Studiolo by Giorgio Agamben
A brief study of select Western art from Italy’s foremost philosopher.In Renaissance palaces, the studiolo was a small room to which the prince withdrew to meditate or read, surrounded by paintings he particularly loved. This book is a kind of studiolo for its author, Giorgio Agamben, as he turns his philosophical lens on the world of Western art.
Studiolo is a fascinating take on a selection of artworks created over millennia; some are easily identifiable, others rarer. Though they were produced over an arc of time stretching from 5000 BCE to the present, only now have they achieved their true legibility. Agamben contends that we must understand that the images bequeathed by the past are really addressed to us, here and now; otherwise, our historical awareness is broken. Notwithstanding the attention to detail and the critical precautions that characterize the author’s method—they provoke us with a force, even a violence, that we cannot escape. When we understand why Dostoevsky feared losing his faith before Holbein’s Body of the Dead Christ, when Chardin’s Still Life with Hare is suddenly revealed to our gaze as a crucifixion or Twombly’s sculpture shows that beauty must ultimately fall, the artwork is torn from its museological context and restored to its almost prehistoric emergence. These artworks are beautifully reproduced in color throughout Agamben’s short but significant addition to his scholarly oeuvre in English translation.
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Holderlins Madness
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Puzzles
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The Kingdom and the Garden
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The Body of Language
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The Human Voice
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Name and Image
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The Unrealizable
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Self-Portrait in the Studio
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As Cruel as Anyone Else
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The Unspeakable Girl
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Fear Reverence Terror
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Literary Genres and Their Origins
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Orphism and Tragedy
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On Impotence
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Within the Sweet Noise of Life
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The Still Arrow
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Blinding Polyphemus
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The Labour of Spirit
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The Twilight of Politics
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The Immemorial
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A Test of Powers
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Taste
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Nymphs
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The World Machine
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The World Saved by Kids
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Secret Germany
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Spartakus
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An Essay on Negation
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The Idea of World
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Primo Levi
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The Church and the Kingdom
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This Body That Inhabits Me
Giorgio Agamben is one of Italy’s foremost contemporary thinkers. He recently brought to a close his widely influential archaeology of Western politics, the nine-volume Homo Sacer series. Alberto Toscano teaches and researches at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Simon Fraser University, Vancouver.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781803093680 |
| ISBN 10 | 1803093684 |
| Title | Studiolo |
| Author | Giorgio Agamben |
| Series | The Italian List |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Seagull Books London Ltd |
| Year published | 2024-04-23 |
| Number of pages | 130 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |