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Journal of the History of Ideas, 2007
Aris Sarafianos With the Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Be... more Aris Sarafianos With the Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757/59) Edmund Burke introduced a multilayered biomedical language into aesthetic theory. This language shared with the work of Christopher Nugent (his personal physician and father-in-law) significant epistemic and social features. 1 In the first section of this essay, I will suggest that this discourse drew on specific models of the theory of contractility. I have favored the term ''contractility'' (a later variant of ''contractibility'' or ''contractibleness'') over the allied concepts of ''irritability'' or ''excitability'' because it points more clearly to the earlier mixed genealogies of vitalism on which I chose to focus. The language of solid contractility employed by Nugent and Burke provided an amplified vision of the economy of life, and was intertwined with the discovery of a particularly enhanced model of medical therapeutics which registered important social and professional developments. Together with the analysis of other forms of evidence, a discussion of James Barry's portraits of Burke and Nugent will provide new insights into their heterodox ideas and identities, and also highlight significant coalitions between fringe sectors of the medical and artistic professions.
One of the most controversial aspects of Johann Joachim Winckelmann's contribution to art history... more One of the most controversial aspects of Johann Joachim Winckelmann's contribution to art history remains his use of climate theory to explain cultural phenomena, a motif that, for reasons explained in this essay, was particularly emphasised in eighteenth-century Britain. In the context of what has been viewed as his disfigured (and unsavoury) or, in turn, ecstatic and admiring reception in Britain, the study of meteorological evaluations of culture in Winckelmann's work hits at the soft underbelly of his influence in Britain. 1 On the one hand, climate catalysed views on Winckelmann's art historical model as a whole. On the other, the study of its reception reveals the broad range of social, professional and national interests involved in the formation of critical opinion about this specific naturalhistorical aspect of his work. These competing motivations produce a mixed and cracked picture that affected drastically understandings both of Winckelmann's meteocultural model and his art historical contribution, more broadly. While this picture is full of jarring divisions, misunderstandings and distortions, it also reveals openings and original insights -frequently by way of and not despite such biasesthat underline once more the dynamism and importance of Winckelmann's historical angle on climate. In his History of the Art of Antiquity, Winckelmann was explicit about the special place of his chapter on the influence of climate within his book's core historical concerns: he thus aimed to promote as he put it 'the discussion of art among particular peoples' and 'the reasons why art differs among the countries that practice it'. 2 Contemporaries, especially in Britain, understood the originality of 1 That admiration was sometimes seen as internally divided and ambivalent. A much later reviewer for The Times newspaper characteristically described the English praise for his work as 'of the most formal' and 'more than platonic' kind but very neglectful: 'we have praised him', he added, 'in the abstract but we have neglected to read him'; see 'Winckelmann', The Times, 8 June 1881, 5. Katherine Harloe has reviewed the British reception of Winckelmann's work from the eighteenth century to the present, correcting swift and biased evaluations of his influence in this country; see Katherine Harloe, 'Winckelmann's Reception in Great Britain' in Ortwin Dally, Maria Gazzetti and Arnold Nesselrath, eds,
Ιστορία της Τέχνης: Ζητήματα Ιστορίας, Μεθοδολογίας, Ιστοριογραφίας, 2019
"The Progress of Civil Society" and the Birth of Art History: Progressive Gentlemen, Taste and Hi... more "The Progress of Civil Society" and the Birth of Art History: Progressive Gentlemen, Taste and History (Richard Payne Knight's Preliminary Dissertation on the Rise, Progress and Decline of Ancient Sculpture)
Comparative Critical Studies, 2005
This section presents new and original research that examines historical topics that for various ... more This section presents new and original research that examines historical topics that for various reasons have not received much scholarly attention. There are in all historiographies silences, omissions and gaps. Sometimes they are purposeful, part of a collective, selective forgetting about parts of the historical record considered not worthy of being preserved as sites of memory. Other times they are caused by the belief that the source materials needed to write about a topic are not available or are inaccessible. And at still other times, they occur because the political climate in a given place at a specific time make writing about certain historical topics extremely difficult. For whatever reasons, then, gaps, lacunae and selective silences occur in the historical record. The articles to be published in this section of Historein speak to those silences, erase those lacunae and explore the hitherto uncharted topics of the past.
Journal of the History of Ideas, 2007
Aris Sarafianos With the Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Be... more Aris Sarafianos With the Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757/59) Edmund Burke introduced a multilayered biomedical language into aesthetic theory. This language shared with the work of Christopher Nugent (his personal physician and father-in-law) significant epistemic and social features. 1 In the first section of this essay, I will suggest that this discourse drew on specific models of the theory of contractility. I have favored the term ''contractility'' (a later variant of ''contractibility'' or ''contractibleness'') over the allied concepts of ''irritability'' or ''excitability'' because it points more clearly to the earlier mixed genealogies of vitalism on which I chose to focus. The language of solid contractility employed by Nugent and Burke provided an amplified vision of the economy of life, and was intertwined with the discovery of a particularly enhanced model of medical therapeutics which registered important social and professional developments. Together with the analysis of other forms of evidence, a discussion of James Barry's portraits of Burke and Nugent will provide new insights into their heterodox ideas and identities, and also highlight significant coalitions between fringe sectors of the medical and artistic professions.
One of the most controversial aspects of Johann Joachim Winckelmann's contribution to art history... more One of the most controversial aspects of Johann Joachim Winckelmann's contribution to art history remains his use of climate theory to explain cultural phenomena, a motif that, for reasons explained in this essay, was particularly emphasised in eighteenth-century Britain. In the context of what has been viewed as his disfigured (and unsavoury) or, in turn, ecstatic and admiring reception in Britain, the study of meteorological evaluations of culture in Winckelmann's work hits at the soft underbelly of his influence in Britain. 1 On the one hand, climate catalysed views on Winckelmann's art historical model as a whole. On the other, the study of its reception reveals the broad range of social, professional and national interests involved in the formation of critical opinion about this specific naturalhistorical aspect of his work. These competing motivations produce a mixed and cracked picture that affected drastically understandings both of Winckelmann's meteocultural model and his art historical contribution, more broadly. While this picture is full of jarring divisions, misunderstandings and distortions, it also reveals openings and original insights -frequently by way of and not despite such biasesthat underline once more the dynamism and importance of Winckelmann's historical angle on climate. In his History of the Art of Antiquity, Winckelmann was explicit about the special place of his chapter on the influence of climate within his book's core historical concerns: he thus aimed to promote as he put it 'the discussion of art among particular peoples' and 'the reasons why art differs among the countries that practice it'. 2 Contemporaries, especially in Britain, understood the originality of 1 That admiration was sometimes seen as internally divided and ambivalent. A much later reviewer for The Times newspaper characteristically described the English praise for his work as 'of the most formal' and 'more than platonic' kind but very neglectful: 'we have praised him', he added, 'in the abstract but we have neglected to read him'; see 'Winckelmann', The Times, 8 June 1881, 5. Katherine Harloe has reviewed the British reception of Winckelmann's work from the eighteenth century to the present, correcting swift and biased evaluations of his influence in this country; see Katherine Harloe, 'Winckelmann's Reception in Great Britain' in Ortwin Dally, Maria Gazzetti and Arnold Nesselrath, eds,
Ιστορία της Τέχνης: Ζητήματα Ιστορίας, Μεθοδολογίας, Ιστοριογραφίας, 2019
"The Progress of Civil Society" and the Birth of Art History: Progressive Gentlemen, Taste and Hi... more "The Progress of Civil Society" and the Birth of Art History: Progressive Gentlemen, Taste and History (Richard Payne Knight's Preliminary Dissertation on the Rise, Progress and Decline of Ancient Sculpture)
Comparative Critical Studies, 2005
This section presents new and original research that examines historical topics that for various ... more This section presents new and original research that examines historical topics that for various reasons have not received much scholarly attention. There are in all historiographies silences, omissions and gaps. Sometimes they are purposeful, part of a collective, selective forgetting about parts of the historical record considered not worthy of being preserved as sites of memory. Other times they are caused by the belief that the source materials needed to write about a topic are not available or are inaccessible. And at still other times, they occur because the political climate in a given place at a specific time make writing about certain historical topics extremely difficult. For whatever reasons, then, gaps, lacunae and selective silences occur in the historical record. The articles to be published in this section of Historein speak to those silences, erase those lacunae and explore the hitherto uncharted topics of the past.