Res : anthropology and aesthetics28

This work includes several articles that explore areas in the study of objects where philosophy and anthropology intersect.

These include Gianni Vattimo's and Michael Taussig's essays on monuments, Remo Guidieri on icons, William Pietz on the related significance of blood sacrifice and monetary debt in Colonial Africa, Mario Perniola on aesthetic versus anthropological experience and Ivan Illich on the contemporary rise of a society of show.

A second group of articles deals with art historical questions of particular relevance to the development and theory of modern Western representation both sacred and profane in the critical period that goes from the late Middle Ages to the first half of the 17th century.

One of these studies by Daniel Arasse examines the rapport between Saint Bernardin's promotion of the cult of the tablet (with the inscription of Christ's name) and the spreading of realistic portraiture of the saint himself.