Saint Sebastian's Abyss

Saint Sebastian's Abyss
Author: Mark Haber
Publisher: Coffee House Press
Total Pages: 126
Release: 2022-05-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1566896444

“What I wanted more than anything was to be standing beside Schmidt, in concert with Schmidt, at the foot of Saint Sebastian’s Abyss along with Schmidt, hands cupped to the sides of our faces, debating art, transcendence, and the glory of the apocalypse.” Former best friends who built their careers writing about a single work of art meet after a decades-long falling-out. One of them, called to the other’s deathbed for unknown reasons by a “relatively short” nine-page email, spends his flight to Berlin reflecting on Dutch Renaissance painter Count Hugo Beckenbauer and his masterpiece, Saint Sebastian’s Abyss, the work that established both men as important art critics and also destroyed their relationship. A darkly comic meditation on art, obsession, and the enigmatic power of friendship, Saint Sebastian’s Abyss stalks the museum halls of Europe, feverishly seeking salvation, annihilation, and the meaning of belief.

The Dauntless Christian

The Dauntless Christian
Author: Carolyn Cooney
Publisher:
Total Pages: 72
Release: 2015-06-06
Genre:
ISBN: 9781511750837

A historical children's book about St. Sebastian, St. Quadratus, St. Tarcisius, St. Pancratius, and St. Agnes, young and courageous Christians who faced cruel persecutions during the time of the Early Church.

Saint Sebastian

Saint Sebastian
Author: Gerald Matt
Publisher: Kerber Verlag
Total Pages: 152
Release: 2003
Genre: Art
ISBN:

Artwork by Luigi Ontani, Paul Schrader, Louise Bourgeois, Chris Burden, Francesco Clemente, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Fiona Tan. Photographs by Catherine Opie, David Wojnarowicz. Text by Wolfgang Tillmans.

Journeys

Journeys
Author: Jeanne Roland
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2021-10-15
Genre:
ISBN: 9781737887003

Plague and Music in the Renaissance

Plague and Music in the Renaissance
Author: Remi Chiu
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2020-01-23
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9781107521421

Plague, a devastating and recurring affliction throughout the Renaissance, had a major impact on European life. Not only was pestilence a biological problem, but it was also read as a symptom of spiritual degeneracy and it caused widespread social disorder. Assembling a picture of the complex and sometimes contradictory responses to plague from medical, spiritual and civic perspectives, this book uncovers the place of music - whether regarded as an indispensable medicine or a moral poison that exacerbated outbreaks - in the management of the disease. This original musicological approach further reveals how composers responded, in their works, to the discourses and practices surrounding one of the greatest medical crises in the pre-modern age. Addressing topics such as music as therapy, public rituals and performance and music in religion, the volume also provides detailed musical analysis throughout to illustrate how pestilence affected societal attitudes toward music.

The Quarantine of St. Sebastian House

The Quarantine of St. Sebastian House
Author: John Pistelli
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2020-05-13
Genre:
ISBN: 9781735076904

A global pandemic has America under quarantine. In a run-down apartment building, with nowhere to go and nothing to do, five people-a philosopher, an academic, a filmmaker, a sculptor, and a philanthropist-come together, at first only for the pleasure of company. But then they find themselves in a ferocious debate about the obsessions that drive their lives and a ruthless quest to discover the secrets that brought them together. Their passions and betrayals play out against the dangerous backdrop of a state-enforced lockdown and a disease that can strike anyone at any time. The eventually explosive conflicts among these poor artists, underfed intellectuals, and desperate fanatics pose urgent questions of art and inequality, health and freedom, faith and power, love and death. The Quarantine of St. Sebastian House is at once a Platonic dialogue, a poem in prose, and a suspenseful story of mystery and romance: a fresh narrative for a new era.

Sebastian's Arrows

Sebastian's Arrows
Author: Salvador Dalí
Publisher:
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2004
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780967880884

“Let us agree,” Federico Garcia Lorca wrote, “that one of man’s most beautiful postures is that of St. Sebastian.” “In my ‘Saint Sebastian’ I remember you,” Salvador Dali replied to Garcia Lorca, referring to the essay on aesthetics that Dali had just written, “. . . and sometimes I think he is you. Let’s see whether Saint Sebastian turns out to be you.” This exchange is but a glimpse into the complex relationship between two renowned and highly influential twentieth-century artists. On the centennial of Dali's birth, Sebastian’s Arrows presents a never-before-published collection of their letters, lectures, and mementos. Written between 1925 and 1936, the letters and lectures bring to life a passionate friendship marked by a thoughtful dialogue on aesthetics and the constant interaction between poetry and painting. From their student days in Madrid's Residencia de Estudiantes, where the two waged war against cultural “putrefaction” and mocked the sacred cows of Spanish art, Dali and Garcia Lorca exchanged thoughts on the act of creation, modernity, and the meaning of their art. The volume chronicles how in their poetic skirmishes they sharpened and shaped each other’s work—Garcia Lorca defending his verses of absence and elegy and his love of tradition while Dali argued for his theories of “Clarity” and “Holy Objectivity” and the unsettling logic of Surrealism. Christopher Maurer’s masterful prologue and selection of letters, texts, and images (many generously provided by the Fundacion Gala-Salvador Dali and Fundacion Federico Garcia Lorca), offer compelling and intimate insights into the lives and work of two iconic artists. The two men had a “tragic, passionate relationship,” Dali once wrote—a friendship pierced by the arrows of Saint Sebastian.

Reinhardt's Garden

Reinhardt's Garden
Author: Mark Haber
Publisher: Coffee House Press
Total Pages: 92
Release: 2019-10-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1566895707

At the turn of the twentieth century, as he composes a treatise on melancholy, Jacov Reinhardt sets off from his small Croatian village in search of his hero and unwitting mentor, Emiliano Gomez Carrasquilla, who is rumored to have disappeared into the South American jungle—“not lost, mind you, but retired.” Jacov’s narcissistic preoccupation with melancholy consumes him, and as he desperately recounts the myth of his journey to his trusted but ailing scribe, hope for an encounter with the lost philosopher who holds the key to Jacov’s obsession seems increasingly unlikely. From Croatia to Germany, Hungary to Russia, and finally to the Americas, Jacov and his companions grapple with the limits of art, colonialism, and escapism in this antic debut where dark satire and skewed history converge.

The Lives of the Saints

The Lives of the Saints
Author: Sebastian Barry
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Total Pages: 100
Release: 2022-04-05
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 0571372031

OLD GOD'S TIME (MARCH 2023), SEBASTIAN BARRY'S STUNNING NEW NOVEL, AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER NOW From A Long Long Way, his Booker shortlisted novel about the Irish soldiers who fought for Britain during the First World War to his Donal McCann starring hit play, The Steward of Christendom; from his first Costa Book of the Year winning novel The Secret Scripture to his second, Days Without End, a decade later, Sebastian Barry's writing career has been as long and varied as it has extraordinary. Intimate, revealing and generous of heart, these three lectures - written and delivered as part of his three year tenure as the Laureate for Irish fiction - reflect on his life and career so far, and some of the formative moments and people he's met along the way.