The God behind the Marble

"For idealists such as Hegel, beauty was meant to transcend politics—so what happened when, as often in the Napoleonic era, works of art became spoils of war? Goff takes up the question with a close study of objects including the Laocoön Group." * Apollo "Off the Shelf" column *
“Goff’s engaging book delves into the cultural politics of revolutionary-era France and the German states conquered, then lost, by Napoleon—a pivotal, electric moment in which art and its meanings were up for grabs. An astute reader of images as well as texts, Goff makes a distinctive contribution with her insistence on keeping art, aesthetics, political engagement, and institutional histories firmly intertwined and in conflict.” -- Susan A. Crane, University of Arizona
 “Goff’s fine book is a deeply researched and elegantly written analysis of a significant chapter in the long and complex history of art’s role in German culture and politics.” -- James Sheehan, professor emeritus, Stanford University
“The God behind the Marble provides a treasure chest of famous and little-known scholars, statesmen, and artists in the era of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The French fought, conquered, and grabbed as much art as they could from the cities, courts, and monasteries in the territories they conquered, then transported it back to Paris. The Germans called this the Kunstraub and pushed back. This is a book that takes seriously both the material and the political aspects of art objects. Goff provides a compelling portrait of what is at stake in confiscating art and trying to protect it in its original spaces.” -- Celia Applegate, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of History, Vanderbilt University
"This groundbreaking and extraordinarily timely study is an object lesson in what happens if we recognize the dynamic nature of institutions that seem so stable, if we read the historical record for the passions and aspirations of individuals attempting to understand and organize the meaning of art objects. From noble patrons to imperial plunderers, from museum visitors to curators and museum guards, from philosophers to architects: the turn of the nineteenth century saw a number of vital and mutually shaping responses to what art could be. We are still living in the aftermath of an unresolved process that Goff illustrates in a number of richly developed case studies, sensitive at once to historical context, the history of ideas, and the experience of individuals attempting to understand the relationship between material objects, display, and the feelings and ideas those objects and forms of display are based on and shape." -- Jonah Siegel, author of "Overlooking Damage: Art, Display and Loss in Times of Crisis"