Bernard Picart and the First Global Vision of Religion

Edited by Lynn Hunt, Margaret Jacob, and Wijnand Mijnhardt

In an era of intense religious conflict in Europe and ongoing exploration of the lands beyond Europe, Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde (1723–37) set a new agenda for thinking about faith and provided a lasting visual template for representing the world's religions. In the work's seven massive volumes, Jean Frederic Bernard and the renowned engraver Bernard Picart invited readers to view religions and their institutions as cultural practices.

Bernard Picart and the First Global Vision of Religion approaches this much-cited but little-studied work from a variety of angles. Its fifteen scholarly essays examine Bernard and Picart's authorial and artistic strategies, the handling of religious difference in Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses, and the cultural context that fostered the creation of one of the most influential works of comparative religion ever published.

Lynn Hunt is Eugen Weber Professor of Modern European History at the University of California, Los Angeles. Margaret Jacob is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. Wijnand Mijnhardt is director of the Descartes Centre for the History and Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities at Utrecht University.

"Splendid."
—The New York Review of Books

370 pages
7 x 10 inches
11 color and 123 b/w illustrations, 1 chart
ISBN 978-0-89236-968-3
paperback

Getty Publications
Imprint: Getty Research Institute
Series: Issues & Debates

2010