Enfilade

From UVA Press:

Adam Sills, Against the Map: The Politics of Geography in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2021), 318 pages, ISBN: 978-0813945989 (hardback), $115 / ISBN: 978-0813946009 (ebook), $35 / ISBN: 978-0813945996 (paperback), $45.

Over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the increasing accuracy and legibility of cartographic projections, the proliferation of empirically based chorographies, and the popular vogue for travel narratives served to order, package, and commodify space in a manner that was critical to the formation of a unified Britain. In tandem with such developments, however, a trenchant anti-cartographic skepticism also emerged. This critique of the map can be seen in many literary works of the period that satirize the efficacy and value of maps and highlight their ideological purposes. Against the Map argues that our understanding of the production of national space during this time must also account for these sites of resistance and opposition to hegemonic forms of geographical representation, such as the map.

This study utilizes the methodologies of critical geography, as well as literary criticism and theory, to detail the conflicted and often adversarial relationship between cartographic and literary representations of the nation and its geography. While examining atlases, almanacs, itineraries, and other materials, Adam Sills focuses particularly on the construction of heterotopias in the works of John Bunyan, Aphra Behn, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Samuel Johnson, and Jane Austen. These ‘other’ spaces, such as neighborhood, home, and country, are not reducible to the map but have played an equally important role in the shaping of British national identity. Ultimately, Against the Map suggests that nation is forged not only in concert with the map but, just as important, against it.

Adam Sills is Associate Professor of English at Hofstra University.

This week (11–12 August) marked the fifth anniversary of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville. This collection of essays appeared in hardback in 2021; it’s due to be released in paperback this fall from Bloomsbury:

Sierra Rooney, Jennifer Wingate, and Harriet Senie, eds., Teachable Monuments: Using Public Art to Spark Dialogue and Confront Controversy (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021), 296 pages, ISBN: 978-1501356940 (hardcover), $130 / ISBN: 979-8765100462 (paperback), $35.

Monuments around the world have become the focus of intense and sustained discussions, activism, vandalism, and removal. Since the convulsive events of 2015 and 2017, during which white supremacists committed violence in the shadow of Confederate symbols, and the 2020 nationwide protests against racism and police brutality, protesters and politicians in the United States have removed Confederate monuments, as well as monuments to historical figures like Christopher Columbus and Dr. J. Marion Sims, questioning their legitimacy as present-day heroes that their place in the public sphere reinforces. The essays included in this anthology offer guidelines and case studies tailored for students and teachers to demonstrate how monuments can be used to deepen civic and historical engagement and social dialogue. Essays analyze specific controversies throughout North America with various outcomes as well as examples of monuments that convey outdated or unwelcome value systems without prompting debate.

Sierra Rooney is Assistant Professor of Art History at University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. She is the author of numerous articles on public monuments and controversy.
Jennifer Wingate is Professor of Fine Arts at St. Francis College. She was co-editor of Public Art Dialogue (2017–2020) and is the author of Sculpting Doughboys: Memory Gender, and Taste in America’s Worlds War I Memorials (2013). She has published on representations of the domestic display of FDR portraits, WWI memorials, and public art.
Harriet F. Senie is Professor Emerita of Art History at the City College of New York and the Graduate Center, The City University of New York. She is the author of Memorials to Shattered Myths: Vietnam to 9/11 (2015), The ‘Tilted Arc’ Controversy: Dangerous Precedent? (2001), and Contemporary Public Sculpture: Tradition, Transformation, and Controversy (1992). She has edited several anthologies on different aspects of public art.

C O N T E N T S

List of Illustrations
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements

Introduction: Why Monuments Matter — Sierra Rooney (University of Wisconsin-La Crosse) and Jennifer Wingate (St. Francis College)

Part I: Teaching Strategies
1  Developing Essential Questions for a Student-Driven 4th Grade Monument Study — Adelaide Wainwright (Oregon Episcopal School)
2  Encouraging Intervention: Project-Based Learning with Problematic Public Monuments — Mya Dosch (California State University-Sacramento)
3  Mapping Art on Campus — Annie Dell’Aria (Miami University)
4  Moving Beyond ‘Pale and Male’: A Museum Educator Approach to the Campus Portrait Debate — Jennifer Reynolds-Kaye (Yale Center for British Art)
5  ‘From Commemoration to Education’: Re-setting Context and Interpretation for a Confederate Memorial Statue on a University Campus — Sarah Sonner (Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas-Austin)
6  Making Material Histories: Institutional Memory and Polyvocal Interpretation — Kailani Polzak (University of California-Santa Cruz)

Part II: Political Strategies
7  Dismantling the Confederate Landscape: The Case for a New Context — Sarah Beetham (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts)
8  Learning from Louisville: John Breckenridge Castleman, His Statue, and a Public Sphere Revisited — Chris Reitz (University of Louisville)
9  Addressing Monumental Controversies in New York City Post Charlottesville — Harriet Senie (City University of New York)
10  The Preservation Dilemma: Confronting Two Controversial Monuments in the United States Capitol — Michele Cohen (Architect of the Capitol)
11  Up Against The Wall: Commemorating and Framing the Vietnam War on the National Mall — Jennifer K. Favorite (City University of New York)
12  ‘I feel like I have hated Lincoln for 110 years’: Debates over the Lincoln Statue in Richmond, Virginia — Evie Terrono (Randolph-Macon College)

Part III: Engagement Strategies
13  Paper Monuments as Public Pedagogy — Sue Mobley (Colloqate Design)
14  Charging Bull and Fearless Girl: A Dialogue — Charlene G. Garfinkle (Independent Scholar)
15  The Afterlife of E Pluribus Unum — Laura Holzman (Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis), Modupe Labode (National Museum of American History), and Elizabeth Kryder-Reid (Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis)
16  Unforeseen Controversy: Reconciliation and Re-contextualization of Wartime Atrocities through ‘Comfort Women’ Memorials in the United States — Jung-Sil Lee (George Washington University and Maryland Institute College of Art)
17  Free History Lessons: Contextualizing Confederate Monuments in North Carolina —  Matthew Champagne (North Carolina State University), Katie Schinabeck (North Carolina State University), and Sarah A. M. Soleim (North Carolina State University)
18  Future History: New Monumentality in Old Public Spaces, An interview with Artist Kenseth Armstead — Maria F. Carrascal (Artipica Creative Spaces, Spain)

Index

Coming soon, with distribution by ACC Art Books:

Marieke van Delft, Kay Etheridge, Hans Mulder, Bert van de Roemer, and Florence Pieters, Maria Sibylla Merian: Changing the Nature of Art and Science (Tielt: Lannoo: 2022), 304 pages, ISBN: 978-9401485333, $70.

The revolutionary artist and naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717) has come into the spotlight in recent years. The life and work of this German-born woman, who would later settle in the Netherlands, has been studied internationally by entomologists, botanists and historians and are a source of inspiration for contemporary artists and writers. In 2016, Lannoo Publishers, in collaboration with the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, republished her masterpiece Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium as a facsimile. This well-illustrated book assembles the most recent scientific knowledge about this remarkable woman. The authors examine, among other things, Merian’s pioneering work on the reproduction and development of insects, the methods and materials she used for her work, her remarkable journey to Suriname, her network of family, friends and patrons, and her widespread influence on the history of art and science. Her work is compared to that of early modern and contemporary artists and scientists

This book gathers essays by of 23 international experts, most of whom are connected to the international Maria Sibylla Merian Society. The editorial team consists of Marieke van Delft, Kay Etheridge, Hans Mulder, Bert van de Roemer, and Florence Pieters.

From Scala:

Hahn Eura Eunkyung, European Fans: The Untold Story (London: Scala Arts Publishers, 2022), 248 pages, ISBN: 978-1785514128, £15 / $21.

Showcasing more than 60 carefully selected fans from a collection of over 1000, this is the first in a series of publications from the Eurus Collection, now available in English for the first time.

Throughout history, fans have had numerous roles: personal items to cool the user, tools for religious and ceremonial events, symbols of royal power and authority or important fashion accessories. As practical, symbolic and decorative objects, they are the meeting point of multiple arts. This book focuses on European fans made in the French Rococo style in the eighteenth century and the Rococo Revival style that emerged in the nineteenth century. Sixty-six superb examples, selected from the Eurus Collection in South Korea, offer a glimpse into the lives of European royalty and aristocracy, including their aesthetic preferences, ideals and views on nature, and demonstrate the intermingling of cultures in the newly emerging painting and craft styles which resulted from trade between Europe and the East. This beautifully illustrated book explores the fans’ thematic and stylistic aspects as well as their assembly and production and invites the reader to discover their untold stories.

The Eurus Collection, under the direction of Hahn Eura Eunkyung, is a sister institution of Hwajeong Museum in Seoul. With more than one thousand fans from all over the world, the Eurus Collection is the second largest of its kind in the world (after The Fan Museum in London) and the largest in Asia.

Hahn Eura EunKyung is the founder and director of Eurus Collection. Most of Eurus Collection’s artefacts were collected by her late father, Dr Hahn Kwang-ho CBE, who was one of the key contributors to the establishment of The Korea Foundation Gallery at the British Museum. Director Hahn’s research interests are in the field of conservation studies and the history of cultural artefacts.

HaYoung Joo is an assistant professor of art theory and criticism at the School of Arts, Chonnam National University, Korea.

The Czech edition appeared in 2017:

Vít Vlnas, Baroque Prague, translated by Derek Paton (Prague: Karolinum Press, Charles University, 2022), 330 pages, ISBN: ‎ 978-8024643762, $30.

Baroque Prague is a lavish excursion through Prague’s important baroque period, beginning with the defeat of Czech Protestants at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620 and ending with the philosophical era of Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. In this book, Vit Vlnas explores both the material and spiritual transformations the city went through during this boisterous period, treating the baroque epoch as a cultural phenomenon vital to the current genius loci of the great Central European capital. Vlnas guides readers through the city from Prague Castle to the Lesser Town, Old Town, and New Town, as well as Vyšehrad, the important historic fortress. In a special section, he takes us to equally important baroque monuments outside of the historical city center. Lushly illustrated with over 200 color plates, including both historical images and contemporary photographs of architectural exteriors, the text is accompanied by helpful maps indicating the location of the monuments, as well as a glossary of prominent figures during the period. Both a highly readable introductory study and a work for experienced scholars of the history of Bohemia, Baroque Prague is an exciting homage to Europe’s great ‘city of a hundred spires’, and shows how a place’s storied past informs its present soul.

Vít Vlnas is head of the Institute of Christian Art History at Charles University and head of the Center for Humanistic Studies at the Moravian Museum.

Distributed by The University of Chicago Press:

Geoffrey Tyack, The Historic Heart of Oxford University (Oxford: Bodleian Library Publishing, 2022), 192 pages, ISBN: 978-1851245284, $55.

Over eight centuries, the University of Oxford—the third oldest university in Europe—gradually came to occupy a substantial portion of the city, creating in the process a unique townscape containing the Bodleian Library, the Sheldonian Theatre, and the Radcliffe Camera. This book tells the story of the growth of the forum universitatis, as the architect Nicholas Hawksmoor called it, and relates it to the broader history of the University and the city. Based on up-to-date scholarship, The Historic Heart of Oxford University draws upon the author’s research into Oxford’s architectural history and the work of Christopher Wren, Nicholas Hawksmoor, James Gibbs, and Giles Gilbert Scott. Each of the eight chapters focuses on the gestation, creation, and subsequent history of a single building or pair of buildings, relating them to developments in the University’s intellectual and institutional life, and to broader themes in architectural and urban history.

Accessible and well-illustrated with plans, archival prints, and specially commissioned photography, this book will appeal to anyone who wishes to understand and enjoy Oxford’s matchless architectural heritage.

Geoffrey Tyack is an emeritus Fellow of Kellogg College, University of Oxford, and President of the Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society.

C O N T E N T S

1  The University Church and the Congregation House
2  The Divinity School and the Duke Humfrey’s Library
3  The Schools Quadrangle
4  The Sheldonian Theatre
5  The Old Ashmolean Museum
6  The Clarendon Building
7  The Radcliffe Camera and Radcliffe Square
8  The New Bodleian and the Weston Library

Notes
Further Reading
Picture Credits
Index

From Yale UP:

Todd Longstaffe-Gowan, English Garden Eccentrics: Three Hundred Years of Extraordinary Groves, Burrowings, Mountains, and Menageries (London: Pual Mellon Centre, 2022), 400 pages, ISBN: 978-1913107260, $40.

In his new book, English Garden Eccentrics, renowned landscape architect and historian Todd Longstaffe-Gowan reveals a series of obscure and eccentric English garden-makers who, between the early seventeenth and the early twentieth centuries, created intensely personal and idiosyncratic gardens. They include such fascinating characters as the superstitious antiquary William Stukeley and the animal- and bird-loving Lady Read, as well as the celebrated master of Vauxhall Gardens, Jonathan Tyers, who created at his home at Denbies one of the gloomiest and most perverse anti-pleasure gardens in Georgian England. Others built miniature mountains, shaped topiaries, displayed exotic animals, excavated caves, and assembled architectural fragments and fossils to realise their gardens in a way that was often thought to be excessive.

With quirky and compelling illustrations and chapters including “Lady Broughton’s ‘Miniature Copy of the Swiss Glaciers’,” “Topiary on a Gargantuan Scale: The Clipped ‘Yew-trees’ at Four Ancient London Churchyards,” and “The Burrowing Duke at Harcourt House,” English Garden Eccentrics brings together garden and landscape history with cultural history and biography. The book engagingly reveals what it is about the gardener and his or her creation that can be seen as eccentric and focuses on an area of garden history that has scarcely been previously explored: gardens seen as expressions of the singular character of their makers, and therefore functioning, in effect, as a form of autobiography. This lively and accessible book calls on gardeners today to learn from example and dare to be eccentric.

Todd Longstaffe-Gowan is a landscape architect with an international practice based in London. He is gardens adviser to Historic Royal Palaces, lecturer at New York University (London), president of the London Gardens Trust, editor of The London Gardener, and author of several books including The London Town Garden (Yale, 2001) and The London Square (Yale, 2012).