2003/09/01 by Stephen Kite · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics #Visual Culture and Art Theory #Italian Fascism and Post-war Society #Orientalism #Historiography #Inscribed figure #Orient #The Renaissance #Art history #Art #Classics #History #Literature #Archaeology
paper · doi:10.1111/j.0141-6790.2003.02604002.x
openalex publication_date 2003/09/01 · openalex created_date 2021/07/05 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The ‘South Opposed to East and North’ of this paper's title comes from the third section of Adrian Stokes's book The Quattro Cento of 1932 – subtitled A Different Conception of the Italian Renaissance , and the founding work of his aesthetic. The Quattro Cento can be viewed as a response to the need expressed by Strzygowski in his Origin of Christian Church Art of 1923 ‘for a work dealing with the penetration of the South by the North of Europe and the subsequent rise of the so‐called Renaissance’; a North, in Strzygowski's view, already permeated by influences from the East. Within the contested terrain inscribed in the term, this paper isolates three key ‘Orients’ crucial to Stokes's Quattro Cento aesthetic: the experiential Orient of his Conrad‐inspired voyage to the East; the Orient of the British Museum; and that of the Orientalist texts – primarily the now‐marginalized Josef Strzygowski. As a study in the historiography of Orientalism, the essay examines how Adrian Stokes inflected his experience and readings of these Orients to re‐evaluate European – specifically Italian Renaissance – culture.