Arts最新文献

{"title":"From Mythos to Metaphysics: Giorgio Vasari’s Ephesian Diana, Venus, and Minerva in the Context of Ficinian Neoplatonism","authors":"Liana De Girolami Cheney","doi":"10.3390/arts15090213","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/arts15090213","url":null,"abstract":"This essay examines the Italian Mannerist artist Giorgio Vasari’s mythological depictions of Minerva, Venus, and the Ephesian Diana as a coherent allegorical program rooted in Florentine Neoplatonism. Through detailed visual and textual analysis of The Forge of Vulcan (1564, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence), The Toilet of Venus (1558, Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart), and Diana of Ephesus (1548, Casa Vasari, Arezzo), it shows that Vasari shifted away from narrative myth toward philosophical emblematic abstraction. These figures symbolize Mind, Beauty, and Nature, aligning with the Renaissance Neoplatonic philosophy of Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) and his Ficinian hierarchy, in which the soul ascends from material diversity through aesthetic contemplation to rational unity. By integrating readings of Ficino’s writings with insights from Vasari’s 1568 Le Vite (Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori), this study situates Vasari within a Warburg-inspired iconological framework and proposes that the Mannerist style itself functions as a form of metaphysical rhetoric. Vasari’s reputation has long rested on two achievements: his architectural and pictorial contributions to the Medici court, and his authorship of Le Vite. His mythological imagery has seldom been examined as part of a sustained philosophical program. Rather than depicting specific mythological stories, Vasari condensed these goddesses into symbolic ideas. The resulting hierarchy—Nature (Diana), Beauty (Venus), and Reason (Minerva)—reflects the Ficinian ascent of the soul. In this way, Vasari engaged in a distinct sixteenth-century fusion between classical imagery and metaphysical meaning. Vasari’s Diana, Venus, and Minerva allude to a structured ascent from Nature through Beauty to Reason. Through Mannerist stylization and Renaissance Neoplatonic metaphysics, he transformed mythology into philosophical allegory. Vasari’s art visually enacts Ficino’s ascent (anados). The viewer encounters generative multiplicity, contemplative beauty, and sovereign intellect—a unique ordered ladder of being, depicted in paint.","PeriodicalId":30547,"journal":{"name":"Arts","volume":"349 1-2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149009857","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Structure of the Central Panel of Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights: A Functional Reconstruction of Compositional Hierarchy","authors":"Aleksandra Pelikhovska","doi":"10.3390/arts15090216","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/arts15090216","url":null,"abstract":"Although the central panel of The Garden of Earthly Delights is perceived as a coherent visual whole, it lacks an obvious compositional center and is commonly interpreted as a polycentric image. This study argues that its visual organization is nevertheless governed by a reconstructable functional hierarchy. To investigate this structure, the study develops a functional method based on the analysis of compositional operators and the viewer’s perceptual route. The method is first applied to selected fifteenth-century paintings and then used to examine the central panel of Bosch’s triptych. The analysis demonstrates that Bosch preserves the traditional principle of compositional hierarchy while transforming its spatial organization: instead of unfolding along the vertical axis, the hierarchy is reconfigured through pictorial depth. The study therefore offers a new explanation of the compositional coherence of the central panel. It also extends the concept of visual engineering by treating compositional hierarchy as both a mechanism of visual organization and an independent object of art-historical analysis.","PeriodicalId":30547,"journal":{"name":"Arts","volume":"6 1","pages":"216"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149124196","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Satyrs Behaving Badly: Watteau’s Human Animals","authors":"Sarah R. Cohen","doi":"10.3390/arts15090215","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/arts15090215","url":null,"abstract":"This essay examines and compares Watteau’s approach to crafting satyrs and the human males that resemble them both in body and, especially, in their impulsive, animalistic actions. The demi-gods known as satyrs were a familiar presence in European art and literature extending from classical antiquity; their close association with fertility and lewdness evidently stemmed directly from their half-goat, half-human corporality. Al-though as an artist specializing in pastoral scenes of fashionable and theatrical sociability, Watteau did not have many occasions to paint mythological subjects, satyrs occupy a notable place among his drawings. These include both studies after other artists and an unusual group of drawings from the nude male model. I compare Watteau’s treatment of the satyr with certain aggressive males in his fêtes galantes, arguing that these satyric characters destabilize the humanism of his gatherings. Watteau’s improvisatory approach to composition moreover fostered an unusually egalitarian treatment of human and nonhuman animals.","PeriodicalId":30547,"journal":{"name":"Arts","volume":"30 1","pages":"215"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149124195","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Neural Architecture of Aesthetic Cognition: A Predictive-Processing Essay in Support of the TransformativeArts Framework","authors":"Scott Thomas Carter","doi":"10.3390/arts15090212","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/arts15090212","url":null,"abstract":"The TransformativeArts Framework (TAF) holds that the neural systems recruited to make and perceive art are not peripheral modules but expressions of the core architecture of thought. This essay asks whether contemporary neuroscience supports that claim, and it identifies three observations that the predictive-processing literature on the arts has not yet made. Peer-reviewed neuroscience from 2019 to 2025 on music, visual art, narrative, and dance, together with recent work on manipulation, was read through the lens of predictive processing, with competing accounts presented alongside supporting ones. Across these domains, aesthetic experience recurrently engages the brain’s predictive machinery and the default mode network (DMN). Building on that convergence, the essay advances three observations: that a single cognitive process reads distinct artistic domains in a common way, which is what makes aesthetic cognition transferable; that this process can be corrupted from within a work, not only by external deception; and that the difference can be identified by comparing a communication against defined patterns of deception and of effective, good-faith exchange. The essay concludes that aesthetic cognition is a mode of thinking rather than a specialized add-on, and that its cultivation is a testable protective factor against manipulation.","PeriodicalId":30547,"journal":{"name":"Arts","volume":"51 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149009858","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From Resistance to Engagement: A Neuroscience-Informed ARTFUL Framework for Process-Based Arts Interventions","authors":"Kasia Głowicka","doi":"10.3390/arts15090214","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/arts15090214","url":null,"abstract":"Process-based arts interventions—engaging participants in active embodied creation rather than analysis of completed works—produce more substantive cognitive, emotional, and behavioural change than product-based methods, yet present a significant accessibility challenge: non-artists asked to engage in such practices often respond with resistance, discomfort, and self-doubt, particularly in higher education where embodied learning differs from assumptions about legitimate study formats. This article introduces ARTFUL—a six-stage framework informed by neuroscience research on physiological readiness for learning, cognitive scaffolding, and embodied cognition—which addresses this barrier through progressive pairing of cognitive understanding with embodied experience. The framework was developed iteratively in an exploratory qualitative case study format: earlier course editions employed a three-stage format and the resistance observed motivated the extension of the format. Qualitative data from 24 management students (pre-programme surveys, post-programme semi-structured interviews, creative diaries and reflective portfolios) were analysed thematically. Three self-reported domains of cognitive change emerged: enhanced attention and concentration, increased openness to novelty, and reduced cognitive rigidity. Students moved from initially dismissing embodied methods as inappropriate for higher education to actively integrating them into professional and academic contexts. These findings suggest that systematic scaffolding may support a self-reported shift from initial resistance towards perceived cognitive flexibility, offering a transferable approach for designing accessible process-based arts interventions for non-artist learners.","PeriodicalId":30547,"journal":{"name":"Arts","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149009880","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Creating the Claustrophobic World of The Crown (Netflix, 2016–2023) Through a Visual Concept of Containment","authors":"Jane Barnwell","doi":"10.3390/arts15090211","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/arts15090211","url":null,"abstract":"The Crown tells the story of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, showing the personal and political dramas behind the scenes. The show stitches together a portfolio of locations and set builds to create a claustrophobic sense of containment. In reality, Buckingham Palace is fragmented, whereas the design for the show creates a continuity of space that generates a world that becomes an enclosed system, trapping the royal family within. The production designer of the show, Martin Childs, says, ‘My sets look as much like the real thing as Claire Foy looks like the Queen. I always want my work not to be visible but to be inevitable so that the audience looks at it and accepts it without question. Part of that is keeping tied together several different locations.’ (Author interview, 2019). Using rigorous research, Childs attempts to ‘get to the truth that is other than the facts.’","PeriodicalId":30547,"journal":{"name":"Arts","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148993696","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Stylistic, Thematic, and Technical Metamorphoses of Comic Strips in the Republic of Moldova in the Years 2000–2025","authors":"Lucia Adascalița, Viorica Cazac, Nicoleta Vasiliev","doi":"10.3390/arts15090210","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/arts15090210","url":null,"abstract":"The study presents the experiences of emerging artists from the Republic of Moldova in the field of comic strips between 2000 and 2025. Comic strip creation has undergone various periods of development, as well as periods of stagnation. The evolution of current technologies, with their implications for the visual arts, alongside contemporary societal imperatives and challenges, is shaping a new attitude amongst young readers towards documentation, information and knowledge. Drawing on current global trends regarding the relevance of publications with sequential graphic content, the aim of this article is to map the new visual discourses of emerging comic strip creators in the Republic of Moldova, documenting their stylistic and thematic contributions, as well as the role of digital technologies in their creative process. The objectives focus on analysing the artistic development, visual language and messages of key figures such as Octavian Curoșu, Cristina Grati, Alex Buretz, Inna Sacali, Călin Enachi, Valentin Enachi and others. The methodology combines case studies with stylistic and semiotic analysis, examining the structure of the comics, their layout and the relationship between text and image. The results reveal significant diversity. Octavian Curoșu combines the sensitivity of traditional techniques with digital media, addressing historical and socio-cultural themes. The artist Alex Buretz uses caricature and the grotesque as tools for civic activism and social criticism. Comic strip artists Cristiana Grati and Inna Sacali explore the world of family life and human relationships, using an expressive digital style and colour palettes that are either evocative or decorative. Graphic designers Călin and Valentin Enachi bring a youthful and adventurous touch to the narrative images, with experimental and original page layouts. All the artists featured make full use of specialised software (Adobe Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, Procreate and others) and graphics tablets, modernising the creative process. The use of these tools has enabled the emerging artists to emulate traditional techniques, as well as create complex visual effects, optimising work on layers and facilitating publication on online platforms. Thus, through stylistic diversity and digital adaptation, these artists are strengthening the presence of comic strips within the cultural landscape, confirming a vibrant and modern revival of comic art in the Republic of Moldova.","PeriodicalId":30547,"journal":{"name":"Arts","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148993693","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Scythian Archaeology in Colonial and Postcolonial Narratives","authors":"Oksana Lifantii,Oleksandr Shelekhan","doi":"10.3390/arts15090209","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/arts15090209","url":null,"abstract":"Scythian Studies, or Scythology has a complex and discontinuous history as a branch of archaeology. In its modern form, it is a relatively young discipline. Rather than showing steady development, the field is marked by major interruptions, particularly under the Soviet regime. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Iron Curtain, Scythology entered Western academia more fully, enabling mutual access to literature, collections, and excavations across Eastern and Western Europe. However, by the 1980s, new conceptual challenges grew stronger than ever, particularly the division between narrow and broad definitions of “Scythian culture”. This article argues that the increasingly popular, broad usage of the term, especially in genetic, isotope-based, and popular-science contexts, is rooted in political frameworks. It further examines how colonial and neocolonial narratives have influenced and continue to shape scholarly interpretations, museum representations, and political discourse surrounding Scythian heritage.","PeriodicalId":30547,"journal":{"name":"Arts","volume":"28 1","pages":"209"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148934185","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"West Asian Art in the Murals of Zhang Shiqing’s Tomb: Cultural Selection and Visual Representation in the Context of Local Adaptation","authors":"Xinyu Wang,Zhijun Wang,Rigen Mo","doi":"10.3390/arts15090207","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/arts15090207","url":null,"abstract":"The Liao Dynasty culture among the northern nomadic peoples absorbed profound West Asian historical heritage and uniquely ingenious artistic essence to enrich its own diversity. These mural paintings of Liao tombs most concentratedly reflect this phenomenon. As a visual medium for cultural integration along the Steppe Silk Roads, their artistic expression profoundly reflects the Liao Dynasty’s process of absorbing West Asian art. This article examines the tomb of Zhang Shiqing 张世卿, a former Song subject, now an official of the Liao Dynasty. It employs image analysis alongside interdisciplinary theories from art history, geography, archaeology, and history, aiming to reveal the logic of localized adaptation of West Asian artistic elements—the zodiac signs (Greek: zōidiakos kyklos, “circle of animals”; Chinese: 黄道十二宫图) and the curved-neck pipa—within the murals. The article argues that multiple underlying factors within the Liao Dynasty’s political-cultural structure, Buddhist propagation, and functional demands drove both the zodiac signs and the curved-neck pipa to exhibit a pattern of knowledge-integration adaptation. This adaptation manifests as juxtaposition and fusion in visual composition, functional integration and recontextualization in spatial arrangement, achieving a creative transformation of West Asian artistic motifs. This process not only revitalized the ritual space of the murals but also represented the inevitable projection of dualistic systems within the cultural sphere of the Liao Dynasty.","PeriodicalId":30547,"journal":{"name":"Arts","volume":"59 1","pages":"207"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148934186","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The “Living Image”: Embodying Christian Identity, Devotion, and Sacred Place","authors":"Katharine D. Scherff","doi":"10.3390/arts15090206","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/arts15090206","url":null,"abstract":"Early modern engravings of the tattooed arms of pilgrims such as Ratger Stubbe and Otto Friedrich von der Gröben preserve rare visual evidence of a devotional tradition whose origins lie in medieval pilgrimage to Jerusalem. While these tattoos have often been interpreted as souvenirs, marks of travel, or signs of religious identity, this paper argues that they functioned as living devotional images whose efficacy depended upon their permanent inscription within the living body. Rather than merely representing Jerusalem, pilgrimage tattoos transformed the Christian body into a devotional medium through which sacred place remained materially and visually present long after the journey had ended. Drawing upon seventeenth-century pilgrimage imagery, travel accounts, and the tattoo traditions of the Razzouk family, this paper examines how pilgrimage tattoos materialized memory, sacred geography, and Christian identity. It examines the engraved arms of Ratger Stubbe and Otto Friedrich von der Gröben, whose tattoo programs reveal sophisticated visual narratives that merge sacred history with sacred geography. These images demonstrate that pilgrimage tattoos operated simultaneously as indexical traces of bodily inscription, iconographic representations of holy places, and symbolic affirmations of Christian devotion. Building upon theories of embodiment, materiality, and image studies, I propose the concept of the living devotional image to describe images inseparable from the bodies that bear them. By foregrounding early modern visual evidence, this paper demonstrates how pilgrimage tattoos collapse conventional distinctions between body and image, relic and representation, and memory and place. In doing so, it offers a new framework for understanding devotional imagery, embodiment, and sacred geography in both medieval and early modern visual culture.","PeriodicalId":30547,"journal":{"name":"Arts","volume":"25 1","pages":"206"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2026-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148934187","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}