The Arts of Kingship offers a sustained and detailed account of Hawaiian public art and architecture during the reign of David Kalakaua, the nativist and cosmopolitan ruler of the Hawaiian Kingdom from 1874 to 1891. Stacy Kamehiro provides visual and historical analysis of Kalakaua’s coronation and regalia, the King Kamehameha Statue, ‘Iolani Palace, and the Hawaiian National Museum, drawing them together in a common historical, political, and cultural frame. Each articulated Hawaiian national identities and navigated the turbulence of colonialism in distinctive ways and has endured as a key cultural symbol. These cultural projects were part of the monarchy’s concerted effort to promote a national culture in the face of colonial pressures, internal political divisions, and declining social conditions for Native Hawaiians, which, in combination, posed serious threats to the survival of the nation. The Kalakaua leadership endorsed images that boosted international relations and appeased foreign agitators in the kingdom while addressing indigenous political cleavages. Kamehiro interprets the images, spaces, and institutions as articulations of the complex cultural entanglements and creative engagement with international communities that occur with prolonged colonial contact. Nineteenth-century Hawaiian sovereigns celebrated Native tradition, history, and modernity by intertwining indigenous conceptions of superior chiefly leadership with the apparati and symbols of Asian, American, and European rule. The resulting symbolic forms speak to cultural intersections and historical processes, claims about distinctiveness and commonality, and the power of objects, institutions, and public display to create meaning and enable action. The Arts of Kingship pursues questions regarding the nature of cultural exchange, how precolonial visual culture engaged and shaped colonial contexts, and how colonial art informs postcolonial visualities and identities. It will be welcomed by readers with a general and scholarly interest in Hawaiian history and art. As it contributes to discussions about colonial cultures, nationalism, and globalization, this interdisciplinary work will appeal to art and architectural historians as well as those studying Pacific history, cultural and museum studies, and anthropology.

"The Arts of Kingship" offers a sustained and detailed account of Hawaiian public art and architecture during the reign of David Kalakaua, the nativist and cosmopolitan ruler of the Hawaiian Kingdom from 1874 to 1891. Stacy Kamehiro provides visual and historical analysis of four key monuments - Kalakaua's coronation and regalia, the King Kamehameha Statue, 'Iolani Palace, and the Hawaiian National Museum - drawing them together in a common historical, political, and cultural frame. Each articulated Hawaiian national identities and navigated the turbulence of colonialism in distinctive ways and has endured as a key cultural symbol.These cultural projects were part of the monarchy's concerted effort to promote a national culture in the face of colonial pressures, internal political divisions, and declining social conditions for Native Hawaiians, which, in combination, posed serious threats to the survival of the nation. Kamehiro interprets the images, spaces, and institutions as articulations of the complex cultural entanglements and creative engagement with international communities that occur with prolonged colonial contact. Nineteenth-century Hawaiian sovereigns celebrated Native tradition, history, and modernity by intertwining indigenous conceptions of superior chiefly leadership with the apparati and symbols of Asian, American, and European rule." -- Book cover.

The famous statue of Kamehameha I in downtown Honolulu is one of the state’s most popular landmarks. Many tourists—and residents—however, are unaware that the statue is a replica; the original, cast in Paris in the 1880s and the first statue in the Islands, stands before the old courthouse in rural Kapa‘au, North Kohala, the legendary birthplace of Kamehameha I. In 1996 conservator Glenn Wharton was sent by public arts administrators to assess the statue’s condition, and what he found startled him: A larger-than-life brass figure painted over in brown, black, and yellow with “white toenails and fingernails and penetrating black eyes with small white brush strokes for highlights. . . . It looked more like a piece of folk art than a nineteenth-century heroic monument.” The Painted King is Wharton’s account of his efforts to conserve the Kohala Kamehameha statue, but it is also the story of his journey to understand the statue’s meaning for the residents of Kapa‘au. He learns that the townspeople prefer the “more human” (painted) Kamehameha, regaling him with a parade, chants, and leis every Kamehameha Day (June 11). He meets a North Kohala volunteer who decides to paint the statue’s sash after respectfully consulting with kahuna (Hawaiian spiritual leaders) and the statue itself. A veteran of public art conservation, Wharton had never before encountered a community that had developed such a lengthy, personal relationship with a civic monument. Going against the advice of some of his peers and ignoring warnings about “going native,” Wharton decides to involve the people of Kapa‘au in the conservation of their statue and soon finds himself immersed in complex political, social, and cultural considerations, including questions about representations of the Native Hawaiian past: Who should decide what is represented and how? And once a painting or sculpture exists, how should it be conserved? The Painted King examines professional authority and community involvement while providing a highly engaging and accessible look at “activist conservation” at work, wherever it may be found.

Picturing Kingship presents the first comprehensive art-historical study of the personal prayerbook of King Louis IX. The book approaches the St. Louis Psalter through a rich range of perspectives and methodologies and positions it within the contexts of its production and use. Not only is the manuscript's production and structure given detailed study, but the king's ways of handling his prayerbook--his habits of reading, looking, and praying--are also set forth in a compelling narrative of his view of his sacred responsibilities as king. In the first half of the book, Stahl investigates the Psalter's physical construction and development within the context of manuscript production in thirteenth-century Paris. The second half looks at the Psalter's thematic and iconographic workings and the role of the king's adviser--Vincent of Beauvais--in the Psalter's shaping. Most important, though, the author delves into the meanings the Psalter might have held for the king, who was a crusader and so devout a Christian that he was canonized by Boniface VIII. Stahl makes it clear that the Psalter, already recognized as one of the true masterworks of thirteenth-century French culture, should also be recognized as a significant force in Louis IX's life and reign.

Offers an account of Hawaiian public art and architecture during the reign of David Kalakaua, the cosmopolitan ruler of the Hawaiian Kingdom from 1874 to 1891. This title provides visual and historical analysis of four key monuments - Kalakaua's coronation and regalia, the King Kamehameha Statue, 'Iolani Palace, and the Hawaiian National Museum.

This work offers an account of Hawaiian public art and architecture during the reign of David Kalakaua, the cosmopolitan ruler of the Hawaiian Kingdom from 1874 to 1891. This title provides visual and historical analysis of four key monuments - Kalakaua's coronation and regalia, the King Kamehameha Statue, 'Iolani Palace, and the Hawaiian National Museum.

In this book, Mehmet-Ali Ataç argues that the palace reliefs of the Neo-Assyrian Empire hold a meaning deeper than simple imperial propaganda.

A masterpiece of Persian Classical epic, the Shahnama or Book of Kings was composed by Abu'l-Qasem Ferdowsi at the beginning of the eleventh century. Because the Shahnama presents itself as a chronicle of the reigns of the shahs from the primordial founders to the Sasanian dynasty which ended in 651, scholarly attention has centered on the question of its historical accuracy. Addressing the literary as well as the historical and mythological aspects of the Shahnama, Olga M. Davidson makes this centerpiece of Iranian culture accessible to Western readers. Drawing on recent work in epic studies and oral poetics, Davidson considers analogies with Classical and medieval European narratives as she investigates the poem's social contexts. Her interpretation of the Shahnama focuses on both the figure of the poet himself and on his protagonists-the superhuman hero Rostam and the historical or historicized shahs. Exploring the Shahnama as an example of court poetry designed to glorify the idea of empire, Davidson identifies as a driving force of Ferdowsi's narrative a strong current of antagonism between king and hero. Ironically, she shows, it is the epic hero himself who poses the greatest threat to the concept of kingship that he is sworn to defend. Poet and Hero in the Persian Book of Kings will be welcomed by readers working in such fields as comparative literature, Middle Eastern Studies, folklore, literary theory, and comparative religion.

France and England are often seen as monarchies standing at opposite ends of the spectrum of seventeenth-century European political culture. On the one hand the Bourbon monarchy took the high road to absolutism, while on the other the Stuarts never quite recovered from the diminution of their royal authority following the regicide of Charles I in 1649. However, both monarchies shared a common medieval heritage of sacral kingship, and their histories remained deeply entangled throughout the century. This study focuses on the interaction between ideas of monarchy and images of power in the two countries between the execution of Mary Queen of Scots and the Glorious Revolution. It demonstrates that even in periods when politics were seemingly secularized, as in France at the end of the Wars of Religion, and in latter seventeenth- century England, the appeal to religious images and values still lent legitimacy to royal authority by emphasizing the sacral aura or providential role which church and religion conferred on monarchs.