ALBERT

Description: During the 1920s and 1930s the wordless novel – stories told in black-and-white wordless woodcuts – was established as a narrative genre. The genre was most popular in Germany, but was as well known in other parts of Europé and in the US. The wordless novel was characterized by the absence of words, the use of woodcut and other relief printing techniques, as well as themes of social critique and serious existential issues. The purpose of the book is to - through the wordless novels of the 1920s and 30s - explain the uniqueness of the wordless narrative and thus the autonomous narrative possibilities of the image. The method of the examination is a close reading of the German artist Otto Nückel's wordless novel Schicksal (Destiny 1926). A comparative material consists of the Czech artist Helena Bochořáková-Dittrichova's wordless novel Z Mého Dětství (From My Childhood, 1929). Wordlessness is studied through the image's characteristics as an intermediary of messages and narratives and through comparisons with other expressions - the silent film, cirkus, expressionist dance and visual art, as well as medieval woodcuts. Narratives – which are usually put together by verbal communication – are in this project a tool for seeing: the image sequences or the image groups that ""replace"" the words - not as a lack or implied meaning of words, but as a personal visual story.

Description: Among the literature aimed at students of art science and other image-interpreting sciences are a number of texts that deal with theories and theoretical concepts. However, what is largely missing, and which students often call for, are texts in Swedish that show how theories and concepts can be applied in concrete interpretation situations. The series Theoretical applications in art science aims to fill that gap, with the book Materiality being the fourth in the series. The book introduces and activates a concept that in recent decades has come to take an increasingly important place in humanistic research. Art scholars - but also archaeologists, anthropologists, literary scholars, ethnologists and other humanistic researchers - are increasingly interested in the material conditions for, and the manifestations of, people's social and cultural life and exchange. But despite its topicality in today's scientific conversation, the concept of materiality can seem elusive and elusive. It moves all the way from the most tangible analyzes of the material components of a cultural artefact, to the somewhat impenetrable theorizations of objectivity, agents and networks that are usually sorted under the label ""new materialism"". However, the book Materialitet gives concrete examples of how the concept of materiality can open up interpretations of important layers of meaning in works of art and other cultural artifacts. After the initial introduction where different perspectives and conceptualisations of materiality are discussed, six researchers each do their own analysis based on their subject area. The chapters are based on new research and are written specifically for this book. The different chapters together show the multifaceted nature of the concept of materiality, but do not lock it down to a definition, but open the eyes to a number of different interpretive paths.

Description: If the artworld is a battlefield of meanings, the fortunes of discourse did not favour avant-garde art in Finland in the 1910s. The latest trends, introduced by German and Russian artists in three pioneering exhibitions in Helsinki in 1914 and 1916, were dismissed by the Finnish press as foolish and unworthy. This book researches the contemporary reactions and contents of these exhibitions. The works shown in Helsinki included masterpieces from artists such as Chagall, Jawlensky, Kandinsky, Marc, Münter and Rozanova. Today these works can be found in the collections of leading museums in Europe, Russia and the USA. From the Finnish perspective, the turndown in the 1910s proved effective and irreversible. Never again have the local collections had similar opportunities to make a purchase. The rejection of radical international developments and emphasis on narrow nationalistic views left Finnish art lagging behind. This trend was already apparent in 1917 in St. Petersburg, where the Finnish artists were celebrated but their paintings deemed sombre and superannuated.

Description: Complementary Modernisms in China and the United States: Art as Life/Art as Idea is the result of a conference where Chinese and Americanist art historians addressed the development of modernism in their respective cultural traditions. The chapters juxtapose historical developments without attempting to map connections or influences. Instead, both national modernisms are presented as part of the larger terrain of global modernism, but generated within specific, localized circumstances. This juxtaposition reveals significant differences as much as any particular moments of connection or similarities, disrupting any standard narrative of the primacy of French (or European) avant-garde art and its influence on more belated and peripheral communities. The differences that are revealed are not merely the result of the very different historical trajectories of each country’s moves into modernity. Rather, differences in attention and methodology are just as important, in particular the focus on the post-1980 development of Chinese art as part of the modernization of Chinese culture and economy, rather than the American perspective on post-1980s postmodern qualities. At the same time, significant convergent concerns emerge, such as the importance of urban centers and urbanization, the profound effect of political and technological disruption, and the question of identity.The volume represent a cross-section of Chinese and Americanist art historians, both early career and senior scholars, working on a wide variety of subjects, such as the Ashcan School, Impressionism, Cai Liang, Liang Sicheng, Huang Binhong, Cézanne, Bauhaus, Joseph Cornell, Andrew Wyeth, Louise Nevelson, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, and contemporary art more broadly, with (as is usual in any survey of the 20th century these days) a concentration on the 1960s. 《交互视野下的中国和美国的现代艺术: 艺术/生活或观念》这一会议论文集收录了中美艺术史家对现代主义在各自传统下的发展进行研究所得的成果。这些文章并置历史发展，而非试图详述其中的关联或影响。相反，两个国家的现代主义都被展现为全球现代主义大背景中的一部分，并被认为是在特定环境中产生的。这种并置显示了重要的差异性以及任何特殊情况下的联系或相似之处，打破了一般强调法国（或欧洲）先锋派首要地位及其对周围团体产生影响的标准论述。中国与美国现代主义发展上的差异，并不仅仅是由于两国进入不同历史轨道发展现代化而导致的。相反，关注点和方法论的差异也同样重要，尤其是关注八十年代后中国艺术的发展，将其作为中国文化与经济现代化的一部分，而不是从美国视角来看待八十年代后的后现代价值。同时，也出现了重要的趋同关注点：城市中心与城市化的重要性，政治或科技解体所造成的深远影响，以及自我认同的问题。本论文集所收录的文章，彰显了当今重要的中美艺术史家研究的多样性，从资深到青年一代，从阿什坎学派至当代艺术，（并与任何当下对二十世纪作出的概括论述相一致，）将重点放在二十世纪六十年代。

Description: Marine painting, paintings of ships and the sea, is a four hundred year old traditional Dutch art discipline. In the nineteenth century the genre had a special artistic prestige and status. This study explores the background, training, studio practice, stylistic development and subject matters of the Dutch nineteenth-century marine painter. A Reference List of Marine Painters, which is a new overview of the true specialists in the genre in this period, is added. The key question is how marine painting was looked at by the marine painters themselves, their fellow painters at the artists associations, in art theory and in art criticism. It turns out that within Dutch art circles throughout the nineteenth century, marine painting was perceived as a bearer of national pride. By placing the genre in a broader cultural-historical context it reveals how marine painting, together with the glorification of maritime history, was embedded in nationalist ideology.

Description: It is generally recognized that in early modern society, the position of the church and clergy was very central. As many historians have stated over the decades, the church and state were closely connected and their power structures and ideologies supported each other. However, when studying the social and public role of the church and clergy, it soon becomes quite clear how pervasive this phenomenon was. The church not only created but also maintained and acted as a part of international, national, and local communities, structures, and cultures that connected people regardless of their social status and gender. The church was a spiritual, administrative, and social institution and experience environment, whose tasks, scope, and meanings changed and intertwined with the development, needs, and requirements of society. In this book, we investigate from different perspectives the motives and different means by which the church and clergy came to play a significant part in early modern society. In this volume, the church is considered both as an administrative institution and as a social space and cultural structure. Hence, we do not focus on the history of theology or doctrinal questions. Instead, we consider the social and public roles and meanings of the church. The church as such is understood in this book as transnational, a strong national and local institution, and also a space and structure. The church had its own institutionalized place in society and its activities and rights were defined by law (Church law 1696, the Law of the Swedish kingdom 1734) and by the decrees given by the Royal Majesty. The church had its own archbishop-led administrative organization under the Royal Majesty and it worked in close cooperation with the Crown administration and county governors. In this volume, we understand the clergy as church servants, a trained and appointed professional group, a separate estate (social class), and also as a wide social network constructed by their families. The approach of this book is social science history. In other words, the book examines the church and the clergy as an integral part of society and the individual communities who lived in the current Finnish territory during the early modern era. The topic is examined on the basis of three conceptual themes reflecting important new areas of research in the study of the social significance of the church and clergy: (1) the clergy and family as part of the community, (2) the church as a jointly built space, and (3) the church as an arena for interaction, knowledge, and politics. We approach this multidimensionality using different research questions, sources, methods, and theoretical approaches. The volume focuses on the 17th to 19th centuries, but many of the church and clergy-related phenomena are much older, and some of them extend to the present, so the articles also move beyond this time frame.

Description: Narratives about northern Sweden are often narratives about nature. This has been true throughout history and is still true today. Different ways of understanding nature have become intertwined with the place and the people who live there. The nature in northern Sweden can be magnificent and impressive, but it can also be desolate, threatening and dangerous. A dominant image of nature in northern Sweden - then as now - is the image of resources, assets. The overall aim of the study is to shed light on the role of nature in linguistic place-making in northern Sweden with a particular focus on the settler colonization during the 18th and 19th centuries. Through a selection of text sources, nature’s central place in the story of the colonization, of the place, its history, change and future is highlighted. The texts that are analyzed are the two journals in which Petrus Læstadius described his work as a missionary in Lapland, as well as Olov Petter Pettersson's detailed description of the settler colonization in the work Gamla byar i Vilhelmina. The settler colonization took place in areas with Sami presence and history and this study connects to the research field of Settler Colonial Studies in a critical discussion of the linguistic place-making in the texts. One of the aims of the study is to also shed light on the connections that exist between the settler colonization depicted in the texts, and the linguistic place-making with nature at the center that is ongoing in northern Sweden today.

Description: This anthology is a conclusion of the research results from a four-year VR project called Decorated Farmhouses of Hälsingland - a holistic study of a World Heritage (2014–2017). Decorative painted interiors and furniture as well as patterned interior textiles during 1700–1870 have been investigated with a combination of methods from both the humanities and the natural sciences. The purpose has been to obtain new and in-depth knowledge of paint, dyes and other raw materials and techniques used in the manufacture of artefacts and interiors in the farmhouses in this region. Through the study, an increased understanding of the local availability of paint material and the trade at that time has been obtained. In addition, detailed knowledge of the originators of the interiors has been generated. The project thus adds new knowledge for further investigation of cultural, social and economic contexts and conditions for the interior design culture that emerged and was formed in Hälsingland farms during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Description: "This book is about a concept which is constantly used in many different ways, but also one of the most common concepts in humanities: context. However, the significance and use of this concept shifts between disciplines, and sometimes within the same discipline. All chapters in this edited volume address a concrete situation where this concept is used. The authors demonstrate how it can be applied in interpretations of images, buildings and places from different historical periods, and how it affects the ability to create meaning and knowledge. The interpretative action thus entails different forms of contextualisation. The book is primarily addressed to students of art history and others who take an interest in questions of visuality and visual practices. Offering not only a theoretical understanding of the concept, it strives to point out ways and possibilities of the practical use of contextualisation. This book constitutes the second volume of Theoretical Applications in Art History, which forms part of the series Basic Readings in Culture and Aesthetics."

Description: Two Twelfth-Century Texts on Chinese Painting presents two texts in translation that provide dual insight into the Painting Academy of Emperor Hui-tsung and the literati school of painting. The Shan-shui ch’un-ch’uan chi is a treatise for beginning landscape painters dated to the Hsüan-ho era. The treatise was written by Han Cho, a reputed member of the Academy, but the text was not specifically directed at Academicians. The treatise collects and orders previous writings on landscape painting; one of Han Cho’s main goals is to list all landscape definitions and their practical application in painting. Yet his view is more detached and analytical than a stereotypical Academy painter, revealing an approach reminiscent of Confucian scholarship and literati painting as well. The Hua-chi by Teng Ch’un is a history of painting that was written as a sequel to two earlier painting histories. In ten chapters, Teng Ch’un compiles facts and critical evaluations of painters from 1075 to 1167, as well as listings of selected masterpieces. Teng Ch’un provides more specific information about the Academy than Han Cho, discussing its organization and examination system, and noting that “form-likeness” and adherence to rules were leading standards for painting in the Academy. On the other hand, he thinks that painting should transmit “soul,” not just “form.” Thus, Teng Ch’un writes the history of both the establishment values of the Academy and the intellectual tendencies of the literati.