The Chamber of Curiosity

The Chamber of Curiosity PDF

Author: Robert Klanten

Publisher: Die Gestalten Verlag-DGV

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9783899555172

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The most fascinating apartments have always been those that reflect the essence of their interesting occupants. These apartments function as showcases for individual character, as chambers of curiosities reflecting unconventional life patterns. The apartment as dandy, as it were. Apartments like these contain a conglomeration of objects and features that underscore the personalities of their occupants. Modern classics meet personal acquisitions and unconventional items with their own backstory. In these out-of-the-ordinary rooms, uniformity is avoided and the historical consorts with the futuristic. Anything goes: muted colors are set against geometric patterns, antiques against ultra-modern lights, an industrial lamp hovers over an oriental carpet, dark wood paneling offsets a Carl Auböck design, and paisley is a backdrop to onyx. The list of contrasts goes on. Like the living spaces of modernist designers and architects, these collage-like interiors are not dull, utilitarian residential units but true chambers of curiosities. The acquisition of rare, weird, and often exotic articles has less to do with money spent and more to do with the fantasy and life path of its occupant and creator.

Art and Curiosity Cabinets of the Late Renaissance

Art and Curiosity Cabinets of the Late Renaissance PDF

Author: Julius von Schlosser

Publisher: Getty Research Institute

Published: 2021-01-19

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 160606679X

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For the first time, the pioneering book that launched the study of art and curiosity cabinets is available in English. Julius von Schlosser’s Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spätrenaissance (Art and Curiosity Cabinets of the Late Renaissance) is a seminal work in the history of art and collecting. Originally published in German in 1908, it was the first study to interpret sixteenth- and seventeenth-century cabinets of wonder as precursors to the modern museum, situating them within a history of collecting going back to Greco-Roman antiquity. In its comparative approach and broad geographical scope, Schlosser’s book introduced an interdisciplinary and global perspective to the study of art and material culture, laying the foundation for museum studies and the history of collections. Schlosser was an Austrian professor, curator, museum director, and leading figure of the Vienna School of art history whose work has not achieved the prominence of his contemporaries until now. This eloquent and informed translation is preceded by Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann’s substantial introduction. Tracing Schlosser’s biography and intellectual formation in Vienna at the turn of the twentieth century, it contextualizes his work among that of his contemporaries, offering a wealth of insights along the way.

The Age of Curiosity

The Age of Curiosity PDF

Author: Simone Broders

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2021-05-10

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 3110722208

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Challenging the ‘success story’ of curiosity from original sin to intellectual virtue, this study uses an innovative methodological approach to the history of ideas as a non-teleological neural network based on current research in information technology and neurophysiology. The network offers a dynamic alternative to the ‘development’ of curiosity within the progress-oriented mythology of the Enlightenment, emphasizing the oscillation and interaction of ideas within the processes of their construction, as well as exposing the power relations behind them. The text corpus focuses on enactments of curiosity in English literature of the 'Long' Eighteenth Century (c. 1680-1818), such as transgression of boundaries, breach of taboo, gendered curiosity, sensationalism, or academic endeavour, bringing together a variety of examples from all major genres. The Age of Curiosity contributes to current debates on a post-Foucauldian renewal of Lovejoy’s history of ideas in Enlightenment studies, exploring both curiosity as an indispensable trait for the search of answers to the fundamental yet unresolved questions of ‘identity’ or ‘truth’, and its potential as cura, the care for others and the world.

The Cabinet of Curiosities

The Cabinet of Curiosities PDF

Author: Douglas Preston

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Published: 2002-07-01

Total Pages: 480

ISBN-13: 9780759527713

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In one of NPR's 100 Best Thrillers Ever, FBI agent Pendergast discovers thirty-six murdered bodies in a New York City charnel house . . . and now, more than a century later, a killer strikes again. In an ancient tunnel underneath New York City a charnel house is discovered. Inside are thirty-six bodies--all murdered and mutilated more than a century ago. While FBI agent Pendergast investigates the old crimes, identical killings start to terrorize the city. The nightmare has begun. Again.

A Natural Curiosity

A Natural Curiosity PDF

Author: Margaret Drabble

Publisher: HMH

Published: 2013-10-01

Total Pages: 135

ISBN-13: 0544286391

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An “engrossing” novel following three women as they confront the darkness and danger of their world, by the author of The Radiant Way (People). Sweeping from smart London townhouses to a rundown embassy in the Middle East, from the splendors of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris to drowsy afternoons in the hills of sunny Italy, this novel tells the intertwined stories of three Cambridge-educated women living in Margaret Thatcher’s England. Whether it is a conscientious social worker’s quest to befriend a convicted killer; an affair with a stranger after a husband’s suicide; or an attempt to rescue a friend who’s been kidnapped by terrorists, this is a novel rich with dramatic events and deeply intriguing characters who find the courage to persevere through trying times, in the hopes of finding some sort of justice and truth. “[Drabble] invites us to see beyond the filth and horror of modern life to the world of possibilities in our own lives, where we also have the power to write our own endings.” —Winnipeg Free Press “The diverse plotlines develop amidst an abundance of social detail about 1980s Britain, providing a rich and fascinating texture. A winner.” —Library Journal

André Gide and Curiosity

André Gide and Curiosity PDF

Author: Victoria Reid

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2009-01-01

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 9042027274

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This comprehensive exploration of curiosity in the fiction and life-writing of André Gide (1869–1951) is an important modernist contribution to the field of curiosity in literature and cultural studies more broadly. Curiosity was a credo for Gide. By observing the world and then manifesting in writing these observations, he stimulates the curiosity of readers, conceived as virtual conduits of a curiosity once his own. Using a thematic structure of sexual, scientific and writerly curiosity, this volume identifies processes of curiosity in the life-writing (including the travel-writing) which illuminate processes in the fiction, and vice versa. Theories of fetishism, gender and sexuality are applied to Gide’s corpus to illustrate his championing of a masculine curiosity of enlightenment and adventure over a feminised ‘curiosité-défaillance’ of disobedience and harm, and to explore objects eliciting his incuriosity. Gide’s creativity is nourished by his curiosity, as close readings of his work informed by Melanie Klein’s psychoanalytic writing on epistemophilia reveal. Curiosity is a rewarding, non-reductionist perspective from which the exceptional variety of Gide’s subject matter, style and genre can be more coherently understood. Research draws principally on the six Pléiade volumes of Gide’s œuvre, published 1996–2009.

The Old Curiosity Shop By Charles Dickens

The Old Curiosity Shop By Charles Dickens PDF

Author: Charles Dickens

Publisher: BEYOND BOOKS HUB

Published: 2021-01-01

Total Pages: 619

ISBN-13:

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Step into a world of mystery and intrigue with The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens. This captivating novel follows the life of Nell Trent and her grandfather, as they navigate through adversity in the underbelly of Victorian London. The Old Curiosity Shop masterfully combines elements of drama, adventure, and romance, underlined with Dickens' unique style and social commentary. This novel takes readers on an emotional rollercoaster, making it a compelling read from start to finish. Experience the powerful storytelling of Dickens with The Old Curiosity Shop. Order your copy today and delve into this literary masterpiece.