Classicisms - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0935573577 ISBN 13: 9780935573572

Publisher: Smart Museum Of Art, The University Of C, 2017

Synopsis

As an aesthetic ideal, classicism is often associated with a conventional set of rules founded on supposedly timeless notions such as order, reason, and decorum. As a result, it is sometimes viewed as rigid, outdated, or stodgy. But in actuality, classicism is far from a stable concept—throughout history, it has given rise to more debate than consensus, and at times has been put to use for subversive ends.

With contributions from an interdisciplinary group of scholars, this volume explodes the idea of classicism as an unchanging ideal. The essays trace the shifting parameters of classicism from antiquity to the twentieth century, documenting an exhibition of seventy objects in various media from the collection of the Smart Museum of Art and other American and international institutions. With its impressive historical and conceptual reach—from ancient literature to contemporary race relations and beyond—this colorfully illustrated book is a dynamic exploration of classicism as a fluctuating stylistic and ideological category.

About this title

About the Author:

Larry F. Norman is the Frank L. Sulzberger Professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago.

Review:

“This delightfully iconoclastic exhibition asserts that for all its associations with ideals of reason, stability, and timelessness, classicism just as readily merits appreciation for its multiplicity, flexibility, and disruptive capacities. The show breaks rank with an enduring conception of the classical as marking the transmission from on high of a powerfully continuous tradition.” (CAA Reviews)

About this edition

• Publisher: Smart Museum Of Art, The University Of C
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0935573577
• ISBN 13: 9780935573572
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 184
• Editor: Norman Larry F., Leonard Anne