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The elementary school teaching process is an important element in shaping a young person's personality, where knowledge, sensory and aesthetic impressions are provided through curiosity. Art education plays an important role in the process of developing imagination, creativity and manual skills. Visual arts textbooks are a key tool in teaching art and architecture. The purpose of this article is to analyze art textbooks issued in the last 5 years for elementary schools approved by the Ministry of Education. The content and included illustrative material from four available publications were analyzed. The collected information was juxtaposed with what is known, popular and frequented by tourists around the world. The article pays attention to the objects of sacred architecture, recognizing them as valuable cultural heritage. An analysis of art textbooks has shown that the included illustrations and information in the various publications vary quite a bit, although the same art issues are covered. The content of textbooks should be consistent, supported by well-known examples that are characteristic icons of certain trends in art and architecture. The task should be to draw a young person's attention to the cultural, social, technological, economic and ecological meanings of art and architecture. They should teach conscious perception, selective and critical choice, as well as distance from oneself. The importance of art education is significant, as it plays an integrating role vis-à-vis other disciplines.

In the cinematic landscape, the depiction of characters arose from the personal envisioning of the movie creators. The processes of masculinization and de-masculinization partially are in the costume designer's hands, who build up the characters’ fashion, identity and gender through dress. Their choice of design reflects upon their subjective and own perspectives of the world. However, the relationship between fashion and film is more layered and involves a great amount of creatives during the production, who equally contribute to the movie’s outcome. It is crucial to stress the importance of the fashioned reality of cinema in which costume plays a fundamental role, in embodying one’s identity. Creative works may be an expression of a vision but are not of a single interpretation and occupy a multidimensional space of negotiated meanings. Roland Barthes's theorization about the multidimensional space highlights the subjectivity and the creator's interpretations, which don’t necessarily define the truth. Taking Barthes's rhetorical structure as a starting point for this paper, and the cultural reproduction of menswear in cinema will unpack the theoretical expression Weltanschauung, which describes a world's view by creatives in the literary and visual arts. This personification in cinema marks the importance of the industry’s creatives and conveys their inputs on the visualization of race, gender and identity. Furthermore, it reflects on the relevance of fashion at large but also how masculinity shifts in culture and its social significance through the cinematographic landscape.

The construction of a star’s image is a complex process, and one element that plays a fundamental role in this is clothing. Cary Grant, a legendary actor of classic Hollywood cinema, is remembered not only for his acting but also for his impeccable style and elegant wardrobe. However, what sets Grant apart is the fact that his clothing choices, particularly those linked to his on-screen roles, often challenged traditional gender stereotypes, making new statements about the intersection of fashion, identity, and expectations. In examining Grant’s filmography, we can observe that his on-screen wardrobe intentionally diverged from conventional norms, challenging not only the established notions of men’s clothing but also the traditional associations with power and status. In movies such as Holiday (1938), directed by George Cukor, Grant often wore outfits that are in contrast with his character’s actions. In this movie, Grant portrays a wealthy businessman who challenges the expectations of high society. He rebels against the norms imposed by his bride-to-be, engaging in childish activities with his future sister-in-law. The juxtaposition of his appearance and his rebellious personality challenges the expectation that men should always present themselves as serious and composed. In other movies, such as Bringing Up Baby (1938), directed by Howard Hawks, Grant wore female pieces of clothing. He plays a paleontologist who is forced to wear a woman's dress. While the initial use of cross-dressing serves a comedic purpose, it evolves into an exploration of gender identity. Initially, the act of wearing a dress is met with reluctance and awkwardness. However, as the character becomes more comfortable with this unconventional attire, a newfound confidence is reflected in both his demeanor and movements. The use of cross-dressing in movies has a rich history, often employed for comedic effect. However, in Grant's performances, it transcends mere humor to become a vehicle for exploring deeper themes of gender fluidity and identity. Cary Grant’s public image was intricately tied to his personal life and clothing choices, making his style not only a personal statement but also a key component of the public imagery associated with him. Beyond the screen, his fashion sense became iconic, influencing the perception of masculinity and style during his time. This opens to new analyses of the role of clothing in gender expression and performance in cinema, as Grant’s deliberate deviations from societal norms prompt a reconsideration of the relationship between attire, identity, and societal expectations. In view of this, it is possible to argue that Grant's on-screen sartorial choices challenged the status quo and, at the same time, invited the audience to question pre-conceived notions of gender roles. It is for this reason that the paper, using the methodology of fashion theories, focus on the actor’s ability to seamlessly integrate unconventional clothes into his roles to demonstrate a blended understanding of fashion’s potential as a tool for social expression and commentary. The aim will therefore be to demonstrate that Cary Grant not only left an indelible mark on film history, but also contributed to a broader conversation on the intersection of identity and style.

The essay explores the intersections between Italian film, fashion, and hip-hop “Golden age” masculinity from 1992 to 1997, with a specific focus on Vibe magazine. Through an analysis of Vibe’s coverage of hip-hop and fashion, I argue that the representation of hip-hop masculinity in Vibe was shaped by sampling both American and Italian cinematic and cultural tropes (specifically Hollywood musicals, spaghetti westerns and gangster movies). The essay examines how Vibe’s portrayal of hip-hop masculinity through sophisticated fashion services, crafted and intercepts broader cultural and visual trends over hip-hop, proposing an alternative and progressive vision of black male identity in respect of the toxic image of “gagsta rapper” and its associated racial tropes. Combining original archival perusal and interviews with an action-network oriented methodology, the essay retraces the complex and often ambiguous nature of hip-hop masculinity, as well as how cultural cross-pollination might orient our understanding of hip-hop, gender and national identity.

The essay intends to explore the contribution made - over a chronological span from the late 1930s to the present day - by Neapolitan haute couture houses to the Italian film industry, focusing on Oscar-winning films in which the constant link with Naples emerges. These prestigious haute couture houses have dressed world-famous actors, creating unique costumes in their luxury workshops. The relationship with the world of show business has developed since the historic beginnings of the tailor's workshops, influencing not only recent collaborations, but also the very history of the clothes that actors have worn in their daily lives. Today, these garments form part of museum collections, consolidating identity through documented storytelling. The international notoriety acquired by the Maestri has attracted directors and costume designers, both Italian and foreign, who choose these workshop centres to dress protagonists who symbolise luxury and Italian character. These experiences, with their continuity and visibility on the big screen, have contributed to the international diffusion of the names of these bastions of Italian men's tailoring, highlighting formal, chromatic, and technical details that have defined the characters dressed in 'Made in Naples' clothes.

Cillian Murphy's career offers ideal ground to study the role played by fashion in the construction of male stardom. In terms of gender performance his career appears to be split in two, with the role of gangster Thomas Shelby in Peaky Blinders acting as a watershed. Prior to this role, Murphy's star image is characterized by a tendency to break traditional male canons by portraying androgynous, liminal characters. By contrast, Peaky Blinders makes him an icon of conservative masculinity, with dominant and stoic traits close to the hegemonic model. This transformation is closely tied to the sartorial aspect of the series, which sees Shelby and his gang display a classic elegance associated with aggressive, dominant, and success-driven masculinity. This dimension is also central to the mechanisms of appropriation enacted by the audience, inspiring fashion trends that denote the ability to influence an aspect of consumption crucial to male gender expression. Simultaneously, Murphy's "tailored" image in Peaky Blinders populates conservative and misogynistic online spaces such as the Sigma Male Grindset, testifying to the radical change underwent by the actor’s image with regards to gender performance.

Leslie Cheung is one of the most well-known queer actors in Asia. He played in lots of LGBTQ+ films and created non-binary images in his music works and performances. Cheung is also a fashion pioneer, who has created many important fashion moments. By studying some academic research (especially those produced by Natalia Chan), reports, and articles in fashion and lifestyle media, as well as some video resources on the Internet, I will first introduce the public images of Cheung’s dressing style and some of his classic outfits for stage performance. Through the works of scholars in cultural studies and sociology such as Adam Geczy, Vicki Karaminas and Daniel-Salvatore Schiffer, we can identify a close relationship between Leslie Cheung and the mythological figure of the Dandy. They have a mindset which is ahead of their time and both demonstrate a revolt to the gender binary and traditional masculinity. Finally, we can also find that Cheung’s style of dressing has showcased the same approaches to menswear of some contemporary fashion designers. It all goes to show Cheung’s vision in fashion and gender fluidity.

In examining the dynamic interplay of maximalism and streetwear within the criminal genre, our analysis of Suburra and Mare Fuori uncovers a transformative phase that challenges conventional sartorial narratives, introducing a new lexicon of masculinity. These series, emblematic of youth and excess, reflect a societal evolution towards a multifaceted expression of male identity and power. Through this prism, the narratives not only subvert traditional aesthetic norms of the classical depictions in gangster cinema, but also foster a profound engagement with contemporary viewers. Our discourse, after a first reconstruction of the historical characteristics of the genre, navigates through the nuanced terrain of contemporary maximalism, distancing itself from the misinterpretations associated with “bad taste”, to celebrate a composite aesthetic that defies classical taste paradigms. This stylistic approach champions an eclectic freedom that elevates maximalism to a form of narrative and identity expression. In summation, this exploration not only reconfigures established narratives of style, masculinity, and authority but also posits a reimagined conceptualization of excess that synergizes cultural and social capital, heralding a new era in the criminal genre characterized by complexity, vibrancy, and excess.

This article focuses on Rian Johnson’s murder mystery films Knives Out (2019) and Glass Onion (2022) to explore the chameleonic sartorial choices of their detective protagonist, Benoit Blanc played by Daniel Craig. While in the first film, Knives Out, Blanc displays a conservative look with relaxed tweed suits, in Glass Onion, he showcases a more flamboyant look, with a striped blue and white tan suit, beige linen safari-styled suits and Breton striped sweaters. In this article, I explore how costume designer Jenny Eagan playfully rethinks the detective look, drawing inspiration from films by Jacques Tati and Alfred Hitchcock, to address issues of capitalism, privilege and class combining humour and social commentary. Benoit Blanc’s attire, classic and yet bordering period fashion from the 1940s, presents a vintage dandy sensibility, taking the audience back to a past time. His look, I argue, not only deliberately helps differentiate Craig from his most famous role of James Bond, but also functions as a comforting tool for audiences in relating better with the masculinity of this down-to-earth detective. Despite presenting occasional camp features, Benoit Blanc performs a traditional, rational and intellectually reassuring masculine heroism.

La creciente preocupación por la contaminación generada por los plásticos derivados del petróleo representa uno de los desafíos ambientales más apremiantes a nivel global en la actualidad. El uso generalizado de plásticos en una amplia gama de productos, combinado con una gestión inadecuada de los residuos, ha dado lugar a una acumulación masiva de estos materiales en entornos naturales como océanos, ríos, suelos y diversos ecosistemas. Esta problemática no solo afecta la biodiversidad y la calidad de vida de las comunidades, sino que también plantea interrogantes éticos y de sostenibilidad para las generaciones presentes y futuras. En este contexto de urgencia ambiental, es necesario explorar y promover soluciones innovadoras y sostenibles que aborden de manera integral la problemática de los plásticos y fomenten una cultura de reducción, reutilización y reciclaje. Dentro de este marco, el arte emerge como una poderosa herramienta capaz de generar conciencia, transformación social y ambiental, así como de inspirar cambios significativos en las prácticas individuales y colectivas. El artículo se centra en el desarrollo de un modelo de evaluación para el Arte Público Participativo que utiliza desechos plásticos como material artístico. Este enfoque, conocido como Upcycling o Supra-reciclaje, tiene como objetivo principal la reutilización creativa de los plásticos en la creación de obras artísticas. Además de su función estética, estas obras tienen la intención de empatizar y transmitir emociones que aporten concienciación sobre sostenibilidad, consumo responsable y gestión de residuos. Este estudio analiza cómo el arte puede ser un instrumento efectivo para abordar desafíos ambientales globales al transformar desechos en recursos artísticos y educativos. Para fundamentar y enriquecer este estudio, se recurre a diversas corrientes teóricas y disciplinas, que van desde la sociología ambiental hasta la psicología social y la ecología cultural. Entre las teorías y consideraciones relevantes se encuentran la "Teoría del valor, las normas y las creencias hacia el medioambiente" de Stern et al. (2000), que proporciona un marco conceptual para comprender cómo se construyen y transforman las actitudes y comportamientos hacia el entorno natural. Asimismo, se considera la "Psicología social de los objetos" de Mead (1932), que explora la relación entre los individuos, los objetos y la identidad personal en el contexto de la sociedad contemporánea. Además, se aborda la "Teoría de la Basura" de Thompson (1979), que analiza la evolución del valor social de los objetos, incluyendo los desechos, en el contexto de la cultura material y el consumo. La metodología propuesta para la evaluación de estos proyectos artísticos participativos se sustenta en un conjunto de variables fundamentales que abarcan aspectos como el grado de participación comunitaria en la creación de las obras, la selección y uso innovador de materiales plásticos, el impacto ambiental de las instalaciones artísticas, la integración con el entorno urbano o natural, así como el mensaje temático y simbólico que transmiten las obras a la audiencia. Este modelo de evaluación no solo busca valorar la calidad estética y conceptual de las obras, sino también su impacto social, educativo y medioambiental. Desde una perspectiva más amplia, esta focalización de Arte Público Participativo orientado en la reutilización creativa de desechos plásticos representa una oportunidad única para transformar la percepción y las prácticas relacionadas con los residuos y el consumo en nuestra sociedad. En resumen, este artículo aborda el papel crucial que desempeña el arte, especialmente cuando se integra en proyectos participativos que incluyen la reutilización creativa de desechos plásticos. Se examina cómo esta guía puede ser fundamental en la sensibilización, educación y movilización de la sociedad hacia prácticas más sostenibles y conscientes. Además de su impacto en el ámbito artístico, este enfoque contribuye significativamente a la construcción de una cultura de respeto y cuidado hacia el medio ambiente y los recursos naturales

Saxon influences stand out as one of the most notable phenomena in the Late Gothic architecture of Lesser Poland; however, they have been insufficiently discussed to date. Four prominent buildings, likely inspired by Saxon and Lusatian architecture, are analysed in this paper. The first structure under consideration is the cloister around the courtyard of the Collegium Maius of the Jagiellonian University of Cracow. Characterised by its diamond vaults, which are the earliest example of this type in Lesser Poland, the cloister was most probably inspired by the Albrechtsburg in Meissen; it could even have been completed by one of the Meissen masters. The second building examined is the Chapel of Saint James next to the southern tower of Saint Margaret's Church in Nowy Sącz. Its vault was likely a further development of the model from the southwestern bay of the Collegium Maius cloister. The third case study focuses on the Collegium Maius library, erected slightly later than the courtyard. It features two types of net vaults: one is the Saxon modification of the Parlerian design for the Old Town Bridge Tower in Prague, and the other is inspired by the works of Konrad Pflüger in Podelwitz and Görlitz. The last example to be analysed is the gable of the Church of Saint Nicholas in Bochnia. I suggest seeing the closest analogies in the gables of churches and secular buildings in Saxony and Lusatia as well as in the gable of the Church of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine in Żagań, Silesia.

Starting from the presence of a painting by Aimé Morot among the slide collection of Charles Lang Freer, a collection otherwise devoted to modern American painters and Asian art, the essay traces back the origin of this slide to the collection of Ernest Fenollosa and untangles the documentation on how his slides found their home in the Freer Archives in Washington, D.C. Fenollosa’s use of this slide to juxtapose ancient Japanese art and modern French painting is a starting point for reflecting on the role that the presence – or absence – of images played in printed texts as opposed to lectures, and how that in turn fueled the tendency towards stylistic comparisons. Lastly, the position of lantern slides as a tool that was once indispensable to art history, and now, in the digital era, becomes a historical and material object to be studied as such, allows us to reflect on one of the many epistemological shifts that we face as art historians.

"The Great Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations", held at the Crystal Palace in London in 1851, hosted an array of objects that testified to both artistic and technical virtuosity, while their display served as a spectacle for the public. This paper takes up the rich history of mechanical technologies in the service of art using the example of the machine for reproducing sculptures, which was presented as a cutting-edge innovation at the Great Exhibition. Drawing on the history of early photography and in particular the historical context of various techniques of three-dimensional reproduction (such as the 'photo-sculpture' introduced later in 1862), the process of reproducing and displaying works of art on a small scale will be explored. The study of mechanically minded sculptors, who celebrated the almost magical qualities of their machines and the demonstration of the production processes, reveals their ambition to join the ranks of the great inventors, alongside the situation of the pioneers of early photography. The presentation of sculptures, reliefs and objets d’art in the milieu of technical knowledge, industry and manufacture at the universal exhibition of 1851 is thus put up for discussion, also with a view to subsequent international exhibitions.

In June 1854, the second Crystal Palace opened at Sydenham in South London. The media reported keenly on Sydenham’s large-scale archaeological reconstructions known as the Fine Arts Courts. These exhibits were designed by prominent design reformers as a means to improve public knowledge and public taste. However, the Courts attracted frequently hostile reviews from notable art critics who derided the displays as entertainment spectacles. This essay reevaluates the Courts by examining their deliberate showmanship. I trace the origins of the Sydenham display techniques in the archaeological representations made by the Sydenham Court designers for the London print, performance, and exhibition markets. Following the lead of historians of popular science, this essay emphasises the significance of popular formats and popularisation in Victorian visual culture and knowledge formation. It examines the reconstructions as visualising technologies designed to popularise, stage and communicate Victorian visual knowledge. I argue that both designers and showmen presented a virtual past through shared strategies of showmanship, the staging of expertise, and dramatic, poetic narrative. The Sydenham Fine Arts Courts were complex visual commodities, offering both instruction and diversion. Some Victorian critics found these aims mutually incompatible.

The paper focuses on the gendered self-conceptions of engineers and their relevance for studying world exhibitions. It thus analyses debates in German engineering around 1900 on the relationship between technology and culture in order to reconstruct how masculinity in engineering is understood as a symbolic position of cultural production. This aim necessitates using a concept of 'hegemonic masculinity' as a relational construction. This is illustrated by the example of the professionalisation of modern German engineering from the 1870s on until the turn of the century. In their writings, engineering scholars initially constructed the idea of a 'scientist of machinery' as a symbolically neutralised position of objectivity by following a narrative of progress. Later, the engineer as a 'man of action' supplanted this concept, and emphasis was now placed on a narrative of the technological man whose competence was regarded a talent arising from the nature of his sex. Both historical conceptions of the German engineer are interpreted as a specific mode of masculinity construction, motivated by the need to attain a dominant position, not only with respect to women but also to other social groups of men.

The article examines the aesthetic staging and displaying of non-European art, particularly African art and culture, common at international world’s fairs at the turn of the century. As examples serve the Brussels International Exposition of 1897 and the Paris Colonial Exposition of 1931. The use of ornament, once of Art Nouveau and once of Art Deco, as a design feature, unite both exhibitions. This article examines two interrelated areas. One is the relationship between the aesthetic staging and displaying of African art and the perception and appreciation of non-European art within the burgeoning Arts and Crafts movement. The second is between this aesthetic staging and consumerism from 1900 onwards, which was increasingly marked by exoticism.

This special issue focuses on four thematic areas, 'Gesamtkunstwerk and the Assemblage of Things', 'Technology and Art', 'Gender and Fashion', and 'Colonial Entanglements and Postcoloniality'. At the intersection of art, crafts, architecture and technology, these have so far received little attention in the discourse on world exhibitions.

In 1929, Mexico presented itself at the Ibero-American Exposition in Seville, Spain, with a pavilion architecture that replicated the aesthetics of 'Mexican antiquity', referring back to ancient Mexican construction types. Starting from this staging, this article examines the indigenist exhibition architectures in terms of the strategies used to represent the indigenous in the context of establishing a national canon of aesthetic forms. The example of Mexico enables a discussion on how 'peripheral modernism' was imagined at international exhibitions and world’s fairs, how it – in turn – was linked to exoticisation and auto-exoticisation, and which forms of staging were used, especially since no similarly large exhibitions took place in Mexico itself. In broad terms, the pivotal question is to what extent the world’s fair format provided a unique stage for negotiations between the poles of nationalism and cosmopolitanism, tradition and modernity, periphery and center. A special focus will be on the question in which architectural and artistic configurations these negotiation processes became visible. This entails retracing and reappraising the contexts of such indigenist aesthetics.

This article explores the agency of (post)colonial professional self-positioning through globalised forms of representational work. It deepens our understanding of the constraints and duress from the colonial past involved in the making of (post)colonial world’s fairs by analysing representational work related to the Moroccan contribution to Expo 2000. It shifts the perspective from the aesthetics of Expo contributions to the process of making aesthetic objects for such a world’s fair. Stressing the specific limited and intensified temporality of representational work in the historical context of world’s fairs allows for insights into the aspirations of those who are engaged in this mode of project work. Taking an ethnographic perspective onto the working context in the Moroccan Expo office, I will show how the daily practice allowed for a certain 'neverthelessness' when facing the duress of the colonial past, as described by Laura Ann Stoler (2016). Finally, the Moroccan contribution to Expo 2000 will be briefly discussed with respect to later and as yet unrealised pavilions.

In a sequence dedicated to the London World’s Fair in his collage film The Power of Emotion (1983), Alexander Kluge talks about how the suppression of prudent proletarian emotion by the aesthetic staging and emotionalisation of exchange value corrupted the departure of industrial modernity into happiness and affluence. Correspondent to the mode of the opera, which originated concurrently with the "parliament of objects" as the "power plant of emotions", the fairytale-like beginning of the collage with the Great Exhibition in London in 1851 is followed by the Crystal Palace fire in 1937, with which the Reichstag fire of 1935 is associated. What is crucial is the portrayal of the workers Kluge’s montages feature as the 'real' builders of the Crystal Palace and of societal prosperity. The artisanal sensitivity with which bolt and nut are connected in such a way that the construction is stable represents a social utopia, which in view of its loss requires a response at the artistic level that is appropriate to the wartime destruction. The technological construction of aesthetic semblance has to be laid bare, the artistic form has to become iconoclastic.

This survey on the history of world’s fairs since 1851 starts with the losers of this contest in national profiling and industrial competition: Germany and Austria, both former territories of the Holy Roman Empire and belated nation states. Both had been rather unlucky colonizers. Some of the leading colonial states, instead, organized more than three world’s fairs in the time span from 1851 until today: France, Belgium, and Spain, all of them Catholic. Holland, the Calvinist colonial power, renounced on this kind of spectacles at all, Great Britain contented itself with two performances. World’s fairs don’t pay off. While the USA participated regularly since 1876, two spectacular world’s fair events, Osaka 1970, and Shanghai 2010, mark the rise of the Asian powers. The history of world’s fairs mirrors global politics, diplomacy and wars against the backdrop of late colonial history.

This essay examines how fashion was complexly constructed and experienced at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904, better known as the St. Louis World’s Fair. It takes as its point of departure a striking poster illustrated by the Czech artist Alphonse Mucha to advertise the event for a European audience. The image depicts an elegantly clad woman and traditionally dressed Native American joined by the hand – allegorical symbols of the old and new. Ideas about the progressive 'new woman' and the mythical 'vanishing Indian' were evident throughout the fairgrounds in exhibits that showcased art, industry, cultural heritage, entertainment, and American political power. An analysis of photographs taken there by Jessie Tarbox Beals, Frances Benjamin Johnston, and Emme and Mayme Gerhard reveals that sartorial encounters between fairgoers and participants played a key role in articulating the exhibition’s narrative of progress, while also problematizing contemporaneous attitudes towards race and gender.

From their beginnings in the mid-nineteenth century, the world’s fairs sought to generate a synthesized body of knowledge about the world by gathering an encyclopedic and didactic collection of objects from a wide array of fields: technology, machinery, handicrafts, the visual arts, performance, and ethnography – knowledge made visible and experienced through artifacts sourced from all over the world. This expanded visual experience can also be understood as one that interprets the gaze as a catalyst for a multi-sensory perception and categorization of material culture, of both two- and three-dimensional objects of vision. Thus, these exhibitions not only synthesized 'the world', but they also synthesized arts, handicrafts, architecture, and technology into an imagined Gesamtkunstwerk. The objects and works of art – handcrafted or machine-made – displayed at the world’s fairs were conceived as a mass spectacle as they were turned into the signifiers of a narrative – imagined and presented as coherent – of technological progress, colonial expansion, and artistic innovation. The colonized regions were to stand in contrast to this, with ethnographica and handicrafts presented as traditional, 'authentic'. Nevertheless, a complex network of "shared histories" and transnational interconnections became manifest at the world’s fairs.

This paper explores the intersections between gender, display, and empire at turn-of-the-century world’s fairs in the United States. The 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition serves as a case study. Designed to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal, the 1915 fair was hinged on contemporary notions of manliness and used gender ideology to articulate prevailing ideas and assumptions about the American nation, its new empire, and its influence on the entire world. Indeed, gendered rhetoric found its way into numerous contemporary published tracts, articles, paintings, and popular culture that take on the enormity of the Panama Canal and its implications. Manliness and its mechanical prosthetic, technology, became the arenas through which the United States refashioned its national body and confidently assumed its new role as imperialist on the world stage.

It was mainly thanks to the efforts of the Belgian artist Laurent Moonens, who had founded an art academy in the then Belgian Congo, that a group of young art students from Lubumbashi were able to travel to the 1958 World Exhibition in Brussels. Today, their works are regarded as the first generation of modern art in the DR Congo. At the time, the issue of modern art in the Congo was incorporated into the national tasks of the Belgian colonial power; voices criticising power relations or definitions are difficult to find in the sources. Nevertheless, the way in which these works were presented at the World Expo was not a matter of course at the time. This essay analyses the conditions of this very first exhibition, in which European and Congolese works were shown together. All those involved embraced an idea of "humanism", albeit their respective conceptions of it varied.

This essay locates a late 19th-century category of objects variously named as 'industrial' or 'decorative arts' within the specifically imperial institutional circuit of the World Exhibitions. Taking up a segment of the World Exhibitions of the 1880s, it traces a history which connects the three cities of Calcutta, London and Glasgow and creates a trail of travelling exhibits and museum collections of this most proliferating category of objects. It follows in particular the career of the Bengali exhibition commissioner and museum curator Trailokya Nath (T.N.) Mukharji and the anthology he compiled on the Art-Manufactures of India for the Glasgow International Exhibition of 1888 to map a specific network of commissioning, collecting, cataloguing and documenting India’s 'art-manufactures'.

The sharp division between "Italian" and "Early Netherlandish" culture fostered by a nationally minded art history has led to serious misunderstandings in the classification of unattributed works created within supranational networks in the sixteenth century. The artistic circle of Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle (1517–1586), minister to Charles V of Habsburg, can be considered a prime example of such a network, because it was characterised by an intense and widespread mobility of artefacts and artists from and to Brussels between the 1540s and the 1560s. This article focuses on two medals that portray personalities close to Monsignor of Granvelle, namely the painter Anthonis Mor and Cardinal Francisco Pacheco y Toledo. It aims to revise their traditional attributions and to demonstrate the extent to which the cultural encounters that took place in the shadow of the Habsburg court impacted artistic developments. Above all, the article will illustrate how much the interpretive schemes of a nationally minded art historiography have biased our account and complicated our understanding of these encounters.

In the twelfth century, a marble statue of the Virgin Mary miraculously arrived in the Sicilian harbor town of Trapani, gaining reverence across the Catholic world. The ensuing pilgrimage to the statue led to the widespread distribution of small alabaster replicas of the venerated Madonna. This article examines the mythical and factual trajectories of the Madonna di Trapani and her copies throughout the Mediterranean. This paper outlines the strategic fusion of legendary narratives and tangible mobility employed by viceroys, religious orders, and travelers to expand and consolidate the influence of the Catholic Church and the Spanish Crown during the Counter-Reformation.

Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century artist biographers documented the mobility of early modern Netherlandish artists. Yet, research into the movements of Dutch and Flemish artists still fails to capture the full significance of this essential aspect of the artistic profession. This article presents a novel approach to artist mobility, by applying Michael Baxandall's interpretation of the artwork as “a solution to a problem” to a selection of artworks by Northern artists in late-sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Naples. By analyzing itinerant artists’ abilities to solve the challenges they faced as foreigners in the Spanish Viceroyalty, this study offers new insights into their creativity.

This article analyses an engraving of Philip II of Spain published in Rome in 1588 by Marcello Clodio. The portrait is based on Sofonisba Anguissola’s famous painting of the king by way of Alonso Sánchez Coello’s copy in Florence. The Roman engraving offers a rare example of a Spanish painting copied in Italian print. A historiated frame surrounding the portrait, comprised of emblems from Achille Bocchi’s Symbolicae Quaestiones (Bologna, 1555), represents the most significant reuse of Bocchi’s emblems by a contemporary artist. The unusual frame is interpreted as a tactful representation of the polarising Spanish monarch.

The discovery of an unpublished document in the Archive of Notarial Protocols in Seville reveals the commission of the first altarpiece painted for the early cathedral of Cartagena de Indias. The patron Jorge de Quintanilla appointed the carver Bartolomé de Ortega, the painter Hernando de Esturmio and the gilder Andrés Morín to carry out the work. Quintanilla specified a precise iconography for the most relevant panel depicting Santa Catalina. His preferences may have been determined by his background and connected with the original location of the altarpiece. This case study is a meaningful example of the fertile circulation of images between Seville and the New World throughout the 16th century.

This article examines one of the few prints taking up the Spanish Habsburg cause during the early years of the Eighty Years’ War: Diptych of Christ and Philip II (1568), presumably engraved by Johannes Wierix. Because prints were less commonly used by the royalist side to distribute their propaganda in the Low Countries, this engraving offers a singular view into what the medium afforded them. Examined against the backdrop of iconoclasm, the engraving puts forward a multi-faceted argument about the protection of King Philip II and devotional objects as well as the sacralization of the king and the preservation of the Catholic faith.

This article examines the dissemination of the image of the Virgin of Copacabana, a prominent Marian image in the Andean Plateau (Altiplano) on the shores of Lake Titicaca. In analyzing modifications to the images of the Virgin of Copacabana–in an itinerary that spans the Andes to Madrid–this analysis is based on the weighing of works, colonial chronicles, and specialized studies that address different aspects of the diffusion of the images of Copacabana. This text addresses the issue of collective authorship in the Andes and the symbolic value that unfolds in the production of copies conforming to the original prototype of Copacabana.

This essay examines the southern Italian city of Capua and the Mexican city of Tzintzuntzán in parallel. Both cities existed within the polycentric system of the Iberian monarchy. When faced with the deprivation of their privileges, the threat of losing their historical memory (enclosed within monuments from the past), and the forfeiture of their local identity within a broader empire, local elites from these two sides of the globe each responded with the same administrative procedure (petitioning) and the same cultural tools. These actions included the invention of local histories, the transfer of spolia, and the construction of modern buildings that incorporated “ancient” stones.

This paper presents the results of research on the early career of the Jesuit painter Democrito Bernardo Bitti (b. 1548 in Camerino, d. 1610 in Lima), who was active in the Viceroyalty of Peru from 1575 until his death and is considered one of the founding fathers of colonial painting by the historiography of South American art. Through analyzing previously unpublished archival materials housed in Camerino (le Marche region), this essay reconstructs the historical context of his formative years as an artist by presenting new insights into his training in Le Marche region, followed by a five-year stay in Rome. The visual and devotional references he put together in Le Marche and Rome–where the name of Federico Zuccari stands out–formed the basis for Bitti’s Peruvian works.

In terms of the dissemination of the Italian Renaissance, on the Iberian Peninsula, the little-considered figure of Álvaro de Mendoza, Bishop of Ávila and then of Palencia, is crucial. This article will explore how Mendoza established his multiple ecclesiastical identities in Spain through his links to Rome, benefitting in the first instance from being brother-in-law to the powerful imperial secretary, Francisco de los Cobos y Molina. Mendoza played a fundamental role not only in the artistic dissemination, however, but also in the spiritual renewal of the post-Tridentine Spanish monarchy, where he was the key figure in first promoting the career of Saint Teresa of Ávila.

Under Philip II, the Habsburg Empire reached across the globe a complex confederation that spanned the Atlantic Ocean and included high-tension European areas. Painters and missionaries travelled across the Catholic Monarchy, which was connected through images and cults shared across diverse geographies (the Viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru, the Mediterranean and Spanish Italy, the Spanish Netherlands and the Iberian Peninsula). Circulation of models, promotion of ideas (aimed at universal evangelization and imperialism), and the success of categories such as the Global Renaissance lead to the conception of an empire that is all-encompassing, polycentric, or even without a center. The article discusses materials and interpretative approaches, acknowledging the specificity of both contexts and agents.

This paper provides a background to, detailed exploration, and then critique of, the influential notion of economic performativity. It begins with a broad sweep of the theoretical developments in economic sociology in the years before the advance of the performativity program. In doing so it outlines the theoretical quandary that performativity sought to move beyond. Having set the scene, it then looks at the performativity thesis in detail, explaining how it seeks to do away with modern ontological binaries like the object/subject dichotomy. Once the performativity thesis has been unpacked, it is critiqued. Leading to the conclusion, that while there have been some benefits to the performative approach, especially in research looking at finance, the performativity thesis ultimately fails in its attempt to move beyond the ontology of “the moderns”, and does little to shift the debates in economic sociology that predated its popularity.

Although finance is ubiquitous in modern life, its ontological foundation is rarely discussed. This essay considers some key characteristics of finance from a social ontological perspective. It initially argues that money requires some sort of representation, and that financial institutions rely on various forms of cognition as well as documents anchoring representations. From that standpoint, one of the crucial aspects of finance is that it provides reference points through the process of quantification. These reference points are numerical representations that allow people to make comparisons. Comparing numbers inevitably creates different hierarchies. However, a specific hierarchy can become outdated or less significant. In such situations, a heterarchy can be created outside the hierarchy. This essay illustrates the appearance of heterarchy in the recent shift toward impact finance, in which financial hierarchies encompass heterarchical systems that are finally replaced by quantifiable hierarchical metrics. With this example, the present research demonstrates that finance tends to convert heterarchical systems into hierarchical ones by quantification through monetary units.

The Action Theory of Exchanges is based on three main assumptions: i) an exchange is motivated by people having convergent preferences, ii) people exchange actions, and iii) offers and acceptances are crucial parts of an exchange and they bring about rights and obligations. The main aim of this paper is to discuss three aspects of this theory to better understand its ontological implications and, possibly, improve it. I first examine the expression “transferring the ownership” by showing an ontological issue behind it; after that, I propose an interpretation that might solve this issue. I then show that convergent preferences are not enough to motivate an exchange; accordingly, one has to introduce two more preferences possessed by the agents. I finally propose a characterization of buying and selling (and buyer and seller) which, in addition to being compatible with the Action Theory of Exchanges, has the advantage of accounting for both monetary and non-monetary exchanges.

This (somewhat polemical) paper focuses on the ontological nature of money and draws comparisons to the ontological status of gauge freedom in physics. The parallels allow us to move beyond the social constructivist theories of Searle et al., and thereby avoid some pitfalls with such views. Since we have a reasonably good grasp of the ontological features in the physics context, we can pull back lessons from there onto the economic domain. In general, we find that this approach offers a nice lens through which to view the ontological peculiarities of money.