Collecting, Self-Fashioning, and Community

Chapter 2 is a close reading of two resident anthologizers, a religious scholar and a painter, and considers the subjects of their collected words and images to show how these practices illuminate their encounter and experience of the city. The anthology of Shi’a cleric Aqa Husayn Khwansari (d. 1687) reveals shared texts that connected him with Isfahan’s literary community. His curatorial choices allow us to hear tensions and ambivalences that nuance this religious scholar’s public face. A reconstruction of the painter Muhammad Qasim’s (d. 1660) dispersed portfolio assembles a patchwork of his life and shows the range of his clients’ commissioned works. Muhammad Qasim created a collage of city life in Isfahan that reveals what the verbal archive conceals. The practices according to which these two migrants to the capital fashioned their urban selves guide my reading of their authorial voices and of their writing of Isfahan’s habitus.

Royal Saints, Artistic Patronage, and Self-representation among Hungarian Noblemen

During the 1401–1403 political crisis in the Kingdom of Hungary, the magnates who were hostile to the ruling King Sigismund of Luxemburg and supported instead the Angevin King Ladislas of Naples deployed a wide range of propaganda tools for proving the legitimacy of their political cause. In a previous study published in this journal (Vestnik of SPbSU. History, 2021, vol. 66, issue 1, рp. 179–192), I have focused on the Hungarian noblemen’s anti-royal propaganda through the utilizing of political and spiritual symbols (i. e., the Holy Crown of Hungary and the cult, relics, and visual representations of St. Ladislas), symbolic actions (coronations and oath-swearing on holy relics), and heraldic self-representation (the Árpádian double cross). The present study approaches the same topic of anti-royal propaganda in the troubled political context of the early 15th century, but from the perspective of the elites’ self-representation strategies via the cult of Hungarian royal saints, artistic patronage, and heraldic self-representation. The two leaders of the anti-royal movement, Archbishop of Esztergom John Kanizsai and Palatine of Hungary Detre Bebek, repeatedly commissioned works of art (i.e., seals, stained-glass windows, and wall paintings) which featured prominently the images of the three Holy Kings of Hungary (Sts Stephen, Emeric, and Ladislas) or displayed the realm’s coat of arms (the Árpádian two-barred cross). The reliance of John Kanizsai and Detre Bebek on the cults and images of the patron saints of the country blended harmoniously the commissioners’ personal piety with their political ambitions. In the context of the early-15th century political crisis, the appropriation of the ideal figures of the sancti reges Hungariae became the driving force behind the Hungarian noblemen’s political cause.

Commissioned educational and scientific works as a freelance activity: socio-economic aspects

Nowadays, a large segment of shadow economy is related to educational and scientific works to order. It is characterized by significant demand. Special types of social and economic entities, their practices and interactions are formed in the structure of this market. However, meaningful characteristics of such employment are virtually unexplored. It can be noted that the place of this employment in the general context of freelance is not sufficiently studied. Its professional structure, its specifics and financial and economic characteristics, as well as social values and attitudes of performers of commissioned works, are not sufficiently studied. This paper is aimed at filling these gaps. The purpose of the paper is a socio-economic analysis of employment in preparing commissioned educational and scientific works. The results of the author’s sociological study (an expert survey of work performers, N = 48), as well as statistical and secondary sociological data are given. Social and economic parameters of preparing commissioned educational and scientific works are considered. An analysis of economic characteristics of commissioned educational and scientific works was carried out; a typology of motivations of this employment is given. The author concludes that preparation of commissioned works has social and economic attractiveness for performers in the general context of informal employment. Mechanisms for professionalization and continuation of this activity are being formed, which has an impact on market and educational institutions.

Dalla formazione in scenografia alla Rai. Giosetta Fioroni costumista e Pino Pascali scenografo per la nascente televisione italiana

Giosetta Fioroni and Pino Pascali have worked in different years for the nascent national television. Fioroni was engaged as a costume designer between 1955 and 1957; while Pascali as set designer between 1963-1967. For both – educated in scenography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome – these commissioned works precede their debut as research artists. The programs examined, Gli interessi creati and Biblioteca di Studio Uno, represent case studies of Fioroni and Pascali's way of working with the scenic and then with the television language. This contribution intends to examine the works commissioned by Rai to Giosetta Fioroni and Pino Pascali, highlighting how these episodes are exemplary to understand the impact of the academic training from the intermediate stage of their artistic career, up to the synthesis made in the mature works of the two artists.

Beaumarchais et le théâtre politique de Louis XVI : un nouveau « Secret du roi »

Pierre Caron de Beaumarchais is well-known as a playwright and as a spy of Louis XVI. I argue here that both activities were closely associated and that the king ordered him to write literary works in order to defend his policies. I defend the hypothesis that the libretto of Thomas d’Hèles’ opera L’Amant jaloux is one of the commissioned works and that Beaumarchais hides under the pseudonym Thomas d’Hèles.

Between the Black Box and the White Cube

Chapter 5 looks at Pedro Costa’s commissioned works by discussing numerous video installations created and displayed within the international art gallery circuit. The chapter contextualizes the approximation of the art gallery to cinema, a medium which increasingly overlaps aesthetic and production processes with contemporary artistic practices. As this chapter argues, the analysis of Costa’s video installations offers a further context to the intertwinement between aesthetics, production and consumption observed elsewhere in his filmic output. These works for the ‘white cube’ rely on aesthetic, authorial and production characteristics that bond them to those exclusively produced for the ‘black box’. This chapter provides comparisons between these works and short films directed by Pedro Costa between 2007 and 2012, such as The Rabbit Hunters, Tarrafal (also produced in 2007), O Nosso Homem (Our Man, 2010) and Lamento da Vida Jovem (Sweet Exorcism, 2012).

The Soviet Pavilion at the 1937 Paris Exposition: Financial Aspect and Organizational Problems

This article focuses on the financial aspect and certain problems in the preparation of the Soviet Pavilion for the 1937 International Exposition in Paris. Following up a short introduction that gives a contextual overview, the essay discusses how various plans, guidelines and competitions affected the décor of the Pavilion’s interior and how the items of the collection were selected. Details such as the deadlines imposed on the artists help to understand the importance of the human factor in the event of this scale. The article also explores financing of the Soviet Pavilion at the Exhibition related to the economic situation of the time and political objectives. The analysis of the closing balance sheet reveals important problems in the Soviet management. The article discusses the prices of the most expensive commissioned works as well as their fate after the Exhibition. A comparative study of the expenses of other participating countries, on the one hand, and in relation to the Soviet standards of living on the other hand, sheds light on the scale of the granted budget. Finally, I discuss the attitude of Soviet officials to the income earned at the Exhibition because of its international importance. The cross-cutting theme of the article, which clarifies certain mechanisms in the decision-making and management, is the role of the chief leaders of the Soviet part of the Exhibition.

The Invention of Papal History

How was the history of post-classical Rome and of the Church written in the Catholic Reformation? Historical texts composed in Rome at this time have been considered secondary to the city’s significance for the history of art. The Invention of Papal History corrects this distorting emphasis and shows how history-writing became part of a comprehensive formation of the image and self-perception of the papacy. By presenting and fully contextualizing the path-breaking works of the Augustinian historian Onofrio Panvinio (1530–68), this book shows what type of historical research was possible in the late Renaissance and the Catholic Reformation. Historiography in this period by no means consisted entirely of commissioned works written for patrons; rather, a creative interplay existed between, on the one hand, the endeavours of authors to explore the past and, on the other hand, the constraints of patronage and ideology placed on them. This book sheds new light on the changing priorities, mentalities, and cultural standards that flourished in the transition from the Renaissance to the Catholic Reformation.

User-Generated Content’s Impact on the Sustainability of Open Educational Resources

Sustainability is a fundamental requirement to ensure long-term viability of open educational resource (OER) initiatives. To afford technology upgrades and author costs, most of the existing initiatives are heavily reliant on continued funding; limiting OER models to invest in commissioned works. User-generated resources come as a solution to this problem, although a fairly novel concept to the area of child literacy. Consequently, there is little evidence available in earlier literature on their use for education. With online platforms such as social media and gaming sites encouraging users to collaborate and create original content, user-generation is a potential instrument for circumventing costs and achieving rapid dissemination of works. However, it also presents a significant downside – questionable quality. This paper discusses the use of user-created OERs for literacy, exploring the quality and sustainability implications that arise from this creation method and the measures undertaken by an Indian organization to overcome the same.