The Art Bulletin

Changes in Buddhist imagery in the late fifth and early sixth centuries of the Northern Wei dynasty (386-534) have been explained in terms of stylistic evolution or the passive absorption of Chinese influence. However, the abruptness and far-reaching nature of the changes suggest that they were actively implemented. About this time the Northern Wei court initiated a program of extensive reforms, including the creation of court ritual and construction of a new imperial capital, which provide a framework for examining relations between political ideology, cultural identity, the construction of historical continuity, and imagery in the late Northern Wei.

In medieval Spain, Hebrew illuminated manuscripts gave expression to two distinct artistic languages. Bibles used an aniconic, primarily ornamental idiom closely linked to the Islamic arts of Spain, while Passover Haggadot used a richly narrative mode, including figurative images, derived from the Gothic stylistic tradition. Examination of this phenomenon reveals its roots in divisions among Spanish Jews socially, between Sephardim and Ashkenazim, upper classes and middle classes, and culturally, between rationalists and traditionalists, those who identified with Islamic culture and those tied to Christian Europe.

According to Vasari, a famous courtesan commissioned the decorations for a chapel in SS. Trinità dei Monti, Rome, consisting of an altarpiece and frescoes by Giulio Romano and Gianfrancesco Penni illustrating scenes from the life and legend of Mary Magdalen. This essay reconstructs the project, which was dismantled in the nineteenth century, and examines the status of courtesans in Rome at the time. Mary Magdalenís role as a penitent prostitute is also explored and the argument made that the chapelís decorations express the conservative position in the "Quarrel of the Magdalens," when the Magdalenís identification as a prostitute was challenged.

Pontormoís pictorial cycle in the Capponi Chapel is among the best-known works of Renaissance painting, yet its meaning remains incomplete unless we view it in relation to another, little-studied work commissioned for the space at the same time: the stained-glass window depicting scenes from Christís Passion by Guillaume de Marcillat. Pontormoís Annunciation reveals his subtle and unexpected response to the stained-glass panel; apparently for the first time, the physical light passing through Marcillatís glass functions as a surrogate for the painted rays of light that traditionally symbolized the Holy Spiritís descent in earlier painted Annunciations.

Chen Hongshouís Yaji (Elegant Gathering) seems to portray a celebratory assembly of historical men. Yet it defies generic expectations. Chen questions the possibility of celebration during times of war. Presenting the assembly as an imaginary event, he introduces a story that throws into doubt the ability of the fictive actors to perceive the source of their salvation in a vision of the bodhisattva Guanyin. Working between fiction and history, between the visible and the invisible, Chen engages the viewer in contemporary debates about the nature of seeing and the efficacy of Buddhist practices.

Art historians and American Studies scholars have interpreted Coleís River in the Catskills (1843)óa landscape view that includes a trainóas a pastoral. This article maintains that Cole intended River in the Catskills as an antipastoralóas a deliberate attack on the conventions of pastoral landscape painting and consequently on a pervasive, if often contested, ideology that lauded improvement and material progress. Through an examination of historical and visual evidence and an analysis of the workís landscape painting convention, the article aims to recover meanings the painting may have held for the artist and for some of his contemporaries.