WAYS OF ARCHITECTURAL REVALUATION OF ARCHITECTURAL SUBSTANCE IN THE HISTORICAL ENVIRONMENT OF THE CITY

The multifaceted problem of the relationship between the old and the new in the structure of cities subject to reconstructive transformation covers not only the range of tasks for the integration of historically composed and new buildings, but also a number of ambiguous issues of architectural revaluation of historical architectural and urban planning substance. lost elements to improve the aesthetic value of the urban environment and further preserve its integrity. If the solution of issues of urban coherence of historical and new buildings is based on the variability of the respective location in the urban structure of urban formation, the ways of architectural revaluation are based on the principles of volumetric and tectonic perfection of historical substance. ensembles, often by means of finely tempered harmonization of old and new architectural solutions (Hereditary development of compositional and spatial features of the city center). European urbanism of the twentieth century. He also knows cases of architectural revaluation of large urban complexes, such as in the process of restoration after the military destruction of the historic areas of Warsaw and Gdansk, where the problem of restoring the architectural integrity of buildings was combined with issues of restoration, reconstruction, modernization and necessary rehabilitation. on the legitimacy of such revaluation measures, which were not based on the restoration of authentic historical heritage, but in fact on its reproduction "from the ground up", based not only on scientifically sound materials, but often on architectural conjecture, method of analogues, etc. The controversy over the architectural revaluation of historic buildings began in the late nineteenth century, when the issues of conservation and restoration in a set of reconstructive urban planning tasks began to require immediate resolution. Renowned British art critic John Ruskin, reacting sharply to the imperfections of restoration work that led to significant distortions and even distortions of valuable historical substance in various countries, said: «Reproduction from nothing of something that was once great and beautiful in architecture is as impossible as return to life…» (Рёскин 81–82).

Decadent Ecology in British Literature and Art, 1860–1910

Casting fresh light on late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British art, literature, ecological science and paganism, Decadent Ecology reveals the pervasive influence of decadence and paganism on modern understandings of nature and the environment, queer and feminist politics, national identities, and changing social hierarchies. Combining scholarship in the environmental humanities with aesthetic and literary theory, this interdisciplinary study digs into works by Simeon Solomon, Algernon Swinburne, Walter Pater, Robert Louis Stevenson, Vernon Lee, Michael Field, Arthur Machen and others to address trans-temporal, trans-species intimacy; the vagabondage of place; the erotics of decomposition; occult ecology; decadent feminism; and neo-paganism. Decadent Ecology reveals the mutually influential relationship of art and science during the formulation of modern ecological, environmental, evolutionary and trans-national discourses, while also highlighting the dissident dynamism of new and recuperative pagan spiritualities - primarily Celtic, Nordic-Germanic, Greco-Roman and Egyptian - in the framing of personal, social and national identities.

Enduring Victoria: Iconoclasm and Restoration at the British Embassy in Tehran

The Government Art Collection (GAC) shares British art, culture and creativity through displays in UK Government buildings worldwide. It is the most widely distributed collection of British art, displayed in 129 countries where it is seen by thousands of visitors each year, and makes an important contribution to UK cultural diplomacy. New acquisitions continually develop the diversity of representation within the collection to better reflect contemporary British society.The Collection holds a number of portraits of Queen Victoria that are displayed in UK diplomatic buildings in Moscow, Paris, Tehran, Tokyo, Tunis, Washington and New Delhi, amongst others.  Over two centuries, these portraits have silently witnessed Britain’s changing position in the world while recalling her former influence. The first part of this article will focus on George Hayter’s portrait of Queen Victoria, painted 1862-63, and displayed in the British Ambassador's residence in Tehran, Iran. This is one of many autograph copies of the artist’s original 1838-40 coronation portrait, currently on display at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. It features an unusual Persian inscription and was commissioned specifically for the new embassy building in Tehran, completed in 1875, shortly before Queen Victoria was entitled Empress of India, and has been displayed there ever since.The second part of the article will reflect on the display of art recently installed in the British Ambassador's Residence in Tehran, and the curatorial challenges this presented in a country with a long and troubled relationship with Britain. This new display was itself a consequence of an iconoclastic attack on Victoria’s image in 2011 when the embassy was stormed by Iranian protesters - the latest event in a turbulent history.At a time when the UK is having a profound national conversation about how it engages internationally, can Victoria’s image help to build cultural relations in diplomatic spaces or is it only a relic of an imperial past?

Extra-illustrations to Charles Robert Cockerell’s Ionian Antiquities and James Cavanah Murphy’s Arabian Antiquities of Spain in the collections of the Gennadius Library and the Yale Center for British Art

This article focuses on unpublished extra-illustrations relating to two architectural monographs, currently in the collections of the Gennadius Library (Athens, Greece) and the Yale Center for British Art (New Haven, CT, USA). The first section examines two unique copies of Ionian Antiquities (1769) by Richard Chandler, Nicholas Revett and William Pars, both grangerized by Charles Robert Cockerell (1788–1863); the second section considers a special copy of The Arabian Antiquities of Spain (1815) by James Cavanah Murphy (1760–1814). These enhanced volumes embody early nineteenth-century concepts of authorship and shed light on the working methodologies of their creators. In his personal copies, Cockerell noted differences in admeasurements of the monuments as recorded by Chandler and Revett for use in Neoclassical architectural practice, and brought to light new discoveries made during his Ionian Grand Tour. In Murphy’s own volume of The Arabian Antiquities of Spain, the supplementary sketches, drawings and additional illustrations enliven the plates, place them in context and inform the printing process.

BEYOND BRAZIL: REMEMBERING GUY BRETT THROUGH HIS OWN EYES / Além do Brasil: lembrando Guy Brett através de seus próprios olhos

The British art critic Guy Brett has become a standard reference in Brazil through his writing on and friendship with artists such as Sergio Camargo, Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica, Mira Schendel during the 1960s and later with Cildo Meireles, Antonio Manuel, Lygia Pape, Jac Leirner, Waltercio Caldas and so many others. While these artists have come, to a large extent, to define how contemporary art is understood nationally, Guy’s contribution helped weave their creative outputs within a larger art historical narrative, helping inscribe them, even if still only partially, within the hegemonic and institutional canons. Yet, it would be limiting to consider Guy’s relevance through this single, albeit important, perspective. This article, not so much an essay but a series of annotated quotes, seeks to shed light on Guy’s own intellectual trajectory, focusing on the particular way he came to articulate, through his writing and curation, the art that he was interested in. What actually interested him ranged from the singular subjective experience with the art object to its wider relation with the world. When referring to that which bridged such diverse approaches to art, Guy often invoked the idea of cosmic energies, field forces, sometimes in a literal sense such as in the case of electromagnetic force in the work of the Greek artist Takis, at other times more metaphorically. Such invocations whether referring to ancient cosmologies, millennial knowledges or scientific thought, never attempted to determine or impose his own perspective upon others or imply any sense of superiority of one type of art over another. In Guy’s own understanding, the universal seemed antithetical to the way it is usually prescribed within the history of modernism. Indeed, Guy never had a problem with modernism itself but with the narrow constraints with which it has been considered. His criticism was directed primarily towards how modernism has been historicised and instrumentalised within the institutional structures of art.Keywords: Guy Brett; Kinetic Art; Signals Gallery; Art Criticism; Decolonising. AbstractO crítico de arte britânico Guy Brett se tornou referência única no Brasil por meio de sua escrita e amizade com artistas como Sergio Camargo, Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica, Mira Schendel durante a década de 1960, e mais tarde com Cildo Meireles, Antonio Manuel, Lygia Pape, Jac Leirner, Waltercio Caldas, assim como tantos outros. Embora esses artistas tenham, em grande parte, definido o modo como a arte contemporânea é entendida em âmbito nacional, a contribuição de Guy ajudou a tecer suas produções dentro de uma narrativa histórica da arte mais ampla, colaborando para os inscrever, ainda que parcialmente, nos cânones hegemônicos e institucionais. Seria, no entanto, limitado considerar a relevância de Guy mediante essa única, embora importante, perspectiva. Este artigo, não é tanto um ensaio, mas uma série de citações em busca de lançar luz sobre a trajetória intelectual de Guy, focalizando a maneira particular como ele veio a articular, por meio de sua escrita e práticas curatoriais, a produção de arte pela qual estava interessado. O que realmente o interessou variou desde a experiência subjetiva singular com o objeto de arte até sua relação mais ampla com o mundo. Ao se referir ao seu interesse por assuntos tão diversificados no campo da arte, Guy frequentemente invocava a ideia de energias cósmicas, forças de campo, às vezes em um sentido literal, como no caso da força eletromagnética existente na obra do artista grego Takis, outras vezes de forma mais metafórica. Tais invocações, sejam cosmologias arcaicas, conhecimentos milenares ou pensamentos científicos, nunca tentaram determinar ou impor suas próprias perspectivas sobre os outros ou implicaram qualquer senso de superioridade de um tipo de arte sobre outro. Na própria compreensão de Guy, o universal parecia antitético à maneira como é normalmente prescrito dentro da história do modernismo. Na verdade, Guy nunca teve problema com o modernismo, mas com a forma limitada pela qual tem sido considerado. Sua crítica era dirigida principalmente ao modo como o modernismo tem sido historicizado e instrumentalizado dentro das estruturas institucionais da arte.Palavras-chave: Guy Brett; arte cinética; Signals Gallery; Magiciens de la Terre; decolonial.

Untranslatable: Gottfried Kinkel, Kulturgeschichte, and British Art Historiography

In 1934, Edgar Wind claimed there was no English equivalent for the word “kulturwissenschaftlich” and the method it denoted: it was untranslatable. Although German art history had been widely read in England since Victorian times, certain methods, as well as the discipline itself, were only hesitantly received. This article focuses on a decisive moment in this entangled history—an attempt to establish in Britain both art history as an academic discipline and a cultural-historical approach to the subject. The key figure is the dashing art historian Gottfried Kinkel, a close friend of Jacob Burckhardt (and archenemy of Karl Marx), who fled Germany after the 1848 revolution. In 1853, he gave the firstever university lecture in art history in England, the manuscripts of which were recently discovered. Kinkel’s case is a prime example of both a socio-historical approach to art history in Victorian times and an exile’s only partially successful attempt to transmit his methodology to a new audience.