The Diaspora of Greek Painting in the Nineteenth Century: Christou’s Model and the Case of Marie Spartali-Stillman

no abstrac

Puzzles of the Past: Silences, Omissions and Unexplored Topics in History

no abstrac

Convenient misunderstandings: Winckelmann’s History of Art and the reception of meteorocultural models in Britain

This essay deals with two much misunderstood aspects of Winckelmann’s work, his notion of the relations between art and climate and the fierce disputes his environmental model of culture engendered in Britain. Revisiting present-day suspicions towards Winckelmann’s climate language as a reductive and determinist ‘curiosity’, this essay aims to restore its historical significance as an interactive way of exploring the interconnectedness between the development of art and its changing material contexts, and to reveal its special place in the birth of art history as a discipline. The study of the British reception of Winckelmann’s climate theory remains a rich resource in the critical understanding and historiographical evaluation of his contribution in art history. The controversies it generated produced a mixed and fragmented picture. This essay retrieves the many social, professional, and national interests embedded in these climate-related controversies in art and suggests that such competing motivations marked indelibly understandings of Winckelmann’s art historical model as well as his standing in Britain

Stubbs, Walpole and Burke: Convulsive Imitation and ‘Truth Extorted’

This essay examines the relationship between George Stubbs’s Lion and Horse series of paintings and the redefinition of the sublime given by the philosopher Edmund Burke in his famous treatise of 1757. It argues that Stubbs sought to provide visual equivalents for Burke’s maximalist languages of neuro-physiological description of viewing experiences, exploring the visual implications of the novel concepts of sympathy, pain, contractility and expression in ways that help explain the unconventional intensity of his images