Historische Bestecke II (Historic Cutlery II)

In 2002 Arnoldsche published the compendious work by the collector and writer Jochen Amme, "Historic Cutlery - Changing Shapes from the Palaeolithic to the 20th Century" (664 pages, 440 colour plates, ISBN 9783897901674). The book presented here is a supplement to that ground-breaking work. The book is structured in nine chapters, in which the author has focused on the one hand on medieval subject matter, for instance "Between the Roman Empire and the End of the High Middle Ages" and "The Late Middle Ages, 13th/14th Centuries to the Early 16th Century", and on the other hand, on the latter half of the 20th century (up to Postmodernism). The astonishing and unusual 'spread' between the Middle Ages and Postmodernism is what makes this new book so excitingly relevant. Nowadays anything to do with the Middle Ages arouses lively interest and Postmodernism is being discussed from all angles, the art historical as well as philosophical. Drawing on compelling examples, the author demonstrates that Postmodernism with its use of sculptural and archaising forms reveals surprising affinities with much earlier periods. The "Jugendstil/Art Nouveau" and "New Objectivity" cutlery sections in the 2002 edition have been systematically enlarged: new patterns have been added to the collection and patterns already in it have been supplemented.