In this issue:
David Bundy’s book review Building Anglo-Saxon England, by John Blair, “explores what has been learned through archeology about the social systems and structures which supported life in England. This book provides insight into this era, which lasted from the Roman retreat until the arrival of the Normans in 1066.”
Jean Bundy’s book review Inessential Colors: Architecture on Paper in Early Modern Europe by Basile Baudez, begins with the Middle Ages and onto the Italian Renaissance, when only ‘painters represented architecture in color’. By the second half of the eighteenth century architects, who were interacting with painters, adding landscaping to drawing proposals.
Cláudio Rafael Almeida de Souza’s essay delves into The National Museum of Afro-Brazilian Culture, “which emerged after a period of closed doors, [now] hostingimportant exhibitions and shows in the field of contemporary visual arts with themes ranging from issues such as raciality to Afro-Brazilian religiosity.”
Julianna Huang’s essay, Anna Weyant: Classical Grace Beneath a Soft Unease interprets this artist explaining, “in an age when images of femininity circulate faster than reflection, Anna Weyant’s paintings ask us to pause — to see not only beauty, but the quiet structures of expectation behind it.”
Sofiia Lisman’s essay, Collectors don’t fear bad art—they fear not understanding good art, poses “if we consistently prefer art that confirms what we alreadyknow how to see, are we collecting art—or only purchasing protection from the experience of encountering it?”
Amrutha Pradeep’s essay Speak for Yourself: Redefining Art-Making in the Global South, insists “the art market has often been oriented towards the Western part of the world--USA, Europe, and the United Kingdom….Artists who wanted to have a place in the global vision often moulded their practice according to the aesthetic palette of these countries. This has also led to the loss of authenticity in the art...from the global south.”
John B. Ravenal’s essay A LIVING SYMBOL: Robert Lazzarini’s American Flag, “contextualizes [his] new wall-based flag sculptures and elucidates the tensions they lay bare in the symbol of our nation.” US citizens, who naively support the Trump administration, are misguided in their appropriation, both metaphorically and objectively, of this flag!
Gabriele Romeo’s essay Byzantine Persistences and Modernist Projections: The Anglo-Italian Cultural Axis between Mosaic Practice and Industrial Paradigms, “investigates the transnational trajectory of mosaic language and applied arts along the Great Britain–Italy axis.”
Anum Sanaullah’s essay Toum-a shared narrative of survival or abundance, recollects “On our way to Kharan - a long, 14-hour ride from Karachi....I spotted an old-school wooden cart with a plastic blue sheet on top covering a pile of Toum - watermelon seeds....I had grown up eating them, it was a yearly gift that arrived from people who worked on my mother’s fields.”