CAA News Today

John Hawley visits Van Dyck: The Anatomy of Portraiture at the Frick Collection. The “more than one hundred paintings, drawings, and prints” by Anthony van Dyke and his contemporaries look “exclusively at portraiture, with special attention given to the way drawings (which account for nearly half the exhibited works) highlight Van Dyke’s inimitable process as a portraitist.” Read the full review at caa.reviews.

Stephen J. Lucey reads The Apse Mosaic in Early Medieval Rome: Time, Network, and Repetition by Erik Thunø. Presenting “an alternative ‘non-diachronic’ art-historical interpretation of the Roman apse decorations from the sixth through ninth centuries,” the author “promotes the continuity of imagery as a ‘synchronic’ manifestation, which reflects a timeless ecclesiological essence.” Read the full review at caa.reviews.

Jennifer Nelson reviews Visual Acuity and the Arts of Communication in Early Modern Germany, edited by Jeffrey Chipps Smith. The essays “consider German visual culture from the late fifteenth to early eighteenth centuries by means of healthy reliance on present-day creativity and hermeneutic skill” and put “productive pressure on its period’s blind spots.” Read the full review at caa.reviews.

Amy F. Ogata discusses Marta Gutman’s A City for Children: Women, Architecture, and the Charitable Landscapes of Oakland, 1850–1950. The author “explores the long tradition of benevolent concern for the poorest children in the rapidly urbanizing context of Oakland, California,” and argues that the structures “reveal a complex history of adaptive reuse against the drama of class and racial politics.” Read the full review at caa.reviews.

caa.reviews publishes over 150 reviews each year. Founded in 1998, the site publishes timely scholarly and critical reviews of studies and projects in all areas and periods of art history, visual studies, and the fine arts, providing peer review for the disciplines served by the College Art Association. Publications and projects reviewed include books, articles, exhibitions, conferences, digital scholarship, and other works as appropriate. Read more reviews at caa.reviews.