Selected papers from an international symposium on the theme of 'Happiness in Art,' held in March 2011 by The Department of Arts of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
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Introduction : "Happiness : a(rt) history" / Ronit Milano -- Constructing emotions and weaving meaning in Byzantine art / Mati Meyer -- The frescoes of Berzé-la-Ville : the beatitude of the Blessed Saint Hugh and the concept of happiness in the Middle Ages / Gil Fishhof -- Spiritual joy in words and images in the Franciscan Church of the Visitation at Ain Karim / Nurith Kenaan-Kedar -- Boys don't cry : images of love-melancholy in late Medieval art / Polina Shtemler -- Happiness as Puritan art object / Jason LaFountain -- Picturing the pursuit of happiness in the Veneto countryside : Giandomenico Tiepolo's paradoxical peasants in the Villa Valmarana, Vicenza / William L. Barcham -- Tituba, the white witch and the concept of Victorian happiness : American witches in 19th century visual culture / Ayelet Carmi -- Happiness vis-à-vis melancholy in art / Milly Heyd -- Composition/construction and the social whole / Esther Levinger -- The new shape of happiness : wellness in art and popular culture / Alma-Elisa Kittner
The concept of 'happiness' is central to most civilized cultures. This volume investigates the many ways in which Western art visualized the concept from the early Middle Ages to the present. Employing different methodological approaches, the essays gathered here situate the concept of human happiness within discourses on gender, religion, intellectual life, politics and 'New-Age' culture. Operating as a cultural agent, art communicated the idea of happiness as both a physical and spiritual condition by exploiting specific formulae of representation.This volume combines art history, cultural analyses and intellectual studies in order to explore the complexities of iconographic programs that represent various forms of happiness, or its explicit absence, and to expose the implications embedded in the artistic works in question. Through innovative readings, the ten authors presented in the book survey different artistic and/or cultural paradigms and offer new interpretations of happiness or of its absence
