Matthew Wilson – författare

A stimulating narrative and reference resource that guides the reader through the most significant symbols from worldwide art history. Why do we reach for the red rose on Valentine’s day? Where did the owl gain its reputation for wisdom? Why should you never trust a fox? In this visual tour through art history, Matthew Wilson pieces together a global visual language enshrined in art: the language of symbols. Symbols exert a strong hold in the image-saturated 21st century, and have done so for thousands of years. From national emblems to corporate logos and emojis, our day-to-day lives abound with icons with roots in the distant past. Expert art historian Matthew Wilson traces the often surprising trajectories that symbols have taken through history, from their original purposes to their modern meanings, identifying the common themes and ideas that link seemingly disparate cultures. Thus we meet the falcon as a symbol of authority from the ancient Egyptian pharaohs to the medieval aristocracy; the dog as stalwart companion from the classical era to the Renaissance; and the mythical phoenix as a symbol of female power connecting a queen in England with a goddess in China. We also see moments of radical reinterpretation and change: the transformation of the swastika from an auspicious symbol of hope to one of hate. From Palaeolithic cave paintings to contemporary installations, Wilson deftly guides us through this world of symbols, showcasing their enduring ability to express power, hope, fear and faith, and to create and communicate identities, uniting – or dividing – the people that made them.

Amidst the soot, stink and splendour of Victorian London, a coterie of citizen-sociologists set out to break up the British Empire. They were the followers of the French philosopher Auguste Comte, a controversial figure who introduced the modern science of sociology and the republican Religion of Humanity. Moralising Space examines how from the 1850s Comte’s British followers practised this science and religion with the aim to create a global network of 500 utopian city-states. Curiously the British Positivists’ work has never been the focus of a full-length study on modern sociology and town planning. In this intellectual history, Matthew Wilson shows that through to the interwar period affiliates to the British Positivist Society – Richard Congreve, Frederic Harrison, Charles Booth, Patrick Geddes and Victor Branford – attempted to realise Comte’s vision. With scarcely used source material Wilson presents the Positivists as an organised resistance to imperialism, industrial exploitation, poverty and despondency. Much to the consternation of the church, state and landed aristocracy they organised urban interventions, led ad hoc sociological surveys and published programmes for realising idyllic city-communities. Effectively this book contributes to our understanding of how Positivism, as a utopian spatial design praxis, heavily influenced twentieth-century architecture and planning.

A down-to-earth, visual guidebook that shows how to ‘read’, understand and get the most out of art. For beginners, art history might seem a daunting subject with complex rules and impenetrable technical language. Even for more seasoned art lovers the question of how to think about art is a perennial riddle. Art Unpacked is the perfect resource for both audiences: an engaging, visual primer for the general reader, as well as educators. Designed like an instruction manual, fifty key artworks from around the world are deconstructed with pithy explanations, diagrams and close-ups, in order to reveal the elements that make up a masterpiece. Dating from the earliest times to the present, the artworks under analysis are drawn from many cultures, and cover all forms of visual media including: drawing, illustration, photography, prints and sculpture. Matthew Wilson’s simplicity of approach, using established art historical methods, enables the reader to discover the fundamentals of art history, from considerations of function, historical context, iconography and artists’ experience, to broader issues of identity including feminism, gender and postcolonialism. Whether it’s the mask of Tutankhamun or Dorothea Lange’s photograph of Migrant Mother, Hokusai’s Great Wave or Kara Walker’s Gone, each image is dissected on the page in a no-nonsense style, with explanatory notes detailing artists’ sources of inspiration, associated styles and movements, plus any relevant quotes, related visuals and other contextual and issue-led information with keywords for handy cross-referencing. The resulting book is a dynamic, visual resource that will inspire and spark enjoyment of art in all its forms.

Iconography, the study of symbols – be they animals, artefacts, plants, shapes or gestures – is an essential element of art history. This guide unravels over fifty of the most common and intriguing visual symbols from across the globe from 2300 BCE to the present day. While symbols cross dialects and national boundaries, their meanings can vary and are often culturally specific. The snake, an object of fascination and mysticism in Aztec culture, usually represents sin in the west. Yinka Shonibare’s Last Supper (2013) plays on the grapevine’s historic associations to satiric and startling effect. Matt Wilson explores symbolism’s subtle implications and overt and covert meanings, providing an indispensable tool for interpretation. A reference section includes suggestions for further reading and a glossary of art and historical terms.

This book examines diverse ways of questioning, critiquing, and communicating site in the creative process of architecture, interior design, urban planning, and historical and cultural studies. The authors use the term site to connote a series of complex, established, or pre-existing conditions – a setting, an atmosphere, an area – to read, to interpret, to relate to, and to engage with, to redefine, or to create in relation to a design prompt. By acknowledging, accommodating, and empowering the physical, intellectual, and cultural characteristics of a site, students question its history, boundaries, posture, and situational aspects. Such inquiries promote a deeper appreciation of a site and thus help students to acknowledge its capacity to influence design throughout the iterative creative process. Understanding Site in Design Pedagogy adds to the body of literature on design studio pedagogy by presenting a collection of essays that challenge normative assumptions about what defines a site and its distinctive qualities. It poses a series of pedagogical questions for how sites might be diversely interpreted and introduced to design students. This study offers chapters that speak to site, memory, and lived experience; multi-scalar thinking about site; connecting to site through sensory phenomenon in interior design; alternate ways of engaging site for learning sustainable principles; and introducing unorthodox forms of site as the impetus to creative endeavours. It offers innovative approaches to scholarship of teaching and learning with respect to diverse readings of site within design education.

This book examines diverse ways of questioning, critiquing, and communicating site in the creative process of architecture, interior design, urban planning, and historical and cultural studies. The authors use the term site to connote a series of complex, established, or pre-existing conditions – a setting, an atmosphere, an area – to read, to interpret, to relate to, and to engage with, to redefine, or to create in relation to a design prompt. By acknowledging, accommodating, and empowering the physical, intellectual, and cultural characteristics of a site, students question its history, boundaries, posture, and situational aspects. Such inquiries promote a deeper appreciation of a site and thus help students to acknowledge its capacity to influence design throughout the iterative creative process. Understanding Site in Design Pedagogy adds to the body of literature on design studio pedagogy by presenting a collection of essays that challenge normative assumptions about what defines a site and its distinctive qualities. It poses a series of pedagogical questions for how sites might be diversely interpreted and introduced to design students. This study offers chapters that speak to site, memory, and lived experience; multi-scalar thinking about site; connecting to site through sensory phenomenon in interior design; alternate ways of engaging site for learning sustainable principles; and introducing unorthodox forms of site as the impetus to creative endeavours. It offers innovative approaches to scholarship of teaching and learning with respect to diverse readings of site within design education.

Amidst the soot, stink and splendour of Victorian London, a coterie of citizen-sociologists set out to break up the British Empire. They were the followers of the French philosopher Auguste Comte, a controversial figure who introduced the modern science of sociology and the republican Religion of Humanity. Moralising Space examines how from the 1850s Comte’s British followers practised this science and religion with the aim to create a global network of 500 utopian city-states. Curiously the British Positivists’ work has never been the focus of a full-length study on modern sociology and town planning. In this intellectual history, Matthew Wilson shows that through to the interwar period affiliates to the British Positivist Society – Richard Congreve, Frederic Harrison, Charles Booth, Patrick Geddes and Victor Branford – attempted to realise Comte’s vision. With scarcely used source material Wilson presents the Positivists as an organised resistance to imperialism, industrial exploitation, poverty and despondency. Much to the consternation of the church, state and landed aristocracy they organised urban interventions, led ad hoc sociological surveys and published programmes for realising idyllic city-communities. Effectively this book contributes to our understanding of how Positivism, as a utopian spatial design praxis, heavily influenced twentieth-century architecture and planning.

Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932), critically acclaimed for his novels, short stories, and essays, was one of the most ambitious and influential African American writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Today recognized as a major innovator of American fiction, Chesnutt is an important contributor to de-romanticizing trends in post-Civil War Southern literature, and a singular voice among turn-of-the-century realists who wrote about race in American life. Whiteness in the Novels of Charles W. Chesnutt is the first study to focus exclusively on Chesnutt's novels. Examining the three published in Chesnutt's lifetime-The House Behind the Cedars, The Marrow of Tradition, and The Colonel's Dream-as well as his posthumously published novels, this study explores the dilemma of a black writer who wrote primarily for a white audience. Throughout, Matthew Wilson analyzes the ways in which Chesnutt crafted narratives for his white readership and focuses on how he attempted to infiltrate and manipulate the feelings and convictions of that audience. Wilson pays close attention to the genres in which Chesnutt was working and also to the social and historical context of the novels. In articulating the development of Chesnutt's career, Wilson shows how Chesnutt's views on race evolved. By the end of his career, he felt that racial differences were not genetically inherent, but social constructions based on our background and upbringing. Finally, the book closely examines Chesnutt's unpublished manuscripts that did not deal with race. Even in these works, in which African Americans are only minor characters, Wilson finds Chesnutt engaged with the conundrum of race and reveals him as one of America's most significant writers on the subject. Matthew Wilson is a professor of humanities and writing at Penn State University, Harrisburg. He is the editor of Charles W. Chesnutt's Paul Marchand, F.M.C. (University Press of Mississippi).

Published in paperback for the first time, A Business Career is the story of Stella Merwin, a white woman entering the working-class world to discover the truth behind her upper-class father's financial failure. A ""New Woman"" of the 1890s, Stella joins a stenographer's office and uncovers a life-altering secret that allows her to regain her status and wealth. When Charles W. Chesnutt died in 1932, he left behind six manuscripts unpublished, A Business Career among them. Along with novels of Paul Laurence Dunbar, it is one of the first written by an African American who crosses the color line to write about the white world. It is also one of only two Chesnutt novels with a female protagonist. Rejecting the novel for publication, Houghton Mifflin editor Walter Hines Page encouraged Chesnutt to try to get the book in print. ""You will doubtless be able to find a publisher, and my advice to you is decidedly to keep trying till you do find one,"" he wrote. Page clearly saw that in A Business Career Chesnutt had written a successful popular novel grounded in realism but one that exploits elements of romance.

The critique of white male society that Charles W. Chesnutt launched in A Marrow of Tradition continues in Evelyn's Husband, one of six manuscripts left unpublished when this highly regarded African American innovator died. Set in Boston society, on a deserted Caribbean island, and in Brazil, Evelyn's Husband is the story of two men-one old, one young-in love with the same young woman. Late in his career Chesnutt embarked on a period of experimentation with eccentric forms, finishing this hybrid of a romance and adventure story just before publishing his last work, The Colonel's Dream. In Evelyn's Husband, Chesnutt crafts a parody examining white male roles in the early 1900s, a time when there was rampant anxiety over the subject. In Boston, the older man is left at the altar when his bride-to-be flees and marries a young architect. Later, trapped on an island together, the jilted lover and the young husband find a productive middle ground between the dilettante and the primitive. Along with A Business Career, this novel marks Chesnutt's achieve-ment in being among the first African American authors to defy the color barrier and write fiction with a white cast of main characters. Matthew Wilson, Bainbridge, Pennsylvania, introduces both A Business Career and Evelyn's Husband. He is associate professor of humanities and writing at Penn State University, Harrisburg. Marjan van Schaik, Bainbridge, Pennsylvania, edited both novels along with Wilson and is a part-time instructor at Millersville University.

This book is about the possibility of organising society without the state, but, crucially, it makes the claim, contrary to much anarchist theory, that such a life would not entail absolute freedom; rather, as the title suggests, it would mean creating new forms of social organisation which, whilst offering more freedom than state-capitalism, would nonetheless still entail certain limits to freedom. In making this argument, a secondary point is made, which highlights the book's originality; namely, that, whilst anarchism is defended by an increasing number of radicals, the reality of what an anarchist society might look like, and the problems that such a society might encounter, are rarely discussed or acknowledged, either in academic or activist writings.