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Controversial Monuments
Personifying the Continents between the 18th and 21st Centuries
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Controversial Monuments: Personifying the Continents between the 18th and 21st Centuries offers a sweeping exploration of the iconography of the Four Continents, tracing its evolution from origins in Antiquity through early modern religious and imperial frameworks to contemporary artistic reinterpretations. Through richly illustrated case studies spanning pulpits, frescoes, sculptures, maps, and world fair displays, the book reveals how these personifications perpetuated Eurocentric worldviews, racial hierarchies, and colonial ideologies across centuries. Featuring contributions from leading scholars, it unpacks the symbolic power and persistent influence of this imagery while also highlighting how contemporary artists are critically engaging with, subverting, and reshaping these historic visual traditions for the 21st century.
Contributors are: Louise Arizzoli, Renée Ater, Maryanne Cline Horowitz, Elisa Antonietta Daniele, Catherine Dossin, Charles Forsdick, Daniel Fulco, Maria P. Gindhart, Paul Kaplan, Hoyon Mephokee, Anne Pingeot, Marion Romberg, Wolfgang Schmale, and Chet Van Duzer.
Contributors are: Louise Arizzoli, Renée Ater, Maryanne Cline Horowitz, Elisa Antonietta Daniele, Catherine Dossin, Charles Forsdick, Daniel Fulco, Maria P. Gindhart, Paul Kaplan, Hoyon Mephokee, Anne Pingeot, Marion Romberg, Wolfgang Schmale, and Chet Van Duzer.
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Louise Arizzoli is the Agnes Mongan Curator of the Fototeca and Art Collection at I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. Previously, she served as an Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Mississippi, USA. Her past roles also include Curator of Western Art before 1800 at the Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University Bloomington, as well as Exhibition Coordinator and Archivist for the Archivio della Scuola Romana in Rome.
Maryanne Cline Horowitz is Professor Emerita of History, Occidental College. Her Seeds of Virtue and Knowledge was awarded the Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History. She serves on the Executive Board and Board of Editors of the Journal of the History of Ideas. Editor-in-Chief of the New Dictionary of the History of Ideas (6 volumes and on-line), and she designed and wrote the 80-page Readerâs Guide. She continues her scholarship as Associate of the UCLA CMRS Center for Early Global Studies.
Marion Romberg is a historian of early modern Europe, specializing in cultural history, visual culture, and the Habsburg Monarchy. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Vienna and is currently a research associate at the University of Bonn and editor of the Rheinische Vierteljahrsblätter. Romberg has contributed to several research projects, including "Empress and Empire: Ceremonial, Media, and Rule 1550 to 1740," "Continent Allegories in the Baroque Age," and "The Diaries and Tagzettel of Cardinal Ernst Adalbert von Harrach (1598â1667)."
Maryanne Cline Horowitz is Professor Emerita of History, Occidental College. Her Seeds of Virtue and Knowledge was awarded the Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History. She serves on the Executive Board and Board of Editors of the Journal of the History of Ideas. Editor-in-Chief of the New Dictionary of the History of Ideas (6 volumes and on-line), and she designed and wrote the 80-page Readerâs Guide. She continues her scholarship as Associate of the UCLA CMRS Center for Early Global Studies.
Marion Romberg is a historian of early modern Europe, specializing in cultural history, visual culture, and the Habsburg Monarchy. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Vienna and is currently a research associate at the University of Bonn and editor of the Rheinische Vierteljahrsblätter. Romberg has contributed to several research projects, including "Empress and Empire: Ceremonial, Media, and Rule 1550 to 1740," "Continent Allegories in the Baroque Age," and "The Diaries and Tagzettel of Cardinal Ernst Adalbert von Harrach (1598â1667)."
Contents
List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Introduction: Continents and the Visual Language of Empire: Fantasy, Stereotype, and Controversy
âLouise Arizzoli
Part 1 The Continents as Markers of Global Church and Empire
1 Jesuit Pulpits in the Lowlands: Preaching across the Globe of Continents
âMaryanne Cline Horowitz
2 Africa and Sheaves of Grain: Giambattista Tiepoloâs Allegories of the Continent
âElisa Antonietta Daniele
â3âEnvisioning the World in the Royal Palace of Madrid: Giovanni Battista Tiepoloâs Glory and Power of the Spanish Monarchy under Charles III
âDaniel Fulco
Part 2 An Era of Dramatic Change: Personifications of the Continents in the Age of Revolutions
4 An Era of Dramatic Change: Personifications of the Continents in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
âChet Van Duzer
5 LâAmérique Libérée and Other French Allegories of the United States
âCatherine Dossin
Part 3 Imperialism, Sculpted Continents and Nineteenth Century World Fairs
6 âExotic but Controversialâ Flair along the Viennese Ringstrasse: the Sculptures of the Four Continents at the Naturhistorisches Museum
âMarion Romberg
â7âScientism and Second-Empire Sculpture: Personifying and Contending with Blackness in Jean-Baptiste Carpeauxâs Fontaine des Quatre-Parties-du-Monde âHoyon Mephokee
â8âThe Six Continents at the 1878 Exposition Universelle: âa History of Tasteâ
âAnne Pingeot
9 Mapping Monumental Sculptured Continents in the Public Space: a Visual Archive
âLouise Arizzoli
Part 4 Continents and Race at the 1931 International Colonial Exhibition in Paris
10 La France des Cinq Parties du Monde: Representing Continents and Racial Types at the 1931 Exposition Coloniale Internationale in Paris
âMaria P. Gindhart
11 Between Permanency and Ephemerality: the Sculptural and Other Afterlives of the 1931 Exposition Coloniale Internationale
âCharles Forsdick
Part 5 Continent Personification in Twentieth Century United States: Race, Racism and Controversy
â12âRace, Representation, and Empire: the Four Continents for the U.S. Custom House in New York City
âRenée Ater
13 From Subject People to Subjugated Continents: Africa and America in Presidential Imagery from Washington to Theodore Roosevelt
âPaul H.D. Kaplan
Part 6 Conclusion: Contemporary Artists Revisit the Personifications of Continents
14 Kent Monkmanâs Four Continents (2012â2016)âa 21st-Century Answer to Giambattista Tiepoloâs Four Continents (1752/53) (with an Excursus on Maître Leherb (1981â1992)
âWolfgang Schmale
Index
List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Introduction: Continents and the Visual Language of Empire: Fantasy, Stereotype, and Controversy
âLouise Arizzoli
Part 1 The Continents as Markers of Global Church and Empire
1 Jesuit Pulpits in the Lowlands: Preaching across the Globe of Continents
âMaryanne Cline Horowitz
2 Africa and Sheaves of Grain: Giambattista Tiepoloâs Allegories of the Continent
âElisa Antonietta Daniele
â3âEnvisioning the World in the Royal Palace of Madrid: Giovanni Battista Tiepoloâs Glory and Power of the Spanish Monarchy under Charles III
âDaniel Fulco
Part 2 An Era of Dramatic Change: Personifications of the Continents in the Age of Revolutions
4 An Era of Dramatic Change: Personifications of the Continents in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
âChet Van Duzer
5 LâAmérique Libérée and Other French Allegories of the United States
âCatherine Dossin
Part 3 Imperialism, Sculpted Continents and Nineteenth Century World Fairs
6 âExotic but Controversialâ Flair along the Viennese Ringstrasse: the Sculptures of the Four Continents at the Naturhistorisches Museum
âMarion Romberg
â7âScientism and Second-Empire Sculpture: Personifying and Contending with Blackness in Jean-Baptiste Carpeauxâs Fontaine des Quatre-Parties-du-Monde âHoyon Mephokee
â8âThe Six Continents at the 1878 Exposition Universelle: âa History of Tasteâ
âAnne Pingeot
9 Mapping Monumental Sculptured Continents in the Public Space: a Visual Archive
âLouise Arizzoli
Part 4 Continents and Race at the 1931 International Colonial Exhibition in Paris
10 La France des Cinq Parties du Monde: Representing Continents and Racial Types at the 1931 Exposition Coloniale Internationale in Paris
âMaria P. Gindhart
11 Between Permanency and Ephemerality: the Sculptural and Other Afterlives of the 1931 Exposition Coloniale Internationale
âCharles Forsdick
Part 5 Continent Personification in Twentieth Century United States: Race, Racism and Controversy
â12âRace, Representation, and Empire: the Four Continents for the U.S. Custom House in New York City
âRenée Ater
13 From Subject People to Subjugated Continents: Africa and America in Presidential Imagery from Washington to Theodore Roosevelt
âPaul H.D. Kaplan
Part 6 Conclusion: Contemporary Artists Revisit the Personifications of Continents
14 Kent Monkmanâs Four Continents (2012â2016)âa 21st-Century Answer to Giambattista Tiepoloâs Four Continents (1752/53) (with an Excursus on Maître Leherb (1981â1992)
âWolfgang Schmale
Index
This book is of interest to academic institutions and university libraries; specialists in colonial, postcolonial, and global history; Postgraduate students in Art history, Cultural studies, Religious studies, Museum studies, Race and representation studies; and curators and museum professionals (Cultural Heritage practitioners).