A Broken Beauty

"A Broken Beauty" reproduces recent artworks by fifteen North American postmodern artists who explore nontraditional notions of beauty in the human body.

These powerful, haunting works introduce brokenness — physical, mental, and spiritual — into their renderings of human figures. Bearing witness to the surprising beauty found in moments of suffering, loss, and injury, they turn Western ideas of beauty on their head and inside out. In variously striking and often moving ways these works challenge viewers to contemplate the body's capacity for beauty despite the brokenness that characterizes the human condition.

In addition to exquisite color reproductions, the book contains five informative essays on art and religion by respected art historians and curators. Theodore Prescott and Timothy Verdon write about the meaning of human embodiment and its role in the creation of art. Lisa deBoer explores the human figure as expressed in Northern Renaissance art. Gordon Fuglie contributes two essays, one on shifting attitudes about beauty during the past century and one that reflects in depth on the message of the art found in "A Broken Beauty."

Also serving as the exhibit catalog for "A Broken Beauty: Figuration, Narrative, and the Transcendent in North American Art," a show with scheduled stops in Canada and the United States, this volume not only helps people see and think afresh about issues of human concern but also offers a new, beatific vision of hope — a badly needed virtue in our troubled times.

Featured artists: Gabrielle Bakker, Stephen De Staebler, Gaela Erwin, Erica Grimm-Vance, Richard C. Harden, Bruce Herman, Edward Knippers, Timothy Grubbs Lowly, Mary McCleary, John Nava, David J. Robinson, Joel C. Sheesley, Melissa Weinman, Patty Wickman, Jerome Witkin