Caroline Campbell

A dazzling new history of the world and a popular introduction to art history by a renowned expert

An exploration of a crucial turning point in Italian art, the early 1300s in the city of Siena “This is a book to be savored and treasured, much like the objects it celebrates.”—Ann Landi, Wall Street Journal In the early 1300s, the city of Siena gave rise to an extraordinary period of creativity and innovation. Painters, sculptors, and goldsmiths produced remarkable works whose impact was felt far beyond the city’s walls. From vast altarpieces to portable objects for private devotion, the art emanating from Siena left an enduring legacy. This book explores a crucial turning point in Italian art when the prestige of painting reached new heights. Siena became the centre of a rich exchange of ideas, as painters took inspiration from marble and ivory sculptures, intricate metalwork, and precious imported silks to enhance the power of their work. Travelling beyond their native city, Sienese artists made their mark across Italy and into northern Europe. Beautifully illustrated and featuring important new scholarship, chapters explore masterpieces by four of Siena’s most illustrious painters—Duccio, Simone Martini, and Ambrogio and Pietro Lorenzetti—alongside objects in other media and from other countries and cultures, encouraging fresh perspectives and dialogues between these groundbreaking works. Published by National Gallery Global/Distributed by Yale University Press Exhibition Schedule: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (13 October 2024–26 January 2025) The National Gallery, London (8 March–22 June 2025)

An epic work of art history that will transform our understanding of the world by unlocking the human stories behind millennia of art. Taking readers from ancient Babylon to contemporary Pyongyang, the eminent curator Caroline Campbell explains art's power to illuminate our lives--and inspires us to benefit from its transformative and regenerative power. Unlike the majority of contemporary art history, this book is about much more than the cult of artists' personalities. Instead, each chapter is structured around a city at a particularly vibrant moment in its history, describing what propelled its creativity and innovation. The emotions and societies she evokes are highly recognizable, revealing how great art resonates powerfully by transcending the boundaries of time.

A dazzling new history of the world and a popular introduction to art history by a renowned expert

Released is a compilation of encouraging, thought provoking and inspiring poetry, which speak to the hearts and minds of those in search of a deeper spiritual journey. Through the catalyst of poetic rhythms, the intention is to touch your emotions, revitalise your soul and awaken your senses to the spiritual realm. Readers need not have a religious background to be affected by the transformational words in the body of this text. Each poetic segment evokes the journey of Author Caroline Campbell, she is an avid poet, who through her own personal struggles rises above the waves of, to triumph in her calling as a spoken word artist and writer. Her dedication to empower and reassure others in their quest for hope in an ever changing world is remarkable. Your mental freedom, emotional wellbeing and spiritual health awaits you.

In the inter war era, the rise of the largest political movement in modern French history, the powerful Croix de Feu (1927- 1936), and its successor, the Parti Social Français, or PSF (1936- 1945), led to a sharp rightward turn in France's political culture. Political Belief in France, 1927- 1945 traces the central role of women in this shift, arguing that they transformed the Croix de Feu/PSF from a paramilitary league for veterans into a social reform movement that sought to remake the politics, society, and culture of the French Republic.Following the creation of a Women's Section in 1934, the women of the Croix de Feu/PSF developed a wide array of social programs, including welfare services, youth development, and health-care initiatives. At a time of economic depression and high unemployment, these popular programs tempered the organization's fearsome reputation as a violent paramilitary group. While the efforts of the Women's Section had the veneer of moderation, they accentuated the long-standing conservative image of France as a deeply Christian society and sought to assimilate people of different ethnoreligious backgrounds into the dominant national community. Croix de Feu/PSF women promoted their socialagenda as a religious and patriotic duty, a reflection of the individual's responsibility to make personal sacrifices on behalf of their vision for France's Christian civilization.The Croix de Feu/PSF's ethnoreligious nationalism circulated throughout the French imperial nation-state, making the movement the premier defender of an empire at the height of its power. But women in North African branches faced substantial marginalization, and the movement remained dangerously sectarian in the Maghreb, driving indigenous activists from reformism to anticolonialism.The Croix de Feu/PSF thus set the stage for both the authoritarian, anti-Semitic Vichy regime and the decolonization that followed the war. The first book on women of the French far right in the age of fascism, Political Belief in France, 1927- 1945 contributes to the fields of French history, gender studies, the history of fascism, and the history of empire.

Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680) was Charles II’s Principal Painter and the outstanding artistic figure of Restoration England. When Lely arrived in England in the early 1640s his ambition was to be a painter of narrative scenes and not to work as a portraitist. However, the ‘subject pictures’ did not find favor with many English patrons and he produced less than thirty. As Lely’s friend Richard Lovelace explained, all they wanted was “their own dull counterfeits” or portraits of their mistresses. Thus, Lely was obliged to turn to portraiture to make a living. Yet, his poetic pictures of figures in idyllic landscapes are among the most beautiful paintings made in 17th-century England and this catalog will be the first in-depth look at this important chapter of this major painter’s career. Lely was born in Westphalia and received his artistic training in Haarlem with Frans Pietersz. De Grebber. He came to England around 1643. Few painters had stayed in London following the move of the Royal Court to Oxford, and Lely was therefore free to establish his reputation in the city. By 1650 he had settled at a house on Covent Garden Plaza (a five-minute walk from Somerset House) where he remained for the rest of his life. His major patrons were the ‘Puritan Earls’, a group of cultivated noblemen including the Duke of Northumberland and the Earls of Pembroke and Salisbury, as well as the circle surrounding the Countess of Dysart at Ham House. Lely never met Van Dyck (who had died in London in 1641), but he had the opportunity to study his paintings and those of the great Venetian 16th-century artists Giorgione and Titian in the houses of these wealthy aristocratic patrons. He began to buy these works himself and by the end of his life had amassed one of Europe’s richest collections of 16th- and 17th-century Italian paintings and drawings. It was probably in response to the pictures of Van Dyck and the Venetian Renaissance that he made his most ambitious works, including The Concert (The Courtauld Gallery) and Nymphs by a Fountain (Dulwich Picture Gallery, London). This group of enigmatic paintings are massive in scale and united by strong lighting, idealized landscape settings and a sense of theatricality and sensuality. Unlike many painters, Lely did not rely on classical mythology, but was able to create his own, highly personal dramas. For instance, it is likely that the man playing the viola da gamba in the center of The Concert is the painter himself. The exhibition Peter Lely: A Lyrical Vision at The Courtauld Gallery, London, is on view from 11 October 2012 to 13 January 2013.