James A. Connor is a professor of English at Kean University and a former Jesuit priest. He is the author of three books: Silent Fire, Kepler's Witch and Pascal's Wager. He lives in Rahway, NJ.
"Connor's narrative is compelling, his writing vivid and evocative. [...] An indispensable perspective for the general reader as well as fresh insights for the specialist." --Publishers Weekly "Connor gives a full and fascinating account of the history and personalities involved in the creation of one of the world's most forbidding and beautiful frescoes. The Last Judgment is also readable and succinct, and it offers intriguing insights into a culture hastening towards its own destruction." --Ross King, bestselling author of Brunelleschi's Dome and Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling "James Connor clarifies the dizzying Renaissance swirl of science, politics, art and war with language as vivid and colorful as a newly cleaned fresco." --Mary Doria Russell, bestselling author of The Sparrow and A Thread of Grace "The 17th century was a rough, bloody time in which ignorance, corruption, and religious hatred often trumped knowledge, ethical behavior, and religious tolerance...By showing Kepler's inability to shield his own mother, Connor drives this point forcibly home." --The Los Angeles Times on Kepler's Witch "A compelling and readable study of one of the most influential thinkers in religious history." --Booklist on Pascal's Wager
Connor (Pascal's Wager: The Man Who Played Dice with God) delivers a fresh examination of the historical, social, religious, and biographical contexts in which Michelangelo created The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. Using the famous fresco, which was painted amid widespread disenchantment with the excesses of Roman Catholicism, to consider the end of the Renaissance, Connor argues that Michelangelo's masterpiece reflects not only the shifts in the Church's religious ideologies and roles but also the artist's profound religious faith and his personal desires for reform. Connor covers the painter's time in Florence in the house of the Medici family during the 1490s to his death in 1564. Connor seems sometimes to digress and upstage the artist's masterpiece with historical details and anecdotal sidebars. The four double-paged, black-and-white photographs of the masterpiece at the end of the text are insufficient. Verdict This is an enlightening, noteworthy book intended for European history professors and art historians as well as general readers; however, some art historians may have reservations about using this as a text for their courses, as it reads more like a scholarly essay than a monograph.-Cheryl Ann Lajos, Free Lib. of Philadelphia Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
"Connor's narrative is compelling, his writing vivid and evocative. [...] An indispensable perspective for the general reader as well as fresh insights for the specialist." --Publishers Weekly "Connor gives a full and fascinating account of the history and personalities involved in the creation of one of the world's most forbidding and beautiful frescoes. The Last Judgment is also readable and succinct, and it offers intriguing insights into a culture hastening towards its own destruction." --Ross King, bestselling author of Brunelleschi's Dome and Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling "James Connor clarifies the dizzying Renaissance swirl of science, politics, art and war with language as vivid and colorful as a newly cleaned fresco." --Mary Doria Russell, bestselling author of The Sparrow and A Thread of Grace "The 17th century was a rough, bloody time in which ignorance, corruption, and religious hatred often trumped knowledge, ethical behavior, and religious tolerance...By showing Kepler's inability to shield his own mother, Connor drives this point forcibly home." --The Los Angeles Times on Kepler's Witch "A compelling and readable study of one of the most influential thinkers in religious history." --Booklist on Pascal's Wager
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
