Author : William Barcham
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1443868256
Total Pages : 195 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (438 download)
Book Synopsis Happiness or Its Absence in Art by : William Barcham
Download or read book Happiness or Its Absence in Art written by William Barcham and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2014-10-02 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of ‘happiness’ is central to most civilized cultures. This volume investigates the many ways in which Western art has visualized the concept from the early Middle Ages to the present. Employing different methodological approaches, the essays gathered here situate the concept of human happiness within discourses on gender, religion, intellectual life, politics and ‘New-Age’ culture. Operating as a cultural agent, art communicates the idea of happiness as both a physical and spiritual condition by exploiting specific formulae of representation. This volume combines art history, cultural analyses and intellectual studies in order to explore the complexities of iconographic programs that represent various forms of happiness, or its explicit absence, and to expose the implications embedded in the artistic works in question. Through innovative readings, the ten authors presented in this book survey different artistic and/or cultural paradigms and offer new interpretations of happiness or of its absence.