Animating the Antique: Sculptural Encounter in the Age of Aesthetic Theory

— —

Sarah Betzer (Assistant Professor, Nineteenth-Century European Art, University of Virginia, McIntire Department of Art)

Animating the Antique

Sculptural Encounter in the Age of Aesthetic Theory

Sarah Betzer (Assistant Professor, Nineteenth-Century European Art, University of Virginia, McIntire Department of Art)

$285

Hardback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Pennsylvania State University Press
17 December 2021

Theory of art; History of art & design styles: c 1600 to c 1800; Art & design styles: Romanticism; Philosophy: aesthetics

Framed by tensions between figural sculpture experienced in the round and its translation into two-dimensional representations, Animating the Antique explores enthralling episodes in a history of artistic and aesthetic encounters. Moving across varied locations—among them Rome, Florence, Naples, London, Dresden, and Paris—Sarah Betzer explores a history that has yet to be written: that of the Janus-faced nature of interactions with the antique by which sculptures and beholders alike were caught between the promise of animation and the threat of mortification.

Examining the traces of affective and transformative sculptural encounters, the book takes off from the decades marked by the archaeological, art-historical, and art-philosophical developments of the mid-eighteenth century and culminantes in fin de siècle anthropological, psychological, and empathic frameworks. It turns on two fundamental and interconnected arguments: that an eighteenth-century ontology of ancient sculpture continued to inform encounters with the antique well into the nineteenth century, and that by attending to the enduring power of this model, we can newly appreciate the distinctively modern terms of antique sculpture’s allure. As Betzer shows, these eighteenth-century developments had far-reaching ramifications for the making and beholding of modern art, the articulations of art theory, the writing of art history, and a significantly queer Nachleben of the antique.

Bold and wide-ranging, Animating the Antique sheds light upon the work of myriad artists, in addition to that of writers ranging from Goethe and Winckelmann to Hegel, Walter Pater, and Vernon Lee. It will be especially welcomed by scholars and students working in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century art history, art writing, and art historiography.

By: Sarah Betzer (Assistant Professor Nineteenth-Century European Art University of Virginia McIntire Department of Art)
Imprint: Pennsylvania State University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 254mm, Width: 229mm, Spine: 27mm
Weight: 1.429kg
ISBN: 9780271088839
ISBN 10: 0271088834
Pages: 272
Publication Date: 17 December 2021
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Further / Higher Education , A / AS level
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Sarah Betzer is Professor of Art History at the University of Virginia and the author of Ingres and the Studio: Women, Painting, History, also published by Penn State University Press.

Reviews for Animating the Antique: Sculptural Encounter in the Age of Aesthetic Theory

Like the author's previous pathbreaking and widely admired book on the relation between portrait painting in the studio of Ingres and the broader problematics of painting 'history,' Animating the Antique is painstaking, original, and uncompromising. Weaving art history with aesthetics, the history of archaeology and of collections, and other topics, Betzer's study of the figuration of sculpture in two-dimensional representations sets a unique insight into a multifaceted framework. -Whitney Davis, author of Replications: Archaeology, Art History, Psychoanalysis A beautifully written book. One of the most appealing aspects of Animating the Antique is the way it interweaves the histories of discourse and practice over nearly two hundred years. Something similar can be said about painting and sculpture, media that are typically studied largely in isolation from each other: this is the rare book to bring them together in a substantial and illuminating way. -Michael Cole, author of Leonardo, Michelangelo, and the Art of the Figure