A fascinating exploration of the visual culture of mortality in Renaissance Europe We often imagine the Renaissance as an age of exceptional human progress and artistic achievement. But, intriguingly, macabre images proliferated in precisely this period: unsettling depictions of Death personified, of decaying bodies, of young lovers struck down in their prime. These morbid themes run riot in the remarkable array of artworks featured in The Ivory Mirror. Nearly 200 illustrated artworks—from ivory prayer beads to gem-encrusted jewelry to exquisitely carved small sculptures—present us with an aspect of this era that is at once darker and more familiar than we might have expected. Focused on the challenge of making choices in an increasingly complex and uncertain world, Renaissance artists turned to poignant, often macabre imagery to address the critical human concern of acknowledging death, while striving to create a personal legacy that might outlast it. The essays gathered here discuss the development and significance of this transformative art of the past, while exploring themes that are still relevant today: how does one navigate the implicit tension between mortality and morality and seek to balance individual pleasure with the pursuit of a greater good?

The Ivory Mirror: The Art of Mortality in Renaissance Europe

Arts & Photography

Perkinson, Stephen

History & Criticism

Bowdoin College Museum of Art

Handbook of the collections

Bowdoin College

The Architecture of Bowdoin College

Education & Teaching

Patricia McGraw Anderson

Schools & Teaching

Thomas Cornell: Paintings : the birth of nature

Cornell, Thomas

Book by Carpenter, Kenneth E.;Bowdoin College

The legacy of James Bowdoin III

Carpenter, Kenneth E.

This catalogue accompanied The Disembodied Spirit Exhibition presented at Bowdoin College Museum of Art, the Kemper Museum of Art and the Austin Museum of Art.This exhibition was a unique interdisciplinary exploration of art and culture in the late nineteenth century and the late twentieth century involving the depiction or suggestion of ghosts. This major exhibition examines the social and cultural circumstances in which ghosts entered public discourse while considering as well the manner and media through which the ghostly has been rendered in images. The Disembodied Spirit observes how artists have represented absence while still indicating presence-using formal elements such as transparency, light, shadows, and weightlessness-and their manipulation, alteration, and exaggeration of these characteristics.  The exhibition and accompanying catalogue essays examine cultural phenomena, such as Spiritualism in the late nineteenth century, as well as the contemporary fixation with cyberspace, virtual reality, and the less techno-hip phenomenon of angels. Included are works by nineteenth-century photographers such as William Mumler, Georgiana Houghton, Julia Margaret Cameron and contemporary artists such as Jeremy Blake, Nancy Burson, Gregory Crewdson, Anna Gaskell, Ann Hamilton, Glenn Ligon, Tracey Moffatt, Mariko Mori, and Bill Viola.

The disembodied spirit

Alison Ferris

Tom Gunning

Pamela Thurschwell

Photography & Video

After Atget: Todd Webb Photographs New York and Paris

Tuite, Diana

Britt, Salvesen

Todd Webb

"Constructing Revolution explores the remarkable and wide-ranging body of propaganda posters as an artistic consequence of the 1917 Russian Revolution. Marking its centennial, this book delves into a relatively short-lived era of unprecedented experimentation and utopian idealism, which produced some of the most iconic images in the history of graphic design. The eruption of the First World War, the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, and the subsequent civil war broke down established political and social structures and brought an end to the Tsarist Empire. Russia was split into antagonistic worlds: the Bolsheviks and the enemy, the proletariat and the exploiters, the collective and the private, the future and the past. The deft manipulation of public opinion was integral to the violent class struggle. Having seized power in 1917, the Bolsheviks immediately recognized posters as a critical means to tout the Revolutions triumph and ensure its spread. Posters supplied the new iconography, converting Communist aspirations into readily accessible, urgent, public art. This book surveys genres and methods of early Soviet poster design and introduces the most prominent artists of the movement. Reflecting the turbulent and ultimately tragic history of Russia in the 1920s and 1930s, it charts the formative decades of the USSR and demonstrates the tight bond between Soviet art and ideology. The posters featured in this book come from a celebrated private collection built by Eric and Svetlana Silverman"--

Constructing Revolution: Soviet Propaganda Posters, 1917-1947

Toland, Kristina A.

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Bowdoin College Museum of Art publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Bowdoin College Museum of Art