Incendiary Art: The Representation of Fireworks in Early Modern Europe

by Kevin Salatino

Festivities such as those exalting the court of Louis XIV, the celebration of James II's London coronation, and the commemoration of the peace celebrations of 1749 at The Hague culminated in dazzling pyrotechnical displays. These were in turn reproduced as prints, paintings, and narrative descriptions. This unique book examines the propagandistic and rhetorical functions these printed records came to serve as vehicles of aesthetic, cultural, and emotional...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0892364173
• ISBN13: 9780892364176
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 136 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 7.0" x 10.1"

Customer Reviews

A valuable contribution to fireworks literature

The overwhelming majority of books on a 'fireworks' theme may be grouped into a small number of categories: histories of fireworks makers (or fireworks-making families), explanations of the process or chemistry of fireworks manufacture, or books for children. Few attempt an examination of fireworks within a broader social context. Fortunately Kevin Salatino has written something out of the ordinary which will be appreciated by those with an interest in fireworks, art and/or social history.The book includes an extensive selection of art-works from early modern Europe (both black-and-white and colour plates), explaining the social and historical context in which the fireworks displays were organised and the art-works created. He discusses the manner in which fireworks displays were used as a mechanism of conveying not only the power of monarchs and states but also the cultural values of the period.This is a valuable contribution to the historical literature concerning fireworks, not just for the depth of Salatino's analysis but also because the book brings together and presents much which is not normally available to those who are not dedicated researchers.The work leaves me wanting more - a comparable analysis of the representation of fireworks in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries!