from the way that theme was handled in Italian Renaissance treatises. This collection of English writing on architecture from 1540 to 1750 offers a large selection of fragments, some of them never published before. They discuss the nature of architecture, the practicalities of building, the sense of the past, religious architecture and classicism. All fragments are introduced and annotated to facilitate use both by architectural historians and in the class-room.

This title was first published in 2002. Germain Boffrand was one of the great French architects of the early eighteenth century. His work encompassed not only the design of town and country houses for the wealthy but also mines, bridges and hospitals. His Livre d’Architecture is one of the most original books on architecture ever written in France. Taking the Art of Poetry by the Latin poet Horace as its starting point, it developed an aesthetic of architecture focused on character, style and the emotional impact of a building that influenced Blondel, Le Camus de Mezieres and Soane, and is still central to contemporary debate about the nature and meaning of architecture. Translated for the first time by David Britt, Boffrand’s text is here accompanied by an extensive introduction and notes by Caroline van Eck who situates Boffrand within the main issues of eighteenth-century architectural aesthetics. Beautifully illustrated, including all the pictures chosen by Boffrand for his original publication, this book is an invaluable tool for teaching the history of architectural theory and an essential work for any architectural library. Germain Boffrand is published with the assistance of the Getty Foundation.

The most famous monument of the Dutch Golden Age is undoubtedly the Amsterdam Town Hall by architect Jacob van Campen inaugurated in 1655. Today we stand in awe confronted with the grand Classicist façade, the delightful horror of the sculptures in the Tribunal, and the magnificence of the huge Citizens’ Hall. In the period of its construction, many artists and writers tried to capture the overwhelming impact of the building by, among other comparisons, relating it to the ancient Wonders of the World and by stressing its splendour, riches, and impressive scale. In doing so, they constructed the Town Hall as the ultimate wonder, thus offering a silent, but very powerful testimony to the power and position of the City of Amsterdam and its rulers as equals of the other European regimes.To fully understand these mechanisms of power, this book relates the Town Hall to other, impressive buildings of the same period—the palace of the Louvre, Saint Peter’s Basilica, and Banqueting House—and their visual and textual representations. Thus, this book gives a broad audience of readers new insights into the agency of magnificent buildings. The Amsterdam Town Hall in Words and Images does not restrict itself to a national scope or a purely architectural analysis, but clarifies how artists and writers all over Europe presented buildings as wonders of the world. This book is pioneering in its analysis of seventeenth and eighteenth-century paintings, prints, drawings, poems, and travel accounts and offers a new understanding of how the wondrous character of these grand buildings was constructed.

Theatricality in Early Modern Art and Architecture offers the first systematic investigation of exchanges between the arts, architecture and the theatre.The authors present many new instances of the interaction between the arts, providing a theoretical and historiographical context for these interactions. Offers the first systematic investigation of exchanges between the arts, architecture and the theatre, not simply the influence of the theatre on the arts, and vice versaDevelops a theoretical and methodological model to study such exchanges and interactionsPresents many new, hitherto unknown instances of the interaction between the arts, particularly architecture, and the theatre, and provides such interactions with a theoretical and historiographical contextAuthors have opened up new ways of analyzing theatricality both in the arts, architecture and the theatre