Alessandra Russo, "A New Antiquity: Art and Humanity as Universal, 1400-1600" (Penn State UP, 2024)

Sep 26, 2024

In a fascinating discussion, Alessandra Russo, an art historian and professor at Columbia University, explores her new book, A New Antiquity. She challenges traditional views of 16th-century European art by highlighting how non-European artifacts radically shaped European art theory. Russo discusses the paradox of colonial admiration versus looting, and how global exchanges of terms and techniques redefined artistic concepts. Her insights promise to revolutionize our understanding of Renaissance art and the essence of humanity.

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INSIGHT

Non-European Art Shaped Renaissance Theory

Russo argues early modern European art theory was influenced by non-European artifacts arriving via Iberian colonization.
She shows archival sources theorized these objects, challenging the 'exoticism only' narrative.

INSIGHT

Antiquity Reimagined As Universal Excellence

'A New Antiquity' reframes antiquity as artistic excellence untethered from time or place.
Francisco de Holanda treats contemporary non-European works as 'ancient' because of their excellence.

INSIGHT

Art As Evidence Of Humanity

Sixteenth-century writers used artworks as evidence of humanity and social capacity.
Bartolomé de las Casas and others argued artistic subtlety proved non-enslavability.

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We tend to think of sixteenth-century European artistic theory as separate from the artworks displayed in the non-European sections of museums. In A New Antiquity: Art and Humanity as Universal, 1400–1600 (Penn State University Press, 2024) Dr. Alessandra Russo argues otherwise. Instead of considering the European experience of “New World” artefacts and materials through the lenses of “curiosity” and “exoticism,” Russo asks a different question: What impact have these works had on the way we currently think about—and theorise—the arts?

Centering her study on a vast corpus of early modern textual and visual sources, Dr. Russo contends that the subtlety and inventiveness of the myriad of American, Asian, and African creations that were pillaged, exchanged, and often eventually destroyed in the context of Iberian colonisation—including sculpture, painting, metalwork, mosaic, carving, architecture, and masonry—actually challenged and revolutionised sixteenth-century European definitions of what art is and what it means to be human. In this way, artefacts coming from outside Europe between 1400 and 1600 played a definitive role in what are considered distinctively European transformations: the redefinition of the frontier between the “mechanical” and the “liberal” arts and a new conception of the figure of the artist.

Original and convincing, A New Antiquity is a pathbreaking study that disrupts existing conceptions of Renaissance art and early modern humanity. It will be required reading for art historians specialising in the Renaissance,scholars of Iberian and Latin American cultures and global studies, and anyone interested in anthropology and aesthetics.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.

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