Transcultural things and the spectre of Orientalism in early modern Poland-Lithuania
Transcultural things examines four sets of artefacts from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: maps pointing to Poland–Lithuania’s roots in the supposedly ‘Oriental’ land of Sarmatia, portrayals of fashions that purport to trace Polish culture back to a distant and revered past, Ottomanesque costumes worn by Polish ambassadors and carpets labelled as Polish despite their foreign provenance.

These examples of invented tradition borrowed from abroad played a significant role in narrating and visualising the cultural landscape of Polish-Lithuanian elites. But while modern scholarship defines these objects as exemplars of national heritage, early modern beholders treated them with more flexibility, seeing no contradiction in framing material things as local cultural forms while simultaneously acknowledging their foreign derivation.

The book reveals how artefacts began to signify as vernacular idioms in the first place, often through obscuring their non-local origin and tainting subsequent discussions of the imagined purity of national culture as a result.

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Transcultural things and the spectre of Orientalism in early modern Poland-Lithuania
Transcultural things examines four sets of artefacts from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: maps pointing to Poland–Lithuania’s roots in the supposedly ‘Oriental’ land of Sarmatia, portrayals of fashions that purport to trace Polish culture back to a distant and revered past, Ottomanesque costumes worn by Polish ambassadors and carpets labelled as Polish despite their foreign provenance.

These examples of invented tradition borrowed from abroad played a significant role in narrating and visualising the cultural landscape of Polish-Lithuanian elites. But while modern scholarship defines these objects as exemplars of national heritage, early modern beholders treated them with more flexibility, seeing no contradiction in framing material things as local cultural forms while simultaneously acknowledging their foreign derivation.

The book reveals how artefacts began to signify as vernacular idioms in the first place, often through obscuring their non-local origin and tainting subsequent discussions of the imagined purity of national culture as a result.

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Transcultural things and the spectre of Orientalism in early modern Poland-Lithuania

Transcultural things and the spectre of Orientalism in early modern Poland-Lithuania

by Tomasz Grusiecki
Transcultural things and the spectre of Orientalism in early modern Poland-Lithuania

Transcultural things and the spectre of Orientalism in early modern Poland-Lithuania

by Tomasz Grusiecki

Hardcover

$130.00 
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Overview

Transcultural things examines four sets of artefacts from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: maps pointing to Poland–Lithuania’s roots in the supposedly ‘Oriental’ land of Sarmatia, portrayals of fashions that purport to trace Polish culture back to a distant and revered past, Ottomanesque costumes worn by Polish ambassadors and carpets labelled as Polish despite their foreign provenance.

These examples of invented tradition borrowed from abroad played a significant role in narrating and visualising the cultural landscape of Polish-Lithuanian elites. But while modern scholarship defines these objects as exemplars of national heritage, early modern beholders treated them with more flexibility, seeing no contradiction in framing material things as local cultural forms while simultaneously acknowledging their foreign derivation.

The book reveals how artefacts began to signify as vernacular idioms in the first place, often through obscuring their non-local origin and tainting subsequent discussions of the imagined purity of national culture as a result.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781526164360
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Publication date: 12/05/2023
Series: Rethinking Art's Histories
Pages: 264
Product dimensions: 6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.87(d)

About the Author

Tomasz Grusiecki is Associate Professor of Early Modern European Art and Material Cultures at Boise State University

Table of Contents

Introduction: between worlds
1 Where is Sarmatia?
2 How do you dress like a Pole?
3 Who speaks for Poland?
4 Where do Polish carpets come from?
Epilogue: beyond the binary
Index

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