Enfilade

The volume originated from a June 2021 conference on the topic. From the University of Heidelberg’s arthistoricum.net, where all contents are available free of charge

Gaëtane Maës, Isabelle Pichet, and Dorit Kluge, eds., L’expérience sensorielle dans les expositions au XVIIIe siècle / The Sensory Experience in 18th-Century Art Exhibitions (Heidelberg: arthistoricum.net-ART-Books, 2024 / Passages online, Volume 25), 274 pages, ISBN: 978-3985011544 (hardcover) / ISBN: 978-3985011537 (PDF).

In the 18th century, the art exhibitions organised in the Louvre in Paris by the Académie royale de Peinture et de Sculpture created an unprecedented cultural event, which quickly aroused the curiosity and envy of the public in the French provinces and other nations. A visit to the Salon du Louvre or any other art exhibition, where the desire to be entertained and to learn are intertwined, is an experience that appeals to all the senses. It is therefore possible to introduce the notion of ‘sensory experience’, since not only sight, but also hearing, touch, smell and taste are called upon in varied and complex ways at every moment of the visit. Using a variety of approaches, this book aims to capture the sensations experienced by visitors to art exhibitions in Europe during the long eighteenth century (1680–1815), drawing on visual and textual sources from the period.

c o n t e n t s

Introduction — Gaëtane Maës, Dorit Kluge, Isabelle Pichet (translated from the French by Nicole Charley)

Partie 1 | L’expérience sensorielle dans les œuvres
• Viewing Blindness at the Paris Salon — Emma Barker
• Les saisons en exposition: L’expérience des sensations à travers les sculptures de Jean-Antoine Houdon — Friederike Vosskamp
• Exhibitions of Automata in Ireland in the Age of Enlightenment — Alison Fitzgerald

Partie 2 | L’expérience sensible dans les œuvres
• Depicting identity or emotion? Clairon vs. Dumesnil at the Salon of the Louvre — Gaëtane Maës
• Ducreux’s Yawning: Attention, Sensation, and the Ambiguity of Affect — Lisa Hecht
• Les plaisirs du public: L’érotisation du regard dans les expositions de la Royal Academy au XVIIIe siècle — Jan Blanc
• The Minds and Bodies of Women in the Salon Views of Gabriel de Saint-Aubin: A ‘peintre de la vie moderne’ in the Age of Enlightenment — Kim de Beaumont

Partie 3 | L’expérience spatiale de la visite
• Une surface au service de l’expérience sensorielle: Le mur des espaces d’exposition au XVIIIe siècle — Valérie Kobi
• Le conditionnement de l’expérience du sensible — Isabelle Pichet
• L’émerveillement « rationalisé » des visiteurs des ‘country houses’ dans la Grande-Bretagne du XVIIIe siècle — Sophie Soccard

Partie 4 | L’expérience de la critique
• ‘I’m Dying up Here!’: Disappointing History Painting — Mark Ledbury
• L’aveugle aux Salons de Denis Diderot — You Gyeong Lee
• L’identité de la critique d’art allemande: Un glissement du visuel/descriptif vers l’auditif/narratif — Dorit Kluge
• Le langage du corps face à l’art: Entre affection, discussion et contemplation — Markus Castor

Résumés
Abstracts
Auteurs
Crédits

From Amsterdam UP:

Martin Nixon, Architecture, Opportunity, and Conflict in Eighteenth-Century Sicily: Rebuilding after Natural Disaster (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023), 284 pages, ISBN: 978-9463725736, €134 / $154.

The catastrophic Sicilian earthquake of 1693 led to the rebuilding of over 60 towns in the island’s south-west. The rebuilding extended into the eighteenth century and gave opportunities for the reassertion and the transformation of power relations. Although eight of the towns are now protected by UNESCO, the remarkable architecture resulting from this rebuilding is little known outside Sicily.

This is the first book-length study in English of this interesting area of early modern architecture. Rather than seek to address all of the towns, five case studies discuss key aspects of the rebuilding by approaching the architecture from different scales, from that of a whole town to parts of a town, or single buildings, or parts of buildings and their decoration. Each case study also investigates a different theoretical assumption in architecture, including ideas of the Baroque, rational planning, and the relegation of decoration in architectural discourse.

Martin Nixon is Assistant Professor of Art History at Zayed University, United Arab Emirates. His research interests include Southern Italian art and architecture, architecture and political power, urbanism and territorial transformation, the reception of architectural ornament, and questions of cultural and stylistic hybridity in architecture. Nixon completed his doctoral dissertation on the eighteenth-century rebuilding of the Val di Noto, Sicily with York University in 2018. In 2011, he received the John Fleming Travel Award to assist his doctoral research in Sicily. He completed an MA in Art History at the Open University in December 2007 with a dissertation on the eighteenth-century Sansevero Chapel in Naples.

c o n t e n t s

List of illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction
1  Sicily as a Colonial Possession c. 1600–1750: Subordination and Resistance
2  The Hexagonal Towns of Avola and Grammichele: Urbanism, Fortification, and Coercion
3  The Palaces of Noto: Ornament, Order, and Opportunism
4  The Palazzo Biscari in Catania: Lightness, Refinement, and Distinction
5  The Palazzo Beneventano in Scicli: Trauma and Violence
6  The Palaces of Ragusa: Abundance, Famine, and the Grotesque
Conclusion

Glossary
Bibliography
Index

From Bloomsbury:

Matthew McCormack, Shoes and the Georgian Man (London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2025), 208 pages, ISBN: 978-1350358676 (hardback), £85, $100 / ISBN: 978-1350358669 (paperback), £29, $40.

Shoes are everyday objects, but they are loaded with meaning. This book reveals how shoes played a powerful role in the wider story of shifts in gender relations in 18th-century Britain. It focuses on the relationship of shoes with the body and its movements, and therefore how what we wear on our feet relates closely to social, occupational, and gender roles. It also uses footwear to explore topics such as politics, war, dance, and disability. Thinking about shoes as material objects, McCormack studied historic shoes first-hand in museums, in order to ascertain their physical properties and what they would have been like to wear. Worn shoes preserve traces of the wearer’s body in their indentations, stretches and scuffs, providing a unique primary source about their wearer. This approach forges new connections between the histories or material culture, gender, and the body, and sheds new light on what it meant to be a man in the 18th century.

Matthew McCormack is Professor of History at the University of Northampton, course leader for MA History, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the Higher Education Academy. His previous books include The Independent Man: Citizenship and Gender Politics in Georgian England, Embodying the Militia in Georgian England, and Citizenship and Gender in Britain, 1688–1928. He edited the Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies (2015–20).

c o n t e n t s

List of Figures
Acknowledgements

Introduction
1  Georgian Men and Their Shoes
2  Shoes and the Body
3  Shoes and Politics
4  Boots and Masculinity
5  Gout Shoes and Disability
6  Dancing Feet
7  The Soldier’s Shoe
Conclusion: Wearing Georgian Shoes

Select Bibliography
Index

Registration for an online conversation about the book is available via Eventbrite:

Online Conversation: Shoes and the Georgian Man
Tuesday, 11 March 2025, 2pm EDT

Serena Dyer talks with Matthew McCormack about his new book, Shoes and the Georgian Man, published by Bloomsbury in January 2025. By Leicester Branch of the Historical Assn.

From Reaktion Books with distribution by The University of Chicago Press:

Chris Filstrup and Jane Merrill, The Turban: A History from East to West (London: Reaktion Books, 2025), 264 pages, ISBN: 978-1836390749, £20 / $30.

A superbly illustrated history of the turban, from Arabian origins to global cultural icon.

A turban is a strip of cloth folded and wrapped around the head; however, this description includes multifarious forms across space and time. This book follows the turban as it moves from the Arabian Peninsula through the Ottoman Empire to Europe and the Americas. It directs the reader’s gaze from traditional and religious uses of the turban into the realms of international trade, Renaissance art and contemporary fashions. Turbans, as this book shows, have moved in and out of Western culture, at times considered archaic and forgotten, then noticed and reinstated as major accessories. Today Sikh men are recognized by their distinctive headwraps, and the turban remains an important part of Black culture. This book explores the turban’s many adaptations worldwide.

Chris Filstrup was Chief of the Oriental Division at the New York Public Library and Dean of Libraries at Stony Brook University. He is co-author with Jane Merrill of The Wedding Night (2011) among other titles. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.
Jane Merrill has written for many national U.S. magazines and is the author of The Showgirl Costume (2018) and other cultural histories. She lives in Saint George, Maine.

c o n t e n t s

Introduction
1  A Path into Western Iconography
2  Trade, Diplomacy and Depiction
3  Nabobs, Adventurers and Travellers
4  Masques and Turquerie
5  Riding the Magic Carpet
6  A Neoclassical Accessory
7  Individual Expressions: Africa and the Caribbean
8  Cultural Tourism and Authenticity since 1900

References
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Photo Acknowledgements
Index

From Reaktion Books, with distribution by The University of Chicago Press:

Nina Edwards, The Virtues of Underwear: Modesty, Flamboyance and Filth (London: Reaktion Books, 2024), 224 pages, ISBN: 978-1789149562, £20 / $28.

Unravels the intimate narratives woven into the fabric of our most personal garments.

Stories are woven into the fabric of our most personal garments. From the first loincloths to the intricate layers of shapewear, the concealed world of underwear is capable of expressing individual desire and also aspects of society at large. An indicator of the vagaries of fashion, underwear can be simple or elaborate. It both safeguards and exposes, reflecting our hopes and experiences. Underwear can embarrass and excite, amuse and shame us. This book illuminates the sometimes profound significance of the garments we wear beneath our outer clothing. It discusses the history of both women’s and men’s underwear, and global cultures of dress.

Nina Edwards is a freelance writer based in London. Her books include Darkness: A Cultural History (2018) and Pazazz: The Impact and Resonance of White Clothing (2023), both published by Reaktion Books.

c o n t e n t s

Introduction
1  What Is Underwear For?
2  Codpiece and Corset
3  Modesty and the Immodest Torso
4  Outer to Under and Back Again
5  Fabric and Fit
6  Medical and Other Practical Matters
7  Economic and Religious Concerns
8  The Underwear Drawer

Glossary
References
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Photo Acknowledgements
Index

Coming in March from the University of Pittsburgh Press:

Edwin Rose, Reading the World: British Practices of Natural History, 1760–1820 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2025), 408 pages, ISBN: ‎978-0822948513, $65.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—a period that marked the emergence of a global modernity—educated landowners, or ‘gentlemen’, dominated the development of British natural history, utilizing networks of trade and empire to inventory nature and understand events across the world. Specimens, ranging from a Welsh bittern to the plants of Botany Bay, were collected, recorded, and classified, while books were produced in London and copies distributed and used across Britain, Continental Europe, the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas. Natural history connected a diverse range of individuals, from European landowners to Polynesian priests, incorporating, distributing, synthesizing, and appropriating information collected on a global scale. In Reading the World, Edwin D. Rose positions books, natural history specimens, and people in a close cycle of literary production and consumption. His book reveals new aspects of scientific practice and the specific roles of individuals employed to collect, synthesize, and distribute knowledge—reevaluating Joseph Banks’s and Daniel Solander’s investigations during James Cook’s Endeavour voyage to the Pacific. Uncovering the range of skills involved in knowledge production, Rose expands our understanding of natural history as a cyclical process, from the initial collection and identification of specimens to the formal publication of descriptions to the eventual printing of sources.

Edwin D. Rose is currently AHRC Research Fellow in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge and Advanced Research Fellow at Darwin College, Cambridge. From May 2025 he will be a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Research Fellow in the School of Philosophy, Religion, and History of Science at the University of Leeds.