Art History - Brill Publishing

02/06/2025

The first two reviews of Larry Silver’s latest monograph, Art and Dis-illusion in the Long Sixteenth Century, are in. Reviewers praise it as “a thoughtful and important book,” that can inform “both the well-informed scholar as well as the student unfamiliar to the period.”

About the book: https://brill.com/display/title/63715.

Review one: https://hnanews.org/hnar/reviews/art-and-dis-illusion-in-the-long-sixteenth-century-brills-studies-on-art-art-history-and-intellectual-history.

Review two: https://journals.openedition.org/kikirpa/3619.

02/05/2025

"Imagining Singapore: Pictorial Photography from the 1950s to the 1970s"

By Charmaine Toh, Senior Curator International Art (Photography) at the Tate London.

"Imagining Singapore" is the first comprehensive study on the history of Pictorial photography in Singapore. Drawing from interviews, unpublished historical data and newly discovered photographs, the book unveils a fascinating aspect of visual culture and its links to global Pictorialism. While Singapore experienced sweeping changes from independence and industrialisation, Pictorial photography took on multiple roles, acting as a symbol of democracy and modernity, staging national identity and providing a mechanism for Singaporeans to engage with ideas of the past, present and future. Such photographs shaped the way modern Singapore was imagined and represented for decades to come.

Get your copy here: https://brill.com/display/title/62135?language=en&srsltid=AfmBOor-bWtwEkH_7dgETIzoDMI7j5XGxF5b01vIpOxXhLD5rv1MLtq0

02/05/2025

Interview with De Gruyter Brill author Farouk Yahya, SOAS, London, about his book "Magic and Divination in Malay Illustrated Manuscripts"

Listen to the interview about the book in the below link. We recently published an affordable paperback version of this title as it has proved to be one of our most beloved Islamic art books!

The book offers an integrated study of the texts and images of illustrated Malay manuscripts on magic and divination from private and public collections in Malaysia, the UK and Indonesia. Containing some of the rare examples of Malay painting, these manuscripts provide direct evidence for the intercultural connections between the Malay region, other parts of Southeast Asia and the rest of the world.

https://newbooksnetwork.com/magic-and-divination-in-malay-illustrated-manuscripts

16/04/2025

Legacies of Colonialism in Museum Collections
The (Un)Making of Indonesian Islam in the Netherlands

By Mirjam Shatanawi

This groundbreaking book tells the untold story of Indonesian Islam in museums. Often overshadowed by Hindu-Buddhist art, Indonesian Islamic heritage rarely receives the attention it deserves in museum collections and exhibitions.

This book unravels the historical silences rooted in Dutch colonial rule that have marginalized Indonesian Islamic material culture. Delving into the colonial archives, it traces the journey of Indonesian objects in Dutch museums, exploring their original meanings and their re-appropriation during instances of collecting, classification, interpretation and public display.

https://brill.com/display/title/69486

16/04/2025

*Co-Publication with Nouvelles Editions Scala, Lyon and Leiden*

Survival Boogie Woogie.
Neo-Japonisme, Architectural Photography & Abstraction

Author: Jean-Sébastien Cluzel
Translated from French by James Adamson

What links are there between Piet Mondrian’s unfinished work Victory Boogie Woogie (1942–4) and post-war Japanese and Japanese-style architectural photography?

As far back as the mid-1950s, critics and photographers were inclined to link Mondrian’s painting with modern Japanese architecture and some historians were to go so far as to assert that Mondrian himself had been influenced by traditional Japanese architecture.

Powerful associations such as these contributed to the coming together of Western and Japanese architectural modernity. They also underpinned the survival of Japonisme in architecture, or put another way, of the neo-Japonisme that emerged after the Second World War.

However, while this kinship between Mondrian’s abstraction and the aesthetic of Japanese architecture is little apparent in architecture, it does show in architectural photography.

This book, which takes a sidelong look at Mondrian, examines the works of the foremost among Japanese and American architectural photographers in an effort to interpret the dynamics of how the world of architecture was Japanized between 1945 and 1985.

https://brill.com/display/title/71049










EDITIONS SCALA

11/04/2025

Eric Varner’s new book, “Golden Excess” is the first monograph to offer a full art historical synthesis of the rich archaeological and monumental evidence for Nero’s remarkable principate. An outsized and innovative artistic program emerges, informed by aesthetics of excess, the grotesque and learned luxury.

https://brill.com/display/title/70579

27/03/2025

We're hiring a new Associate Editor Area Studies 📚

Start date: a.s.a.p.

Come work with us in our De Gruyter Brill Area Studies team which covers a diverse range of subjects and fields in Asian Studies, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, and African Studies.

We are looking for an Associate Editor who will assist the Acquisition Editors, supporting us through the organization and project management of books and journals in our ever expanding publishing program.

An exciting professional challenge in a fulltime position for the right candidate at one of the leading humanities publishers!

De Gruyter Brill is a global leader in scholarly publishing in the humanities and beyond. Combining a rich heritage dating back to 1683 with a forward-looking mindset, our mission is to publish and cu

01/03/2025

Paul Smith of Leiden University presenting the first copy of his new book, Animals in Eden, to Martine Gosselink, Director of the Mauritshuis.

https://brill.com/display/title/60951

13/02/2025

New: Leonardo da Vinci and Architecture.

Written by Sabine Frommel and Jean Guillaume with an additional chapter by Sara Taglialagamba, this lavishly illustrated book examines Leonardo’s architectural drawings of churches, ephemeral monuments, urban reconstruction, fortifications, palaces, villas, and painted architecture. Mostly ideal in nature, they are part of the architectural evolution of the late Quattrocento and early Cinquecento.

https://brill.com/display/title/64180

07/02/2025

Who were the powerful merchants behind Venice’s global trade network? How did they shape the city’s wealth and influence?

For the first time, "The Merchant of Venice" explores the role of the late medieval merchant nobility in international trade, stretching from China and Asia to Flanders and England. These traders were not only merchants but also shipowners, sailors, and bankers, mastering advanced banking techniques and dealing in goods like spices, silk, porcelain, and metals. Their wealth transformed Venice into a dazzling city of art and innovation—yet their golden era was already nearing its decline.

Find out more 👉: https://brill.com/display/title/70782

04/02/2025

Discover Japanese art through a transcultural lens! 🌏🎨

"Japanese Art - Transcultural Perspectives" explores the dynamic exchanges of aesthetics, ideas, and technologies across cultural, temporal, and spatial boundaries.
By focusing on connectivity, networks, and transformation, it challenges conventional categories like 'center vs. periphery' and 'high vs. low,' offering a fresh perspective on the evolving narrative of Japanese art history.

Find out more on our website: 👉 https://brill.ws/40C0KzK
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22/01/2025

Wallpaper in the canteen of the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society. Can you spot the Brill books?