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This book explores the history and continuing relevance of melancholia as an amorphous but richly suggestive theme in literature, music, and visual culture, as well as philosophy and the history of ideas. Inspired by Albrecht Dürer's engraving Melencolia I (1514)-the first visual representation of artistic melancholy-this volume brings together contributions by scholars from a variety of disciplines. Topics include: Melencolia I and its reception; how melancholia inhabits landscapes, soundscapes, figures and objects; melancholia in medical and psychological contexts; how melancholia both enables and troubles artistic creation; and Sigmund Freud's essay "Mourning and Melancholia" (1917).
List of contents
Introduction: The Persistence of Melancholia
[Andrea Bubenik]
Part I: Resonances of Melencolia I (1514)
1. Temporal Turbulence: In Praise of Anachronism
[Mieke Bal]
2. Between the Angel and the Dog: Dürer's Melancholy Community
[Drew Daniel]
Part II: Objects of Melancholia
3. Musical Responses to Dürer's Melencolia I
[Denis Collins]
4. The Shape of Things to Come: The Melancholy of Dürer's Polyhedron
[Andrea Bubenik]
5. The Eyes, Brain and Heart of the Viewer: Love Melancholy & Renaissance Portraiture
[Laurinda Dixon]
Part III: Landscapes of Melancholia
6. The Melancholic Horizon in Australian Art
[Allison Holland]
7. Sebald's 'Under the Sign of Saturn' and English Hauntology
[Rex Butler]
Part IV: Politics and Morals of Melancholia
8. Melancholia's Mirror: Moral Conscience in Australian Art
[Sally Butler]
9. Against a Melancholic Art History: The Afterlife of Images
[Chari Larsson]
10. After the End: Melancholia and the Politics of Time
[Amelia Barikin]
Conclusion: Melancholia: Past, Present, Future?
[Michael Ann Holly]
About the author
Andrea Bubenik is Senior Lecturer in Art History at The University of Queensland, Australia.
Summary
This book explores the history and continuing relevance of melancholia as an amorphous but richly suggestive theme in literature, music, and visual culture, as well as philosophy and the history of ideas.
