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The art of the early republic abounds in representations of deception: the villains of Gothic novels deceive their victims with visual and acoustic tricks; the ordinary citizens of picaresque novels are hoodwinked by quacks and illiterate but shrewd adventurers; and innocent sentimental heroines fall for their seducers' eloquently voiced half-truths and lies. Yet, as Philipp Schweighauser points out in Beautiful Deceptions, deception happens not only within these novels but also through them. The fictions of Charles Brockden Brown, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Susanna Rowson, Hannah Webster Foster, Tabitha Gilman Tenney, and Royall Tyler invent worlds that do not exist. Similarly, Charles Willson Peale's and Raphaelle Peale's trompe l'oeil paintings trick spectators into mistaking them for the real thing, and Patience Wright's wax sculptures deceive (and disturb) viewers. Beautiful Deceptions examines how these and other artists of the era at times acknowledge art's dues to other social realms—religion, morality, politics—but at other times insist on artists' right to deceive their audiences, thus gesturing toward a more modern, autonomous notion of art that was only beginning to emerge in the eighteenth century. Building on Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten's definition of aesthetics as "the science of sensuous cognition" and the writings of early European aestheticians including Kant, Schiller, Hume, and Burke, Schweighauser supplements the dominant political readings of deception in early American studies with an aesthetic perspective. Schweighauser argues that deception in and through early American art constitutes a comment on eighteenth-century debates concerning the nature and function of art as much as it responds to shifts in social and political organization.
An explosive tale of art and myth, desire and betrayal, from New York Times best-selling author Jill Bialosky "Bialosky urgently captures the moment in an adult's life when reflection leads to regret, and a desire to recapture the promise of one's youth becomes a kind of desperation. A vulnerable and searching tale of art, myth, and mortality." —Oprah Daily Something terrible has happened and I don’t know what to do. An unnamed narrator’s life is unraveling. Her only child has left home, and her twenty-year marriage is strained. Anticipation about her soon-to-be-released book of poetry looms. She seeks answers to the paradoxes of love, desire, and parenthood among the Greek and Roman gods at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As she passes her days teaching at a boys’ prep school, spending her off-hours sequestered in the museum's austere galleries, she is haunted by memories of a yearlong friendship with a colleague, a fellow poet struggling with his craft. As secret betrayals and deceptions come to light and rage threatens to overwhelm her, the pantheon of gods assume remarkably vivid lives of their own, forcing her to choose between reality and myth in an effort to free herself from the patriarchal constraints of the past and embrace a new vision for her future. The Deceptions is a page-turning and seductively told exploration of female sexuality and ambition as well as a human drama that dares to test the stories we tell ourselves. It is also a brilliant investigation of a life caught between the dueling magnetic poles of privacy and its appropriation in art and literature. Celebrated poet, memoirist, and novelist Jill Bialosky has reached new and daring heights in her boldest work yet.
In Iron Age Ireland, Maeve, the fierce, willful youngest daughter of King Eochu of Connacht, is caught in a web of lies after rebelling to avoid fosterage with another highborn family and an arranged marriage.
Meet Sabrina and Stephanie--"identical twin sisters [who] exchange lives for better or worse"--Cover.
When Shelly Wareing's husband, Cole, vanishes into the night, leaving only a note to say that he will come back no matter how long it takes, Shelly is bewildered. What could be the reason for his sudden disappearance? Searching for clues, Shelly discovers a box containing Nazi medals, an SS ring and a photo of a radiantly beautiful woman signed for her husband. Determined to uncover the truth, she sets out to track down Laetitia de Witt, the woman pictured in the photograph. Meanwhile, halfway across the world, Cole is on his own mission for the truth - while his enemies, who believe him to be a traitor, are in close pursuit.
HOW WELL CAN A MOTHER EVER REALLY KNOW HER CHILD? Julian and Annie have only just announced their forthcoming marriage when Annie’s twelve-year-old son, Dan, fails to come home from school. Despite an extensive police investigation, the days turn into weeks and it is as if Dan has vanished into thin air. Over the next three years Annie refuses to give up hope that somewhere her son is alive and will one day return home. Julian, meanwhile, can’t help but yearn for Annie to put the past behind her and move on. Then, out of the blue, a call brings shocking news of Dan’s fate. And far from being over, it seems the mystery of his disappearance is only just beginning. In spare, searing prose, Deceptions addresses our simultaneous need for—and wariness of—human connection and the extremes that we are driven to by these competing impulses. Marking British literary star Rebecca Frayn’s arrival in the United States, this is fiction at its riveting best.
From an award-winning novelist, the story of the exotic wife of a Scottish aristocrat who is not what she seems, set against the backdrop of the cultured drawing rooms and emerging tabloid culture of late Victorian London.
In the exciting new novel in bestselling author Kelley Armstrong's compelling Cainsville series, Olivia realizes that she is at the heart of a tug-of-war between ancient forces—and that everyone around her risks becoming collateral damage. When Olivia's life exploded—after she found out she was not the only child of a privileged Chicago family, but of a notorious pair of serial killers—she found a refuge in the oddly secluded but welcoming town of Cainsville, Illinois. Working with Gabriel Walsh, a precociously successful criminal lawyer with links to the town, she managed to partially clear her parents' name in an investigation that also revealed darker forces at work in the town that had offered her a haven. Fleeing Cainsville after she is almost killed, Olivia finds herself not only the target of the Cainsville elders and of the Huntsmen, but also of her ex-fiancé, James, who stalks her and even tries to have her kidnapped. All this as her feelings for Ricky deepen, and confusingly her feelings for Gabriel too. Visions continue to haunt her: particularly a little blond girl in a green sundress who insists she has an important message for Olivia, and holds out in her palm a black stone and a white stone that swirl together to create a balance of light and dark. Death stalks them all, as Olivia desperately searches to understand whether ancient scripts are dictating the triangle that links her to Gabriel and Ricky, or whether she has the power to change the tragic outcome.
Rings of seahorses seem to rotate and butterflies seems to transform into warriors right on the page. Astonishing creations of visual trickery by masters of the art, such as Escher, Dali, and Archimbolo make this breathtaking collection the definitive book of optical illusions. Includes an illuminating Foreword by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hofstadter.
Catalogue of an exhibition held at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Oct. 13, 2002-Mar. 2, 2003.