Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2022 -

Davis begins her introduction by debunking the myth (circulated for decades) that in the 19th century, Japanese prints known as ukiyo-e (i.e., "pictures of the floating world") were little valued and used as packing material around ceramics being shipped to Europe. Davis cuts right to the source of the issue, and her discussion heralds the unique approach of this slim but important book: "My purpose is to do more than write an overview of ukiyo-e, these 'pictures of the floating world': it is rather [to provide] a concise and critical inquiry into the genre's formation, history, production, and reception in early modern Japan" (p. 3). In demonstrating the importance of the ukiyo-e, Davis takes into consideration the significance of printed books and paintings and their roles in the "floating world." Most works Davis discusses were made during the Tokugawa period (1603-1868). Another major focus is the city of Edo, which experienced an explosive rise as a mercantile hub and soon became the epicenter for printmaking. The book closes with an epilogue, "Evoking the Floating World," that carries the print genre into the Meiji restoration of 1868. Including scholarly notes and a valuable bibliography, this book will delight anyone interested in Japanese culture.Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.

Because of its inimitable style and its interpretive variance, Venetian art engages spectators in a unique way. In contrast to Central Italian art's precise line and meaning, Venetian art always embraced a certain poetic license and had an enigmatic quality. Henry (McGill Univ.) investigates the idiosyncratic nature of Venetian painting produced from about 1490 to 1550 with the aim of understanding its broader social context. The result is a fascinating, wide-ranging study. The book's four chapters, each with a particular focus, offer insights that engage with literary traditions, music, theater, festivals, and various behavioral customs. Through these discussions, Henry helps readers think about the role of pictures and their construction or reflection of sex and gender, courtship, love triangles, modes of behavior, and relations to other art forms. She assembles an array of paintings often discussed in isolation and renders them much richer together in the complex web of Venetian cultural experience. Though aimed at an academic audience, this book will reward all serious readers. The many familiar works Henry looks at become new again through their enhanced associations.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

This important volume is the state of the art, presenting results from a team of conservators and art historians looking at medieval decorated books. The volume is consistently excellent and concise, and it offers new insights absolutely fundamental for the study of these manuscripts. It includes six introductory essays: a general introduction about the need for "integrated analysis" of these books; essays on pigments, modern analytical methods, and parchments; and general essays on Eastern European and Western European manuscripts. Following are 58 case studies drawn primarily from Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum and many Cambridge college and university libraries. The material covered stretches from the late 7th to the 16th century, and most examples are from England, France, the Low Countries, and Italy. Each essay and case study is accompanied by numerous high-quality photographs, many with startlingly beautiful and revealing details, making the book a great pleasure to read. Richly annotated and drawing on the most recent scholarship, the volume is a triumph of collaborative scholarship and a salient example of the insights that can stem from new analytical tools and methods.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals.

In this engaging book Compton (College of Charleston) delivers an intelligent and insightful investigation of the goddess Venus as seen in the art of Renaissance Florence. Compton's presentation has a refreshingly contemporary feel; she eschews a traditional and artificial enumeration of attributes and instead explores varied associations of Venus more episodically through carefully chosen works of art. What most distinguishes the presentation is the clear articulation of ideas by an informed scholar looking at art as objects of creation and informed viewership, not as images with fixed meanings. The discussion thus courses through illuminating expositions on technique, material, trade, colors, landscapes, bodies, sexuality, fertility, audience, and more. In six chapters in a roughly chronological progression, Compton writes in a sensible, accessible manner and suggests some intriguingly fresh interpretive possibilities for well-known works by Botticelli, Bronzino, et al. Ultimately, the author offers a compelling method for a broad and inclusive approach to analyzing art as the discipline moves forward in a rapidly evolving academic world.Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals.