Sarah Grandin “Through his hands man establishes contact with the austerity of thought.” — Henri Focillon, In Praise of Hands[1] Père Sébastien Truchet (1657-1729) sought mathematical solutions to morphological problems. Whether his duty was to manage royal forests, design timepieces, or improve numismatic storage methods, his working notes are dominated by ruled…
Irene Choi Korea’s cultural contact with Europe in the eighteenth century was largely mediated through its two East Asian neighbors, Japan and China. During the reigns of Qing emperors Kangxi (r. 1654-1722), Yongzheng (r. 1723-1735), and Qianlong (r. 1736-1795), Korean artists, scholars, and envoys were part of the same environment…
Laurel O. Peterson A ceiling painting dominates the first room that a visitor encounters on the top floor of Chatsworth house (Fig. 1). The blue sky teems with figures. Towards the top of the composition, a rainbow arcs across the ceiling, and warm golden light from the sun suffuses the…
Jennifer Y. Chuong Though its exterior is characterized by a straightforward neoclassical regularity (Fig. 1a), little about Philadelphia cabinetmaker John Davey’s Desk-and-Bookcase (1805-1810) is as it initially appears.[1] The mirrored doors are also the backs of bookshelves; the paired drawer pulls misleadingly adorn a single hinged panel; and the lower…
Jeffrey CollinsElisabeth FraserElizabeth MansfieldAmelia RauserKristel Smentek & Wendy BellionParis Spies-GansNancy UmAmy Freund “Art and Architecture in the Long Eighteenth Century: HECAA at 25” was a conference held at Southern Methodist University, Dallas TX, November 1-4, 2018. This is a ‘roundtable’ of reflections from conference participants. Cultural Geographies, Geographical Cultures Jeffrey…