The Uses of Excess in Visual and Material Culture, 1600}}}2010 [Hardcover]

Directing unprecedented attention to how the idea of excess has been used by both producers and consumers of visual and material culture, this collection examines the discursive construction of excess in relation to art, material goods and people in various global contexts. The contributors illuminate how excess has been perceived, quantified and constructed, revealing in the process how beliefs about excess have changed over time and how they have remained consistent. The collection as a whole underscores the fact that the concept of excess must always be considered critically, whether in scholarship or in lived experience. Although the idea of excess has often been used to shame and degrade, many of the essays in this collection demonstrate how it has also been used as a strategy for self-fashioning, transgression and empowerment, particularly by women and queer subjects. This volume examines a range of material, including diamonds, ceramics, paintings, dollhouses, caricatures, interior design and theatrical performances. Each case study sheds new light on how excess was used in a specific cultural context, including canonical sites of study such as the Netherlands in the eighteenth century, Victorian Britain and Paris in the 1920s, and under-studied contexts such as Canada and Sweden.Contents: Introduction: the uses of excess, Julia Skelly; All that glitters: diamonds and constructions of nabobery in British portraits, 1600-1800, Romita Ray; Every other place it could be placed with advantage: ladies-in-waiting at the British court and the excessive display of ceramics as art objects, 1689-1740, Eric Weichel; Consuming excess: pronk poppenhuisen and the dollhouses of Sara Roth?, Michelle Moseley-Christian; Exotic, fetish, virtual: visual excess in Victorian painting, Julie Codell; Excess on the walls: Victorian exhibition culture and anxieties of art and commerce, Anne Helmreich; The paradox of excess: Oscar Wilde, caricature, and consumption, Julia Skellylƒf