Research Catalog

Title

Art and magic in the court of the Stuarts / Vaughan Hart.

Author

Hart, Vaughan, 1960-

Publication

New York, N.Y. : Routledge, 1994.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xiv, 266 pages : illustrations; 25 cm

Summary

• Vaughan Hart examines the influence of magic on Renaissance art in the Stuart court. This period, spanning from the inauguration of James I to the execution of Charles I, saw art, in its role as an element of royal propaganda, used to represent the power of the monarch and his apparent command over the hidden forces of nature. Court artists therefore sought to represent magic as an expression of the Stuart Kings' Divine Right, and later of their policy of Absolutism.
• Court masques, sermons, heraldry, gardens, architecture and processions represented the self-image of the Stuart monarch. Magic of the kind enshrined in Neoplatonic philosophy and the court art which expressed its notion of the cosmos played its part in the causes of the Civil War and the destruction of the Stuart image which ensued.

Subject

• Stuart, House of > Art patronage
• Art, Stuart
• Allegories
• Magic > Influence
• Neoplatonism

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Introduction : Stuart Magic and the Fairy Queen -- I. Stuart Court Art and the Magic of Kingship -- II. Masques, Sermons, and the Prophetic 'Albion and Jerusalem' -- III. Heraldry and the Architectural Orders as Joint Emblems of the 'House of British Chivalry' -- IV. Gardens and the Illusion of Natural Magic -- V. Architecture and the Geometry of Solomon's Temple -- VI. Musical Harmony and Pythagorean Palaces -- VII. Processions and Stuart London as the Neoplatonic 'City of the Sun' -- Epilogue: Apocalyptic Court Art and Albion's Second Ruin -- Appendix: The Problem of Authorship of Stone-Heng Restored (1655).

ISBN

0415090318

LCCN

94002272

OCLC

• 503313358
• ocn503313358
• SCSB-14524299

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries