A groundbreaking approach to the problem of realism in Tudor art
In Tudor and Jacobean England, visual art was often termed "lively."
This word was used to describe the full range of visual and material
culture--from portraits to funeral monuments, book illustrations to
tapestry. To a modern viewer, this claim seems perplexing: what could
"liveliness" have meant in a culture with seemingly little appreciation
for illusionistic naturalism? And in a period supposedly characterised
by fear of idolatry, how could "liveliness" have been a good thing?
In this wide-ranging and innovative book, Christina Faraday excavates a
uniquely Tudor model of vividness: one grounded in rhetorical techniques
for creating powerful mental images for audiences. By drawing parallels
with the dominant communicative framework of the day, Tudor Liveliness
sheds new light on a lost mode of Tudor art criticism and appreciation,
revealing how objects across a vast range of genres and contexts were
taking part in the same intellectual and aesthetic conversations. By
resurrecting a lost model for art theory, Faraday re-enlivens the vivid
visual and material culture of Tudor and Jacobean England, recovering
its original power to move, impress and delight.
Distributed for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art
