"This survey traces the development of portrait painting in Northern and Southern Europe during the Renaissance, when the genre first flourished. Both regions developed their own distinct styles and techniques, but each was influenced by the other. Focusing on the relationship between artists of the north and south, renowned specialists analyse the notion of likeness - at that time based not only on accurate reference to posterity, but incorporating all aspects of human life, including propaganda, power, courtship, love, family, ambition and hierarchy. Essays and individual catalogue entries present new research on works by some of the greatest portraitists of the period, including Giovanni Bellini, Sandro Botticelli, Lucas Cranach, Albrecht Durer, Jan van Eyck, Hans Holbein and Titan, all magnificently illustrated."--Jacket.

Many small Renaissance portraits were richly adorned with covers or backs bearing allegorical figures, mythological scenes, or emblems that celebrated the sitter and invited the viewer to decipher their meaning. Hidden Faces includes seventy objects, ranging in format from covered paintings to miniature boxes, that illuminate the symbiotic relationship between the portrait and its pair. Texts by thirteen distinguished scholars vividly illustrate that the other “faces” of these portraits represent some of the most innovative images of the Renaissance, created by masters such as Hans Memling and Titian. Uniting works that have in some cases been separated for centuries, this fascinating volume shows how the multifaceted format unveiled the sitter’s identity, both by physically revealing the portrait and reading the significance behind its cover.

Published in conjunction with an exhibition held at the Bode-Museum, Berlin, Aug. 25-Nov. 20, 2011, and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Dec. 21, 2011-Mar. 18, 2012.

"This publication accompanies the exhibition Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe, held at the Walters Art Museum from October 14, 2012, to January 21, 2013, and at the Princeton University Art Museum from February 16 to June 9, 2013."

She also shows that in Renaissance comedy, playwrights exploited the many bawdy meanings of fucus, or cosmetic paint, to dramatize that "theres knauery in dawbing.".

In Joseph Campana's debut collection, starring Audrey Hepburn, icons of public consumption speak in the language of private devotion. Encourage emulation. Inspire idolatry. Be a muse, be a nymph, be a sprite, bewitch me. Rise from obscurity. Set trends. Break habits. Make statements. Count blessings. Distribute kindnesses. Arouse devotion. Devote yourself to nobility. Ascend, ascend, ascend. -from "How to Be a Star"

Humans possess the most expressive faces in the animal kingdom. Adam Wilkins presents evidence ranging from the fossil record to recent findings of genetics, molecular biology, and developmental biology to reconstruct the fascinating story of how the human face evolved. Beginning with the first vertebrate faces half a billion years ago and continuing to dramatic changes among our recent human ancestors, Making Faces illuminates how the unusual characteristics of the human face came about—both the physical shape of facial features and the critical role facial expression plays in human society. Offering more than an account of morphological changes over time and space, which rely on findings from paleontology and anthropology, Wilkins also draws on comparative studies of living nonhuman species. He examines the genetic foundations of the remarkable diversity in human faces, and also shows how the evolution of the face was intimately connected to the evolution of the brain. Brain structures capable of recognizing different individuals as well as “reading” and reacting to their facial expressions led to complex social exchanges. Furthermore, the neural and muscular mechanisms that created facial expressions also allowed the development of speech, which is unique to humans. In demonstrating how the physical evolution of the human face has been inextricably intertwined with our species’ growing social complexity, Wilkins argues that it was both the product and enabler of human sociality.

The portrait is defined by the postulate of similarity; the interpretation of a likeness, however, does not stop with the identification of depicted persons. In this book, acclaimed authors approach the portrait genre from visual studies and linguistic perspectives, which led them on an impressive journey through time from the Middle Ages to the present and into the future. The portrait is explored as a complex result of the triad of model, artist, and recipient. From this perspective, the wordlessness of visual depictions proves erroneous, as portraits develop their own forms of expression and codes, which aim at dialog with the viewer. The face is thus not understood as a given feature of nature, but as a symbol or concept; looking at, interpreting, and reading faces is intrinsically connected with the search for human identity. This collection of essays is edited by Mona K�rte, Ruben Rebmann, Judith Elisabeth Weiss, and Stefan Weppelmann on behalf of Gem�ldegalerie – Berlin State Museums and the Center for Literary and Cultural Research Berlin.

Published in conjunction with an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, February-May 2000, the first major showing in North America of stunning painted mummy portraits that represent a confluence of ancient Egyptian and Roman cultures and the Graeco-Roman painting tradition. The catalog concentrates closely on the paintings, their artistry, and their social context and meaning. Seven contributed essays set the context. The 122 color and 23 bandw illustrations are fully discussed and described by editor Walker, who is affiliated with the British Museum. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Arguably the single most influential literary work of the European Middle Ages, the Roman de la Rose of Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun has traditionally posed a number of difficulties to modern critics, who have viewed its many interruptions and philosophical discussions as signs of a lack of formal organization and a characteristically medieval predilection for encyclopedic summation. In Fortune's Faces, Daniel Heller-Roazen calls into question these assessments, offering a new and compelling interpretation of the romance as a carefully constructed and far-reaching exploration of the place of fortune, chance, and contingency in literary writing. Situating the Romance of the Rose at the intersection of medieval literature and philosophy, Heller-Roazen shows how the thirteenth-century work invokes and radicalizes two classical and medieval traditions of reflection on language and contingency: that of the Provençal, French, and Italian love poets, who sought to compose their "verses of pure nothing"in a language Dante defined as "without grammar," and that of Aristotle's discussion of "future contingents" as it was received and refined in the logic, physics, theology, and epistemology of Boethius, Abelard, Albert the Great, and Thomas Aquinas.Through a close analysis of the poetic text and a detailed reconstruction of the logical and metaphysical concept of contingency, Fortune's Faces charts the transformations that literary structures (such as subjectivity, autobiography, prosopopoeia, allegory, and self-reference) undergo in a work that defines itself as radically contingent. Considered in its full poetic and philosophical dimensions, the Romance of the Rose thus acquires an altogether new significance in the history of literature: it appears as a work that incessantly explores its own capacity to be other than it is.