By 1850, the prospect of bronze casting in the United States had taken on added symbolism—a medium that reflected America’s growing confidence and ambition as a world power while at the same time proclaiming its artistic independence from European sculptural models and materials.
Ancient artists of Costa Rica demonstrated great artistic skill in creating stone works such as metates, zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figures, and spheres.
"This poem echoes the dual structure of the inner and outer figures, but in the spirit of the work, transforms it into something unexpected." — Hannah Sanghee Park
While it is difficult to establish how the method was developed or introduced to the region, it is clear that West African sculptors were casting brass with this method for several hundred years prior to the arrival of the first Portuguese explorers along the coast in 1484.
Hagop Kevorkian Curatorial Fellow Alzahraa K. Ahmed summarizes her recent investigation into the production dates of two Coptic codices in the Department of Islamic Art's collection.
As a living art, fashion is open to multiple readings, and
blog.mode: addressing fashion
</b> at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from December 18, 2007, through April 13, 2008, presents approximately 65 costumes and accessories dating from the 18th century to the present — all recent Metropolitan Museum acquisitions — and invites the public to share their reactions via a blog on the Museum's website. Over the duration of the exhibition, which will take place in The Costume Institute galleries, individual costumes and accessories will be posted on the blog periodically with commentary from curators Harold Koda and Andrew Bolton, and, where relevant, from contemporary designers.
AngloMania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion
</b>, opening on May 3, 2006, will present a wide range of works by British designers in The Metropolitan Museum's English Period Rooms – The Annie Laurie Aitken Galleries. A pendant to the acclaimed 2004 Costume Institute exhibition Dangerous Liaisons: Fashion and Furniture in the 18th Century,
AngloMania
</b> will examine ideals, stereotypes, and representations of Englishness by juxtaposing historical costume with late 20th- and early 21st-century fashions.
