School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Research Publications
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ItemPiranesi, Juvarra, and the triumphal bridge tradition( 2003)This article examines the idea of the triumphal bridge from the Renaissance to Piranesi, by way of Flavio Biondo, Onofrio Panvinio, Pirro Ligorio, Nicolas Poussin, Fischer von Erlach, and Filippo Juvarra, in order to explore attitudes toward the reception and representation of ancient architecture. It shows how the eighteenth-century theme of the "magnificent (triumphal) bridge" had its roots in topographical inquiry and examines the contribution that Piranesi's interest in the archaeological problem of the triumphal bridge made to the creative process that resulted in the "Ichnographia", the large map of the ancient Campus Martius in his 1762 "Campo Marzio".
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ItemImperial legacy: the politics of display in Australia( 2004)Somewhere among the countless rows of objects currently on display in the British Museum’s Enlightenment exhibition there rests a flaking bark shield. This battered, utilitarian object stands somewhat apart from the splendidly exotic artefacts that surround it. Yet beneath its unprepossessing appearance there lies an extraordinary provenance. It was taken in 1770 from the Eastern Australian seaboard by Captain Cook’s landing party during its initial encounter with the first inhabitants of the land incorporating what is now known as Sydney. The shield has been placed in a display of non-Western artefacts acquired during the period of Enlightenment discovery “through gift, trade or purchase”. In truth, however, none of these words could be used to describe its acquisition. It was hardly given, since it came into the party’s possession as a result of their shooting at a group of Eora people who left the cover of trees, apparently shouting at them to leave. Neither was it traded, unless one views a bullet fired in anger as a fair offer of exchange. Nor could it be called a purchase, unless one counts as a purchase price the blood shed by its original owner as he was hit trying to flee the invaders.
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ItemAbstract art, ethics and interpretation: the case of Mario Radice( 2004)Modernist abstract art can be interpreted as the expression of ethical ideals. The elimination of figuration and illusionistic space in the work of abstract painters such as Piet Mondrian or Frank Stella might seem to militate against any reading of their work as embodying principles or standards of human conduct. However, I will demonstrate in this essay that a specific example of modernist abstraction, created in Italy during the 1930s, can be interpreted as responding to ethical principles articulated in the culture at large. I will also show that such principles are not inherent in the formal structure of such works, as the ethical meaning attributed to them depends upon the context in which they are received.