Edgar Degas's painting entitled A Cotton Office in New Orleans is one of the most significant images of nineteenth-century capitalism, in part because it was the first painting by an Impressionist to be purchased by a museum. Drawing upon archival materials, Marilyn R. Brown explores the accumulated social meanings of the work in light of shifting audiences and changing market conditions and assesses the artist's complicated relationship to the business of art.

Despite the financial failure of the actual cotton firm he represented, Degas carefully constructed his picture...

Kali and Krsna are two of Hinduism's most popular deities, representing dramatically different truths about the nature of the sacred. The cruel and terrible Kali is thought to be born of wild, aboriginal roots. She is the goddess of thieves and often associated with human blood sacrifice. Krsna, in contrast, is the divine lover and inimitable prankster who plays a bewitching flute to draw all to him. But Kali and Krsna have much more in common than their contrasting personalities suggest. Kinsley shows that Krsna's flute can be interchangeable with Kali's sword,...