Eighteenth-century British culture expressed ideas of Nature â aesthetic, scientific, and otherwise â that have exerted colossal influence ever since. Studies of the eraâs natural imagination have tended to prioritize such forms of literature, art, and natural philosophy that enjoyed polite approval in their day. This dissertation situates those forms in proximity to spectacle, matter and energy that pervaded the period but often invited harsh criticism, and tended to fade from view as epistemological and aesthetic entities consolidated themselves. What becomes clear from this research is that eighteenth-century spectacle was a vital player in attempts to define the natural, sometimes as the naturalâs contrary term. More frequently, spectacularity worked as provision, or stopover, for and en route to picturesque landscapes, natural history illustrations, and so on. It opened narrative, temporal, and even geographical possibilities that allowed writers, artists, and philosophers to confront the myriad intellectual and representational challenges attendant upon confrontations with plants, animals, and environmental process. It tended to vanish from the polished record, but its potencies continued to haunt and empower the systems of literature, visuality, and inquiry that drew upon them. âNatureâs Spectaclesâ traces and analyzes the role of spectacularity in currents of thinking about nature by drawing, primarily, from British, Irish, and French sources. The dissertation turns not only to spectacular shows or events â such as fairground performances, violent battle-scenes, or theatrical special effects â but to a complicated rhetoric of spectacularity, which tended to target ostentation, ornament, and their associated terms, such as femininity, inauthenticity, and the foreign. Environments and organisms could behave spectacularly, as well, particularly those whose movements, habits, and matter proved aesthetically, procedurally, or cognitively frustrating. By bringing variegated strains of spectacularity together, the dissertation shows how the lines that divide nature from its opposites reflect not simple ontological truths, but the points at which an eraâs aesthetic and philosophical imagination meets the world outside.

Nature's Spectacles: Ornament, Performance, and Natural History in the Long Eighteenth Century

Global luxuries at home: the material possessions of an elite family in eighteenth-century Minas Gerais, Brazil

The long 18th century was a period of intense investment in elite architecture in Britain which sustained an extensive craft culture in carving, modelling, and joinery. Yet decoration is largely marginalised or ignored by architectural historians. This antipathy to the enrichment of buildings is not particular to Britain and reflects a wider discourse on the architecture of many periods and places. By situating past and present attitudes to 18th-century decoration in Britain within a wider historiography, this paper reveals the prejudices which still attend the discussion of ornament and craft production in architecture. Conversely, it explores revisionist perspectives on craft and decoration and considers how they can inform architectural history and contribute to a more holistic understanding of building production. Despite a recent, widespread revival of interest in ornament, however, scholarship continues to privilege conceptual issues over the material practices of decoration. Disciplinary boundaries have militated against an integrated approach to architecture and decoration and historians of sculpture and architecture have overlooked significant common ground. Lacunae in the historiography of decoration in 18th-century British architecture call for approaches which integrate the analytical and methodological tools of architectural and sculpture history.

https://journal.eahn.org/articles/10.5334/ah.534/galley/438/download/

Surface Value: Ways of Seeing Decoration in Architecture

Holy Organ or Unholy Idol?: The Sacred Heart in the Art, Religion, and Politics of New Spain

German-born, Paris-based Karl Lagerfeld was one of fashion’s most remarkable figures. Lagerfeld’s great versatility provides us with a unique opportunity, within fashion studies, for inter-discipli...

Hannah Williams

Papers

The Spiritual Rococo: Décor and Divinity from the Salons of Paris to the Missions of Patagonia, written by Gauvin Alexander Bailey