Freemasonry and the Visual Arts from the Eighteenth Century Forward

London, Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2019 (nov)240p.ISBN: 9781501337963
Hardback
RRP: £96.00
Online price: £86.40

About Freemasonry and the Visual Arts from the Eighteenth Century Forward

With the dramatic rise of Freemasonry in the eighteenth century, art played a fundamental role in its practice, rhetoric, and global dissemination, while Freemasonry, in turn, directly influenced developments in art. This mutually enhancing relationship has only recently begun to receive its due. The vilification of Masons, and their own secretive practices, have hampered critical study and interpretation. As perceptions change, and as masonic archives and institutions begin opening to the public, the time is ripe for a fresh consideration of the interconnections between Freemasonry and the visual arts. This volume offers diverse approaches, and explores the challenges inherent to the subject, through a series of eye-opening case studies that reveal new dimensions of well-known artists such as Francisco de Goya and John Singleton Copley, and important collectors and entrepreneurs, including Arturo Alfonso Schomburg and Baron Taylor. Individual essays take readers to various countries within Europe and to America, Iran, India, and Haiti. The kinds of art analyzed are remarkably wide-ranging-porcelain, architecture, posters, prints, photography, painting, sculpture, metalwork, and more-and offer a clear picture of the international scope of the relationships between Freemasonry and art and their significance for the history of modern social life, politics, and spiritual practices. In examining this topic broadly yet deeply, Freemasonry and the Visual Arts sets a standard for serious study of the subject and suggests new avenues of investigation in this fascinating emerging field.

Table of contents

Introduction
The Mystery of Masonry Brought to Light: Freemasonry and the Visual Arts from William Hogarth to Theaster Gates
Reva Wolf (State University of New York at New Paltz) and Alisa Luxenberg (University of Georgia, Athens)
PART 1: MASONIC NETWORKS AND THE ARTS IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CATHOLIC EUROPE
Chapter 1
Freemasonry in Eighteenth-Century Portugal and the Architectural Projects of the Marquis de Pombal
David Martín López (University of Granada, Spain)
Chapter 2
Meissen Porcelain for the Order of the Pug
Cordula Bischoff (independent scholar)
Chapter 3
"Your Brother, Paco": Goya's Art and Freemasonry in Spain
Reva Wolf (State University of New York at New Paltz)
PART 2: FREEMASONRY, REVOLUTION AND THE ATLANTIC WORLD
Chapter 4
Revolutionary-Era Freemasonry and the Hermetic Paintings of John Singleton Copley
David Bjelajac (George Washington University, Washington, D.C.)
Chapter 5
“Within the Compass of Good Citizens”: The Visual Arts of Freemasonry as Practiced by Paul Revere
Nan Wolverton (American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA)
Chapter 6
Masonic Imagery in Haitian Vodou
Katherine Marie Smith (New York University)
PART 3: COMMUNITY-BUILDING, ARCHITECTURE AND THE SPREAD OF FREEMASONRY'S REACH
Chapter 7
Building Codes: New Light on f ... baron Taylor and Les Voyages pittoresques et romantiques dans l'ancienne France
Alisa Luxenberg (University of Georgia, Athens)
Chapter 8
Reveil de l'Iran: Freemasonry and Artistic Revivalism from Parsi Bombay to Qajar Tehran
Talinn Grigor (University of California, Davis)
Chapter 9
“To Consummate the Plan”: Solomon's Temple in Masonic Art, Architecture and Popular Culture, 1865-1930
William D. Moore (Boston University)
Chapter 10
English Freemasonry and the Art Workers' Guild: The Early Years of Arts Lodge No. 2751
Martin Cherry (Library and Museum of Freemasonry, London)
Chapter 11
“A Change Is Gonna Come”: Imaging Black Freemasons from Emancipation to the 1960s
Cheryl Finley (Cornell University) and Deborah Willis (New York University)