Theory of art Books

Book SynopsisS. Elizabeth curates a sourcebook of more than 200 artworks inspired and informed by the morbid, melancholic and macabre.Table of ContentsIntroduction: In Praise of Shadow PART ONE It’s All in Your Mind I. Dreams & Nightmares II. Psychological Distress III. Whispers from the Void PART TWO The Human Condition IV. Ailments & Afflictions V. Depravity & Destruction VI. Matters of Mortality PART THREE The World Around Us VII. Darkness in Bloom VIII. Where the Wild Things Are IX. Mysterious Landscapes, Ruins & Ravaged Places PART FOUR Visions from Beyond X. Gods & Monsters XI. The Restless Dead & Other Eerie Entities XII. Dark Arts & Forbidden Mysteries Further reading Index Picture credits Acknowledgements

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Book SynopsisDesign thinking is the core creative process for any designer; this book explores and explains this apparently mysterious design ability. This new edition is a completely revised, updated and extended version of a classic text.Focusing on what designers actually do when they are designing, the book is structured around a series of in-depth case studies of the work of outstanding and expert designers, interwoven and developed with commentary and comparison. The coverage reflects the breadth of design from architecture to engineering, consumer products to communications, and from individual designing to teamwork and collaborative designing. The scale of designing ranges from Formula One racing cars to city commuting cars, locomotives to bicycles, sewing machines to litter bins and lemon squeezers. The book is based on evidence from observation and investigation of design practice, providing insights into and understanding of design thinking, and the development of design ability from novTrade ReviewI came across the first edition of this book and adopted it immediately for my instructional design course…The second edition is even richer with engaging storytelling and case studies. A must-read for future designers-to-be. * Minjuan Wang, Professor and Chair of Learning Design and Technology, San Diego State University, USA *This is the classic book on how designers think and work. While based on solid research, it is also a compelling read: the interviews, case studies and stories from design practice are lively and very accessible. There still is no better explanation. * Kees Dorst, Professor of Transdisciplinary Innovation, University of Technology Sydney, Australia *Are you looking for a book that can help you advance your ability to be a reflective designer? This straightforward book takes on the complex topic of design thinking and gives you gems to reflect on and incorporate into your own design practice. * Cynthia Atman, Professor of Human Centered Design and Engineering and Director of CELT, University of Washington, USA *Nigel Cross has been at the forefront of research in design thinking for several decades. This book elegantly encapsulates his exceptional knowledge of just what it is that makes designing such a unique and valuable activity. * Peter Lloyd, Professor of Integrated Design Methodology, TU Delft, the Netherlands *This book highlights the core characteristics of design thinking and its processes through empirical case studies on how designers generate creative designs. Nigel Cross, a pioneer in design research and methodology, analyzes design thinking with insights based on his long-standing experience, which can be of great help to design researchers, educators and students. * Kun-Pyo Lee, Dean of the School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University *Design thinking has radically changed the world. Long before the concept got traction in many disciplines beyond design, Nigel already engaged deeply with the cognitive processes of designers and architects. This book is a much needed refresher on the understanding of these fascinating phenomena. As a design professor with a background in psychology, I am hugely inspired by this book. * Cees de Bont, Dean of the School of Design and Creative Arts, Loughborough University, UK *Table of ContentsIllustration Credits Preface Acknowledgements Introduction The Design of this Book 1. Design Ability Studying Design Ability Asking Designers About What They Do Deconstructing What Designers Do Watching What Designers Do Thinking About What Designers Do Understanding What Designers Do 2. Designing to Win Background: Formula One Designing Radical Innovation Self-adjusting Suspension Pit Stops Designing from First Principles Steering Column Analogical Thinking Integrated Design City Car Modelling Learning from Failure Design Process and Working Methods 3. Designing to Please Background: The Art of Technical Design Looking for Improvement Sewing Machine Constructive Thinking Going Beyond the Brief Locomotive Fixation Learning from Failure Design Process and Working Methods 4. How Designers Think Motivation and Attitude Other Outstanding Designers Common Features Strategic Thinking Creative Thinking Problem Framing Co-evolution 5. Designing to Use The Experiment Design in Action Systems View First Principles Designing for Clients and Users Discussion: Design strategy 6. Designing Together Teamwork in Design Roles and Relationships Planning and Changing Activities Gathering and Sharing Information Generating and Adopting Concepts Plastic Tray Persuasion Avoiding and Resolving Conflicts Discussion: Design Co-operation 7. How Designers Work Creative Working Team Working Team Leadership Design Process Structure Versus Spontaneity Collaborative Designing Creative Designing The Creative Bridge 8. Design Expertise Experts and Novices From Novice to Expert Development of Expertise Developing Design Thinking Expertise in Teamwork Design Intelligence The Designing Brain Glossary References Index

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Book SynopsisHow have artists responded to our market-driven, tech-enabled culture of speed? Viewing Velocities explores a contemporary art scene caught in the gears of 24/7 capitalism. It looks at artists who embrace the high-octane experience economy and others who are closer to the slow movement. Some of the most compelling artworks addressing the cadences of contemporary work and leisure play on distinct, even contradictory conceptions of time. From Danh Vo's relics to Moyra Davey's photographs of dust-covered belongings, from Roman Ondak's queuing performers and Susan Hiller's outdoor sleepers to Maria Eichhorn's art strike and Ruth Ewan's giant reconstruction of the French revolutionary calendar, artists have drawn out aspects of the present temporal order that are familiar to the point of near-invisibility, while outlining other, more liberating ways of conceiving, organising and experiencing time.Marcus Verhagen builds on the work of theorists Jonathan Crary, Hartmut Rosa and Jacques Rancière to trace lines of insurgent art that recast struggles over time and history in novel and revealing terms.Trade ReviewCompelling and groundbreaking. These analyses point toward imaginative possibilities beyond the dispiriting neoliberal imperatives now increasingly imposed on us. -- Jonathan Crary, author of Scorched EarthA fine reading of contemporary art's engagements with social acceleration and the regulation of time. -- Julian Stallabrass, author of Killing for ShowOffers a lucid and capacious analysis of how contemporary art has, over the last three decades or so, addressed our society's troubled experience with the speed and pace of life under capitalism -- J.J. Charlesworth * ArtReview *Marcus Verhagen is one of the finest art critics writing today. -- Malcolm Bull

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Book SynopsisThis premium anniversary edition of The Complete Color Harmony gives you the color explorations, insights, and palettes from the original version in a deluxe new package that includes a pullout poster, gatefold foreword by internationally acclaimed contemporary artist Stuart Semple, and all-new image references.The Complete Color Harmony was the first book published by the acclaimed design publisher Rockport Publishers, and has gone on to become an essential reference for generations of designers. This special edition of that classic reference celebrates Rockport Publisher’s 40th anniversary.Get an introduction to using the color wheel and discover the key aspects of color, such as warm, cool, pale, and bright. Then, delve into moods and color and see how a wide variety of palettes can come across as earthy, powerful, regal, calm, dependable, and more.In this book you’ll discover: 

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Book Synopsis'I always keep a copy of Art & Fear on my bookshelf' JAMES CLEAR, author of the #1 best-seller Atomic Habits 'A timeless cult classic ... I've stolen tons of inspiration from this book over the years and so will you' AUSTIN KLEON, NYTimes bestselling author of Steal Like an Artist Art & Fear is about the way art gets made, the reasons it often doesn't get made, and the nature of the difficulties that cause so many artists to give up along the way. Drawing on the authors' own experiences as two working artists, the book delves into the internal and external challenges to making art in the real world, and shows how they can be overcome every day. First published in 1994, Art & Fear quickly became an underground classic, and word-of-mouth has placed it among the best-selling books on artmaking and creativity. Written by artists for artists, it offers generous and wise insight into what it feels like to sit down at your easel or keyboard, in your studio or performance space, trying to do the work you need to do. Every artist, whether a beginner or a prizewinner, a student or a teacher, faces the same fears - and this book illuminates the way through them.Trade ReviewFilled with reminders and insights that every artist and creator needs to hear. I always keep a copy of Art & Fear on my bookshelf. -- james Clear, author of the #1 bestseller * Atomic Habits *Artists confront their deeper fears daily. It's inevitable in artmaking. This book is a crucial tool in validating, soothing, and navigating the fear that might otherwise stop an artist from making their work. Fear is unavoidable but it need not dictate the artist's choices. This book is a vital companion. -- Beth Pickens, author * Make Your Art No Matter What *An essential text for anyone who wants to start making art and not stop. One of those rare books - like The Artist's Way and Writing Down the Bones - to keep close by for courage and company. -- Tanya Shadrick, author * The Cure for Sleep *It has earned its reputation for being a useful, underground classic ... it's a pithy, though comforting read, written by artists, and gets straight down to what can hinder our development as artists, and why ... refreshingly absent of psycho-babble or opaque art-speak -- The London GroupOne of those books you want to tell everyone you know to read * LiveAboutDotCom *A book that artists continue to recommend and connect with ... It's concise, clear, compelling and worth coming back to over and over -- Artwork ArchiveA roadmap for overcoming the everyday obstacles of a creative life * Skillshare *

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Book SynopsisTheodor Adorno (1903-69) was undoubtedly the foremost thinker of the Frankfurt School, the influential group of German thinkers that fled to the US in the 1930s, including such thinkers as Herbert Marcuse and Max Horkheimer. His work has proved enormously influential in sociology, philosophy and cultural theory. Aesthetic Theory is Adorno's posthumous magnum opus and the culmination of a lifetime's investigation. Analysing the sublime, the ugly and the beautiful, Adorno shows how such concepts frame and distil human experience and that it is human experience that ultimately underlies aesthetics. In Adorno's formulation ‘art is the sedimented history of human misery'.Trade Review"...the fact that they [Continuum] are putting low price tags on works once published in expensive academic editions is something of which we can all be glad.." -Modern Painters, 2/05Table of ContentsTranslator's Acknowledgement \ Translator's Introduction \ 1. Art, Society, Aesthetics \ 2. Situation \ 3. On the Categories of the Ugly, the Beautiful, and Technique \ 4. Natural Beauty \ 5. Art Beauty: Apparition, Spiritualization, Intuitability \ 6. Semblance and Expression \ 7. Enigmaticalness, Truth Content, Metaphysics \ 8. Coherence and Meaning \ 9. Subject-Object \ 10. Toward a Theory of the Artwork \ 11. Universal and Particular \ 12. Society \ 13. Paralimpomena \ 14. Theories On the Origin of Art \ 15. Draft Introduction \ Editor's Afterword.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"[A] remarkably insightful book. . . . [Global Objects] illustrates how the hegemony of power attributed to ‘fine art’, as distinguished from objects that have a utility in our daily lives, has resulted in a poverty of taste as well as the perpetuation of self-fulfilling prophecies about the importance of the so called ‘sublime’ in the construction of civilizations."---Donald Brackett, Critics at Large"A fascinating Tintin-esque history of many human artifacts that have truly global pedigrees. . . . An interesting read."---Jesse Russell, University Bookman"Challenging the binaries of Western versus Other and “high” versus “low” art in this book, Cooke presents a revisionist approach to global material culture that frames art objects as embodiments of social interactions across space and time. Global Objects. . .makes mate­rial culture studies digestible to individuals who seek to understand objects beyond the traditional fields of Western art history . . . [and] presents a necessary methodological revision to material culture studies in the post-colonial era."---Yasmine Yakupper, 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual – Beiträge zur Kunstgeschichte und visuellen Kultur"One of the great successes of Cooke’s Global Objects is it is an analysis based on a significant number of case studies, a corpus of considerable scale. The attention paid to the objects themselves and the important place they occupy in the whole of Cooke’s study, both visually and in terms of the narrative, make Global Objects a solid and handsome contribution to the history of art."---Noémie Etienne, The Art Bulletin

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Book SynopsisAlison Bancroft is a writer and cultural critic. She specialises in interdisciplinary approaches to modern and contemporary art and visual culture, and is committed to working across all media and contexts. Her research interests include visual culture and theory, psychoanalytic thought, and sexualities. She was awarded her PhD by the University of London in 2010. This is her first book.Table of ContentsIntroduction One: Fashion Photography and the Myth of the Unified Subject Two: Inspiring Desire: The Case for Haute Couture Three: Queering Fashion, Dressing Transgression Four: Fashion, Text, Symptom Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisWhen it comes to viewing art, living in the information age is not necessarily a benefit. So argues Michael Findlay in this book that encourages a new way of looking at art. Much of this thinking involves stripping away what we have been taught and instead trusting our own instincts, opinions, and reactions. Including reproductions of works by Mark Rothko, Paul Klee, Joan Miro , Jacob Lawrence, and other modern and contemporary masters, this book takes readers on a journey through modern art. Chapters such as "What Is a Work of Art?" "Can We Look and See at the Same Time?" and "Real Connoisseurs Are Not Snobs," not only give readers the confidence to form their own opinions, but also encourages them to make connections that spark curiosity, intellect, and imagination. "The most important thing for us to grasp," writes Findlay, "is that the essence of a great work of art is inert until it is seen. Our engagement with the work of art liberates its essence." After reading this book, even the most intimidated art viewer will enter a museum or gallery feeling more confident and leave it feeling enriched and inspired.Trade Review"I highly recommend Michael Findlay's new book, Seeing Slowly: Looking at Modern Art, published in September by Prestel. A longtime director at New York's Acquavella Galleries and, before that, the longtime head of Christie's department of Impressionist and modern art, Findlay is a veteran of the most specialized art speak and practical matters of history, condition, provenance - the works. Nevertheless, he believes that an appreciation of great art does not depend on knowledge of context and, in some cases, can actually be hindered by it." - Sarah Douglas, Editor-in-Chief, ArtNews

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Book SynopsisBorn in Bern, Switzerland in 1933, Harald Szeemann was a crucial force in identifying, exhibiting, and writing about the important new movements in postwar contemporary art. This collection of seventy-four texts from the curator's vast body of written work-which includes essays, lectures, studio notes, reviews, interviews, correspondence, and transcripts-introduces the depth of his method, insight, and inclusive artistic interests. The pieces have been translated from German and French and collected in an informed, authoritative edition, making this the first time Szeemann's work is accessible in English. The first two sections of this volume republish Szeemann's anthologies "Museum der Obsessionen" (1981) and "Individuelle Mythologien" (1985). The final part assembles important writing from 1986 until his death in 2005 to represent the later years of his career and round out a record of his contribution to and dialogue with later twentieth century art and artists. The book's publication coincides with the opening of the Getty Research Institute's exhibition Harald Szeemann: Museum of Obsessions, as well as a satellite show that recreates on Szeemann's "Grandfather exhibition" at the Institute of Contempoary Art, Los Angeles.

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Book SynopsisLinda Nochlin explores the contradictions and dissonances that mark experience as well as art. Her book confronts the issues posed in representations of the body in the art of impressionists, modern masters, and contemporary realists and post-modernists.Trade ReviewIt is a pleasure to hear Nochlin thinking aloud even where she is deliberately inconclusive. Particularly absorbing is her examination of Trouville, a liminal dream-kingdom which in the 1860s rapidly became both Paris by the sea and a potentially perilous vantagepoint from which the sublime vastness of the Atlantic Ocean might be glimpsed. A sceptic could point out that she reads a lot into Monet’s ambiguous use of perspective in his Hotel des Roches Noires of 1870, but it is a rare pleasure to encounter anyone thinking seriously about Monet at all. Similarly, the motif of the bather (in the sense of bath-taker rather than swimmer) provides a springboard for a highly original reading of Pierre Bonnard, another artist often dismissed as a woolly-headed sensualist… [Nochlin has a] knack for looking at canonical artists from fresh perspectives. -- Keith Miller * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisFocuses on the author's sustained inquiry into the paradoxical relationship of art to life and into the nature of meaning itself.Trade Review"Throughout these essays there is a lyric impulse, a rising of the heart, a moral passion that represents the spirit of the 60s at its best. At the same time Kaprow's thinking is exceedingly rigorous. . . . He has the optimism of the period without its willed naïveté." * Art in America *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Preface to the Expanded Edition: On the Way to Un-Art THE FIFTIES The Legacy of Jackson Pollock (1958) Notes on the Creation of a Total Art (1958) THE SIXTIES Happenings in the New York Scene (1961) Impurity (1963) The Artist as a Man of the World (1964) The Happenings Are Dead: Long Live the Happenings! (1966) Experimental Art (1966) Manifesto (1966) Pinpointing Happenings (1967) The Shape of the Art Environment (1968) THE SEVENTIES The Education of the Un-Artist, Part I (1971) The Education of the Un-Artist, Part II (1972) Doctor MD (1973) The Education of the Un-Artist, Part III (1974) Video Art: Old Wine, New Bottle (1974) Formalism: Flogging a Dead Horse (1974) Nontheatrical Performance (1976) Participation Performance (1977) Performing Life (1979) THE EIGHTIES The Real Experiment (1983) Art Which Can't Be Art (1986) Right Living (1987) THE NINETIES The Meaning of Life (1990) Maestro Maciunas (1996) Just Doing (1997) Selected Bibliography of Allan Kaprow's Writings on Art Index 257

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Book SynopsisPioneering work by the great modernist painter, considered by many to be the father of abstract art and a leader in the movement to free art from traditional bonds. 12 illustrations.

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Book Synopsis'Approaching the different and manifold sequences in this book...one will gradually come to realise that metamorphosis can become an ideal for knowledge, a guiding path for self-knowledge and knowledge of the world - as intuitive contemplation and as artistic creation.' - Dr Peter Wolf What is metamorphosis? Through the medium of art, sculptor Gertraud Goodwin invites us to enter the realm of time and continuously changing movement in this highly original book. With chapters by various artists and writers, interwoven with her key insights, Goodwin offers numerous points of entry to understanding the mystery of metamorphosis. Profusely-illustrated in colour, we are shown many sequences of images - of sculptures, reliefs and graphic works - which, with the aid of informed commentary, we are invited to 'read'. These images belong together, developing from one to the next - just as single experiences and events in life belong to our biographies. One motif, one movement, passes through all stages, from simple beginnings and more differentiated formations, to a culmination - and, from there, back to a more mature simplicity and concentration, which makes a new beginning possible.' In relation to the transcendent, where ordinary words fail, the language of form, texture and relations in space, like those of music in time, offer alternatives to words, perhaps less encumbered by preconceptions. These pages offer many examples of the beauties and mysteries of metamorphosis, which is itself an essential component of Nature's creative language.' - Dr Philip Kilner

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Book SynopsisThis is a cultural history of mathematics and art, from antiquity to the present. Mathematicians and artists have long been on a quest to understand the physical world they see before them and the abstract objects they know by thought alone. Taking readers on a tour of the practice of mathematics and the philosophical ideas that drive the disciplinTrade Review"This is a marvelous coffee table book ... very well researched and documented. It touches upon so many fundamental questions that philosophers, scientists, mathematicians and artists have asked since antiquity. But yet it guides the reader smoothly through all these competing visions and theories without becoming dull or getting lost in abstraction. This is the history of Western civilization with particular interest in art and mathematics, illuminating and instructive, and all wrapped up in a rich, colorful, and fancy book."--Adhemar Bultheel, European Mathematical Society "This is the beauty and power of this book: [Mathematics and Art] is an intellectual tour de force of art history and its interaction with mathematics that will draw most readers, including me, back for further reading and study."--Frank Swetz, MAA Reviews "Excellent new book... Overall this is a comprehensive, valuable and detailed book. It is written in an accessible style, with enough mathematics to interest the technical reader without overwhelming one with an arts background... Its rich anthology is particularly relevant today, given the explosion of interest in the digital arts and the need for digital artists to use maths creatively. I will definitely be keeping it close at hand."--William Latham, New Scientist "The author does an artful job in creating a wide-ranging and beautifully illustrated survey that mathematicians and art historians will enjoy."--John Barrow, The Art Newspaper "This sumptuously illustrated book chronicles the history of mathematics through its intersection with the development of visual art... Gamwell articulates the compelling, far-reaching connections within these fields in a way that is rewarding for scholars yet accessible to non-specialists."--Choice "Beautiful books that display the beauty of art are fine additions to many coffee tables; beautiful books that display the beauty of mathematics are fine additions to few coffee tables. Gamwell's impressive work integrates the beauty of these two disciplines to create a work larger than their sum... A book for all ages and of all ages: truly a brilliant 'millennial' composition!"--Sandra L. Arlinghaus, Mathematical Reviews "This splendidly produced volume will appeal to everybody interested in mathematics and art and offers room for agreement and disagreement with the author... This volume stands out by its richness in contents, its wealth of colour reproductions and, last but not least, its very affordable price."--Dirk Werner, Zentralblatt MATH "This wonderful book gives a very thorough overview of the impact of mathematics (and science) of the visual arts (and architecture) over the centuries."--Eos "An interesting read, filled with paradigm-shifting history and art, the book still posits a linear perspective of the relationship of art and mathematics, specifically recounting the ways math has influenced art."--Karie Brown, Mathematics Teacher "A monumental volume... Excellently illustrated by 523 images... Many highlighted quotations from writings of outstanding personalities of the sciences and the arts make the volume more colourful."--Gyorgy Darvas, Symmetry "Mathematics and Art is an enjoyable read accessible to anyone interested in the history of mathematics and art."--Andre Michael Hahn, British Journal for the History of ScienceTable of ContentsFOREWORD by Neil deGrasse Tyson IX PREFACE XI 1 Arithmetic and Geometry 1 2 Proportion 73 3 Infinity 109 4 Formalism 151 5 Logic 197 6 Intuitionism 225 7 Symmetry 249 8 Utopian Visions after World War I 277 9 The Incompleteness of Mathematics 321 10 Computation 355 1 1 Geometric Abstraction after World War II 385 12 Computers in Mathematics and Art 455 13 Platonism in the Postmodern Era 499 NOTES 512 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 547 CREDITS 548 INDEX 549

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Book SynopsisOriginally delivered as the prestigious Mellon Lectures on the Fine Arts in 1995, After the End of Art remains a classic of art criticism and philosophy, and continues to generate heated debate for contending that art ended in the 1960s. Arthur Danto, one of the best-known art critics of his time, presents radical insights into art's irrevocable deTrade ReviewWinner of the 1998 Eugene M. Kayden National University Press Book Prize, University of Colorado at Boulder "If you are seriously attentive to contemporary art, you are already aware of Danto and his general positions, and owe it to yourself to read this book. If you are not, but are genuinely curious, you would do well to follow him... Throughout it is clear and direct; at best, it is brilliantly crystalline... I know of no more useful single book on art today."--Michael Pakenham, Baltimore Sun "Is Danto gloomy about the end of art? Not in the slightest... Danto is nothing if not cheered by the prospect of an art world in which everything is permitted."--Roger Copeland, Wilson Quarterly "... the need for critical works such as this one--learned, discerning and refreshingly open-minded--is perhaps greater than ever."--Publishers Weekly "In this, Dr. Danto's best book yet, he helps us make sense of the times we are living in."--Richard Dorment, The Art Newspaper "Required reading for anyone seriously interested in late-modern and contemporary art."--Library Journal "Danto was and remains the high priest of pluralism, and arch-critic of the view that art has a distinctive essence... The chapters in this book are a challenging read, but a good one, because they take us to the heart of a living and profoundly interesting contemporary debate."--A.C. Grayling, Financial Times "Danto makes a lively and stimulating case [about the end of art]... The source ... of all ths mental labor is Andy Warhol, or more precisely his Brillo box sculpture... The utter banality of the piece sent 600 years of art history crashing to the ground in ruins."--Boston Book ReviewTable of ContentsList of Illustrations ix Foreword to the Princeton Classics Edition xi Preface xvii Acknowledgments xxi CHAPTER ONE Introduction: Modern, Postmodern, and Contemporary 3 CHAPTER TWO Three Decades after the End of Art 21 CHAPTER THREE Master Narratives and Critical Principles 41 CHAPTER FOUR Modernism and the Critique of Pure Art: The Historical Vision of Clement Greenberg 61 CHAPTER FIVE From Aesthetics to Art Criticism 81 CHAPTER SIX Painting and the Pale of History: The Passing of the Pure 101 CHAPTER SEVEN Pop Art and Past Futures 117 CHAPTER EIGHT Painting, Politics, and Post-Hisotrical Art 135 CHAPTER NINE The Historical Museum of Monochrome Art 153 CHAPTER TEN Museums and the Thirsting Millions 175 CHAPTER ELEVEN Modalities of History: Possibility and Comedy 193 Index 221

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Book SynopsisToday, art and science are often defined in opposition to each other: one involves the creation of individual aesthetic objects, and the other the discovery of general laws of nature. Throughout human history, however, the boundaries have been less clearly drawn: knowledge and artifacts have often issued from the same source, the head and hands of the artisan. And artists and scientists have always been linked, on a fundamental level, by their reliance on creative thinking. Art and Science is the only book to survey the vital relationship between these two fields of endeavour in its full scope, from prehistory to the present day. Individual chapters explore how science has shaped architecture in every culture and civilisation; how mathematical principles and materials science have underpinned the decorative arts; how the psychology of perception has spurred the development of painting; how graphic design and illustration have evolved in tandem with methTrade Review"An accessible work, rich and well researched." -- La Monde "Attractive, heavily illustrated, and up-to-date, this gift book provides a quick synopsis of human achievement during the past few millennia. While it falls gracefully into the category of coffee-table book, it is not all fluff...the book deftly covers all the expected historical developments without rendering them dull." -- Library Journal "An abundantly illustrated history of the dynamic interaction between the arts and sciences shows hows it has shaped our world, from prehistory to the present." -- Publishers WeeklyTable of ContentsContents: The art and science dialogue A dynamic history Science in architecture Decoration: a path to hi-tech Painting and cognition The language of graphic design Technique and the performing arts An art and science symbiosis Bibliography Index of names Index of subjects Credits

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Book SynopsisBeauty can be consoling, disturbing, sacred, profane; it can be exhilarating, appealing, inspiring, chilling. It can affect us in an unlimited variety of ways. Yet it is never viewed with indifference. In this Very Short Introduction the renowned philosopher Roger Scruton explores the concept of beauty, asking what makes an object - either in art, in nature, or the human form - beautiful, and examining how we can compare differing judgements of beauty when it is evident all around us that our tastes vary so widely. Is there a right judgement to be made about beauty? Is it right to say there is more beauty in a classical temple than a concrete office block, more in a Rembrandt than in last year''s Turner Prize winner? Forthright and thought-provoking, and as accessible as it is intellectually rigorous, this introduction to the philosophy of beauty draws conclusions that some may find controversial, but, as Scruton shows, help us to find greater sense of meaning in the beautiful objects that fill our lives.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.Trade ReviewMouthwatering design-compact, colorful, sturdy. Can travel in one's pocket. * Walks of Art, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju *Table of ContentsPreface ; 1. Judging beauty ; 2. Human beauty ; 3. Natural beauty ; 4. Everyday beauty ; 5. Artistic beauty ; 6. Taste and order ; 7. Art and Eros ; 8. The flight from beauty ; 9. Concluding thoughts ; Notes and Further Reading

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Book SynopsisDrawing on unpublished archival sources, this book reconstitutes the experiences of a wide range of American artists, critics, and writers working in Rome in a charged environment of Cold War cosmopolitanism.After the Second World War, American artists flocked to Rome in record numbers, even as the United States shored up Italy as a bulwark against the spread of Communism. While the market for modern art in Rome was less vigorous as those in Paris and New York, numerous galleries, artist-run spaces, and other institutions acted as important catalysts, making Rome an international artistic hub. The city attracted now canonical figures Lee Bontecou, Philip Guston, Robert Rauschenberg, Paul Thek, and Cy Twombly, along with less well-known artists, such as Eugene Berman, Gene Charlton, Carlyle Brown, Peter Chinni, William Congdon, Claire Falkenstein, Marcia Hafif, John Heliker, James Leong, Beverly Pepper, and Laura Ziegler, among many others.Rather than focusing

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Book SynopsisSince its first appearance in 1931 Herbert Read''s introduction to the understanding of art has established itself as a classic of its kind. It provides a basis for the appreciation of paintings, sculpture and art-objects of all periods by defining the elements that went into their making. A compact survey of the world''s art, from primitive cave-drawings to Jackson Pollock, The Meaning of Art explains the persistence of certain principles and aspirations throughout the history of art, and summarizes the essence of such movements as Gothic, Baroque, Impressionism, Expressionism and Surrealism.This new Faber Modern Classics edition features a brand new foreword by Will Gompertz, BBC arts editor.

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Book SynopsisWhat Makes Great Art showcases a selection of 80 outstanding paintings and sculptures from around the world and throughout time, assessing just what it is that makes them so great.

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Book SynopsisThe Language of Displayed Art, first published in 1994, is a seminal work in the field of Multimodality and one of the few to be entirely dedicated to the analysis and interpretation of works of art. This book explores the grammar of the visual arts of painting, sculpture and architecture, proposing that as viewers we simultaneously read three different kinds of meaning in them: what is represented (Representational meaning) how it engages us (Modal meaning) how it is composed (Compositional meaning). The second edition features: two new chapters; an extended discussion of Chapter 5 Why Semiotics; and an extended version of Chapter 7 with more illustrations of language forms, discourse norms and genres, as well as non-art visual modes. The book is now accompanied by a CD, created by the author and features a virtual gallery of twenty-eight additional paintings with questions to encourage analysis and interpretaTrade Review'Occasionally a book comes along which takes over your whole field of attention and resets the way you look at some aspect of experience. For me "The Language of Displayed Art" was one such book. It opened up the world of painting, architecture and sculpture, bringing out its dimensions and depth of meaning and adding significantly to my understanding- and therefore to my enjoyment- of familiar and not so familiar works of art.' M.A.K. Halliday, Emeritus Professor of Linguistics, University of Sydney, Australia 'My favourite bedtime reading beautifully restored and given a new lease of life... this new colour edition with supporting CD-ROM has at last given this timeless masterpiece of art criticism the limelight it has long deserved. A cultural treasure trove for new acquaintances, for old fans the return of a sorely-missed truly multimodal companion.' Anthony Baldry, University of Messina, Italy Table of Contents1. Semiotics At Work 2. Bodily Perceptions: A Semiotics of Sculpture 3. A Semiotics of Architecture 4. Semiotics Across the Arts

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Book SynopsisA selection of Leonardo da Vinci's writings on painting. Martin Kemp and Margaret Walker have edited material not only from his so-called "Treatise on Painting" but also from his surviving manuscripts and from other primary sources.Trade Review"Highly recommended" Apollo Magazine "Highly readable... Also included are documentary sources and letters illuminating Leonardo's career; the manuscript sources for all of Leonardo's statements are fully cited in the notes. The volume is skillfully translated and is illustrated with appropriate examples of drawings and paintings by the artist." Choice "Easier to read and more convenient than previous compilations." Charles Hope, New York Review of Books "A chaotic assemblage of Leonardo da Vinci's writings appeared in 1651 as Treatise on Painting... Kemp successfully applies order to the chaos." ArtNews

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Book SynopsisAmericans, on average, spend between six and ten seconds looking at individual artworks in museums or galleries. This book dwells upon various media-photography, painting, sculpture, "living pictures," film, video, digital and performance art - and even light, time, and space, from both the present and past.Trade Review"...what in another writer’s hands might have been a dry academic treatise turns out to be a lively ramble through high and low culture, touching on the likes of Diderot, Goethe, David Foster Wallace, Susan Sontag, Sleeping Beauty, the Countess de Castiglione and Andy Warhol." * Wall Street Journal *"Reed seeds his profundities throughout Slow Art in example after example, weaving them into compelling histories that get you thinking about art in new ways." * The Santa Fe New Mexican *"It has an interesting point to make when it comes to the relationship between stillness and motion, layering and adding dimensions as well as approaching art from a “slow” angle instead of the artwork itself necessarily carrying such qualities. What seems to be a fad and neologism, is actually based on a concept that harks back to ancient times yet what is exemplified in the book is that it is inextricably with our current state of affairs and the future." * Scene Point Blank *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations List of Video Examples Acknowledgments Introduction: Marking Time PART I: DRAWING OUT SLOW ART 1. What Is Slow Art? (When Images Swell into Events and Events Condense into Images) 2. Living(?) Pictures PART II: EPISODES FROM A SHORT HISTORY OF SLOW LOOKING 3. Before Slow Art 4. Slow Art Emerges in Modernity I: Secularization from Diderot to Wilde 5. Slow Art Emerges in Modernity II: The Great Age of Speed PART III: SLOW ART NOW 6. Slow Fiction, Film, Video, Performance Art, 1960 to 2010 7. Slow Photography, Painting, Installation Art, Sculpture, 1960 to 2010 8. Angel and Devil of Slow Art Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisLearning in and through the arts can develop complex and subtle aspects of the mind, argues Elliot Eisner in this book. Offering an array of examples, he describes different approaches to the teaching of the arts and shows how these refine forms of thinking that are valuable in dealing with our daily life.Trade Review"Eloquent."—Library Journal The 2005 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Education"Elliot Eisner is long regarded as one of the most eloquent and best informed of those critical of the technicism dominating so many schools. At once, he is known as a trailbreaker in contemporary efforts to make the artistic-aesthetic dimension of experience central in public education’s classrooms. This book reimagines the kinds of reforms needed in education, as it brings together Eisner’s generative notions about learning and teaching, arts-based research, and (climactically) a conception of mind as process, a way of being in and acting upon the world. Encounters with the arts, Eisner tells us, can nurture and enrich mind in its becoming. The very idea of 'creation' in this context opens perspectives on ways of making 'mind' the beating heart of live and humane schools."—Maxine Greene, Teachers College, Columbia University "Elliot W. Eisner is the preeminent spokesperson for the arts in education. Not since John Dewey has an American scholar written with such insight, power, and grace about the arts and the development of mind. Professor Eisner reveals, through the art of his own thought, the exciting role the arts can play in the education of the nation’s youth. This sensitive vision explains why the arts are justified in education on their own merits."—Michael Day, professor in department of visual arts, Brigham Young University, author of Children and Their Art"This book is an eloquent addition to any art educator’s library. Eisner’s greatest gift is his ability to perceive and capture, making the ineffable richly apparent. This book represents his lifetime achievement in the arts through compelling discussions by many prominent arts educators. It resonates with Eisner’s work and provokes us to re-think all that we may take for granted. I highly recommend this volume for anyone interested in promoting or studying the arts in education."—Rita C. Irvin, Professor, Department of Curriculum Studies, University of British Columbia"By illuminating the various ways that making and appreciating art are cognitive endeavors, Eisner invites us to celebrate the uniqueness of art education and entices us to explore the rich connections between thinking and learning in the arts and in other areas."—Shari Tishman, Harvard University"In straightforward, accessible language, Eisner takes us deeply into the realm of the arts, a realm of unique, powerful meanings available nowhere else. A life without these meanings is a life impoverished, Eisner explains, and an education that neglects them is similarly impoverished. The arts, here, receive a cogent, richly argued justification as basic in education and in life."—Bennett Reimer, author of A Philosophy of Music Education: Advancing the Vision

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Book SynopsisDuring his decades of world fame as a novelist, Tolstoy also wrote prolifically in a series of essays and polemics on issues of morality, social justice and religion. These works culminated in What is Art?, published in 1898. Impassioned and iconoclastic, this powerfully influential work both criticizes the elitist nature of art in nineteenth-century Western society, and rejects the idea that its sole purpose should be the creation of beauty. The works of Dante, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Baudelaire and Wagner are all vigorously condemned, as Tolstoy explores what he believes to be the spiritual role of the artist - arguing that true art must work with religion and science as a force for the advancement of mankind.Table of ContentsWhat Is Art? - Leo Tolstoy Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky with a Preface by Richard PevearPrefaceBibliographical NoteA Note on the TextWHAT IS ART?Appendix IAppendix IINotes

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Book SynopsisArthur C. Danto is professor emeritus of philosophy at Columbia University. He is the art critic for the Nation and has served as president of the American Philosophical Association.Table of ContentsThe Philosophical Disenfranchisement of Art, by Jonathan Gilmore The Appreciation and Interpretation of Works of Art Deep Interpretation Language, Art, Culture, Text The End of Art Art and Disturbation Philosophy as/and/of Literature Philosophizing Literature Art, Evolution, and the Consciousness of History

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Book SynopsisA ground-breaking attempt at a prolegomenon to the study of style, this collection brings together eleven essays by distinguished philosophers, literary theorists, art historians, and musicologists, all addressing the role played by style in the arts and literature.

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Book SynopsisA must-read book on David Pye''s theory of craftsmanship and design.In this thoroughly mechanised age, what is the point of craft? Does it make any sense to work with hand tools when machines can do the same job faster, and in many cases better? What visual richness do we lose by embracing a mass-produced world? The Nature and Art of Workmanship explores the meaning of skill and its relationship to design and manufacture. Cutting through a century of fuzzy thinking, David Pye proposes a new theory of making based on the concepts of ''workmanship of risk'' and ''workmanship of certainty''. And he shows how good workmanship imparts all-important diversity to our visual environment.No-one who works with tools and materials, or who designs things for others to make, can afford to be without this penetrating book. This newly revised edition includes an illustrated foreword by John Kelsey, former editor of Fine Woodworking magazine, on David Pye''s own turned and carved vessels of wood beautiful, insightful pieces that embody the truth of Pye''s ideas.Table of ContentsForeword: Apostle of workmanship 1. Design proposes. Workmanship disposes 2. The workmanship of risk, the workmanship of certainty 3. Is anything done by hand? 4. Quality in workmanship 5. The designer's power to communicate his intentions 6. The natural order reflected in the work of a man 7. Diversity 8. Durability 9. Equivocality 10. Critique of 'On the Nature of Gothic' 11. The aesthetic importance of workmanship, and its future Index

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Book SynopsisTwo authorities on popular culture reveal the ways in which art can enhance mood and enrich lives - now available in paperbackTrade Review'A cultural cure for what ails you.' – Elle'A highly optimistic vision... Roams widely through subjects as immense as love, nature, money and politics. De Botton and Armstrong's examination of love is most rewarding.' – Royal Academy of Arts'Massages the mind in all the right places.' – Vanity Fair'...Like going back to college, but in a good way... A little bit like dipping in to a modern day Gombrich albeit through the eyes of Oprah... A really entertaining and thought-provoking look at the role that art plays – or could play – in our lives. [...] Part philosophy, part art history, the book takes work that is considered by many to be lofty and rarified, and relates it to our everyday lives. [Art as Therapy] makes the reader consider the work far more intensely and deeply than perhaps we otherwise would.' – A Little Bird'A true meditation on the power art has to transform our lives.' – The Mayfair Magazine'The beautifully designed and illustrated book, Art as Therapy argues for a new way of using art to help us with a variety of psychological ills.' – The School of Life

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Book SynopsisAn impressive list of authors examine how abjection can be discussed in relation to a host of different subjects, including marginality and gender.Trade Review'The exploration of the implications of abjection: being abject, positioning as abject, for the visual and performing arts defines for this collection a double relevance. It adds to the study of abjection; it adds also to the analysis of a range of artistic practices.... most of the chapters will themselves become significant in their areas while the whole performs an enlivening re-engagement and expansion of abjection as a term in contemporary cultural analysis.'Griselda Pollock -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction: Approaching abjection - Rina Arya and Nicholas Chare1. Art, abjection and bare life - John Lechte2. A lesbian, feminist and Canadian perspective: queering abjection - Jayne Wark3. Manet's Abject Surrealism - Nicholas Chare4. Juan Davila's abject after-image - Rex Butler and A. D. S. Donaldson5. Animals, art, abjection - Barbara Creed and Jeanette Hoorn 6. The fragmented body as an index of abjection - Rina Arya7. Skin, body, self: the question of the abject in the work of Francis Bacon - Ernst van Alphen 8. Abjection, melancholia and ambiguity in the works of Catherine Bell - Estelle Barrett9. Corpus Delicti - Kerstin Mey10. Art is on the way: from the abject opening of underworld to the shitty ending of oblivion - Calvin Thomas11. Base materials: performing the abject object - Daniel WattIndex

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Book SynopsisHere is a rare opportunity to view painting through the discerning eyes of one of the world’s foremost abstract painters. Stella uses the crisis of representational art in sixteenth-century Italy to illuminate the crisis of abstraction in our time.Trade ReviewMr. Stella’s way of dealing with single paintings, 36 of which are reproduced in color, makes for one tour-de-force after another… Paintings familiar and unfamiliar, from the ‘Mona Lisa’ to Wassily Kandinsky’s ‘Composition IX,’ gain a just-washed sparkle. -- Peter Schjeldahl * New York Times Book Review *Working Space comes as something of a bombshell. For this is a book that explodes a great many received ideas about abstraction… [It] is certainly one of the most remarkable books ever written on the subject. What makes it so remarkable, of course, is that Stella is unquestionably the most celebrated abstract painter of his generation. -- Hilton Kramer * The Atlantic *It is seldom that a major artist is prepared to commit himself publicly to a considered, large-scale survey of the art of his time, and to relate it moreover to substantial cross-sections of the art of the past. Frank Stella has done this in his Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard, with considerable erudition, great verve and genuine originality. -- John Golding * Times Literary Supplement *This is a marvelously insightful and thought-provoking book… Stella’s perception of the problem is correct—abstraction has reached a watershed. His analysis of that problem is erudite and plausible, and at times even passionate. If he does not solve it within these pages, he at least has made us consider its ramifications, and he has enabled us to look at art from a valuable and rarely available perspective. -- Edward J. Sozanski * Philadelphia Inquirer *Working Space develops its thesis with such gusto, elegance, and conviction… The text is rich with insight, integrity, and unexpected rethinkings of erstwhile familiar images. -- David Anfam * Art International *This is art history and art criticism of a high order, detailed and refreshingly idiosyncratic. Both scholarly and hip, Stella has written a book that reveals the painter’s mind and studio, allowing us to see the play of history and vision that goes on within. Highly recommended. -- Calvin Reid * Library Journal *Table of ContentsCaravaggio The Madonna of the Rosary Annibale Carracci Picasso A Common Complaint The Dutch Savannah Illustration Credits Index

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Book SynopsisArt in Theory (1648-1815) provides a wide-ranging and comprehensive collection of documents on the theory of art from the founding of the French Academy until the end of the Napoleonic Wars.Trade Review"All three of these books are essential additions to any public or private library concerned with Art. For the reader who comes a novice to this discipline they provide a superb first entry point to an otherwise bewildering array of publications concerned with the theory of art. Rather like a jigsaw puzzle they encourage the reader to make the connections that will complete the picture. But more importantly, what each of these anthologies does brilliantly is to tempt the relative novice to go further with their research. By presenting an overview of the evolution of a set of ideas within defined parameters and over a specified period of time through the erudite selection of sensitively edited primary texts, the reader is subtly invited to seek out the originals and flesh out their understanding. For those who are more experienced in the field they cleverly provide a means of prompting new ideas within the reader's field of enquiry." --Journal of Art & DesignTable of ContentsAcknowledgements. A Note on the Presentation and Editing of Texts. General Introduction. Part I: Establishing the Place of Art:. Introduction. 1. Ancients and Moderns:. 1. From The Painting of the Ancients 1637: Franciscus Junius. 2. Letter to Junius 1637: Peter Paul Rubens. 3. From The Art of Painting, its Antiquity and Greatness 1649: Francisco Pacheco. 4. Dedication to Constantijn Huygens from Icones I 1660: Jan de Bisschop. 5. From Painting Illustrated in Three Dialogues 1685: William Aglionby. 6. 'A Digression on the Ancients and the Moderns' 1688: Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle. 7. Preface and 'Second Dialogue' from Parallel of the Ancients and Moderns 1688: Charles Perrault. 8. From Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning 1694: William Wotton. 2. The Academy: Systems and Principles:. 9. Letters to Chantelou and to Chambray 1647/1665: Nicholas Poussin. 10. Observations on Painting c. 1660-5: Nicholas Poussin. 11. Recollections of Poussin 1662-1685: Various Authors. 12. Petition to the King and to the Lords of his Council 1648: Martin de Charmois. 13. Statutes and Regulations of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture 1648. 14. From An Idea of the Perfection of Painting 1662: Roland Fréart de Chambray. 15. Letter to Poussin c. 1665: Jean Baptiste Colbert. 16. 'The Idea of the Painter, Sculptor and Architect' 1664: Giovanni Pietro Bellori. 17. From Conversations on the Lives and Works of the Most Excellent Ancient and Modern Painters 1666: André Félibien. 18. Preface to Seven Conferences 1667: André Félibien. 19. 'First Conference' 1667: Charles LeBrun. 20. 'Second Conference' 1667: Philippe de Champaigne. 21. 'Sixth Conference' 1667: Charles LeBrun. 22. 'Conference on Expression' 1668: Charles LeBrun. 23. Table of Precepts: Expression 1680: Henri Testelin. 3. Form and Colour:. 24. 'De Imitatione Statuorum', before 1640: Peter Paul Rubens. 25. From The Microcosm of Painting 1657: Francesco Scannelli. 26. From 'Diary of the Cavaliere Bernini's Visit to France' 1665: Paul Fréart de Chantelou. 27. From De Arte Graphica 1667: Charles-Alphonse Du Fresnoy. 28. 'Remarks on De Arte Graphica' 1668: Roger de Piles. 29. From The Rich Mines of Venetian Painting 1676: Marco Boschini. 30. 'Conference on Titian's Virgin and Child with St John' 1671: Phillipe de Champaigne. 31. 'Conference on the Merits of Colour' 1671: Louis Gabriel Blanchard. 32. 'Thoughts on M. Blanchard's Discourse on the Merits of Colour' 1672: Charles LeBrun. 33. From Dialogue upon Colouring 1673: Roger de Piles. 34. From Practical Discourse on the Most Noble Art of Painting c. 1675: Jusepe Martinez. 35. From The Antiquity of the Art of Painting c. 1690: Felix da Costa. 4. The 'je ne sais quoi':. 36. From The Hero 1637: Baltasar Gracián. 37. From The Art of Worldly Wisdom 1647: Baltasar Gracián. 38. 'Answer to Davenant's Preface to Gondibert' 1650: Thomas Hobbes. 39. From Fire in the Bush and The Law of Freedom in a Platform 1650/2: Gerrard Winstanley. 40. From Pensées c.1654-1662: Blaise Pascal. 41. On Grace and Beauty from Conversations on the Lives and Works of the Most Excellent Ancient and Modern Painters 1666: André Félibien. 42. From The Conversations of Aristo and Eugene 1671: Dominique Bouhours. 43. From A Compleat Body of Divinity 1689/1701: Samuel Willard. 44. On Art and Beauty, Before 1716: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. 5. Practical Resources:. 45. From Miniatura; or The Art of Limning, Revised 1648: Edward Norgate. 46. On Rembrandt and Jan Lievens c.1630: Constantijn Huygens. 47. Letters to Constantijn Huygens 1636-9: Rembrandt van Rijn. 48. From In Praise of Painting 1642: Philips Angel. 49. From The Art of Painting, its Antiquity and Greatness 1649: Francisco Pacheco. 50. Preface to Perspective Practical 1651: Jean Dubreuil. 51. From Introduction to the Academy of Painting; or, The Visible World 1678: Samuel van Hoogstraten. 52. 'The Excellency of Painting' from A Treatise of Perspective 1684: R. P. Bernard Lamy. 53. From Principles for Studying the Sovereign and Most Noble Art of Painting 1693: José Garcia Hidalgo. Part II: The Profession of Art:. Introduction. 6. Painting as a Liberal Art:. 54. From The Great Book on Painting 1707: Gerard de Lairesse. 55. From The Principles of Painting 1708: Roger de Piles. 56. On Feminine Studies, After 1700: Rosalba Carriera (1675-1757). 57. 'To the Reader' 1710: Mary Chudleigh. 58. From The Pictorial Museum and Optical Scale 1715-24: Antonio Palomino y Velasco. 59. From Essay on the Theory of Painting 1715: Jonathan Richardson. 60. From The Science of a Connoisseur 1719: Jonathan Richardson. 61. On the Grand Manner, from 'On the Aesthetic of the Painter' 1721: Antoine Coypel. 62. From 'On the Excellence of Painting' 1721: Antoine Coypel. 63. From Cyclopaedia 1728: Ephraim Chambers. 64. 'On Drawings' 1732: Comte de Caylus. 65. 'The Life of Antoine Watteau' 1748: Comte de Caylus. 7. Imagination and Understanding:. 66. 'Of the Association of Ideas' from An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 1700: John Locke. 67. From 'The Moralists, A Philosophical Rhapsody' 1709: Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury. 68. From 'A Notion of the Historical Draught of the Tablature of the Judgement of Hercules' 1712: Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury. 69. 'On the Pleasures of the Imagination' 1712: Joseph Addison. 70. From Treatise on Beauty 1714: Jean-Pierre de Crousaz. 71. From Critical Reflections on Poetry and Painting 1719: Abbé Jean-Baptiste du Bos. 72. Preface to An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue 1725: Francis Hutcheson. 73. 'Third Dialogue' from Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher 1732: George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne. 74. 'Of the Sublime' 1725: Jonathan Richardson. 75. 'The Beau Ideal' 1732: Lambert Hermanson ten Kate. 76. From The Philosopher's Cabinet 1734: Pierre de Marivaux. 77. 'The Beauty of the World' c.1750: Jonathan Edwards. Part III: Judgement and the Public Sphere:. Introduction. 8. Classical and Contemporary:. 78. From A Treatise on Ancient Painting 1740: George Turnbull. 79. From 'Discourse on the Arts and Sciences' 1750: Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 80. From 'Discourse on the Origins of Inequality' 1755: Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 81. From Observations upon the Antiquities of the Town of Herculaneum 1753: Jérôme-Charles Bellicard and Charles Nicolas Cochin fils. 82. From Reflections on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture 1755: Johann Joachim Winckelmann. 83. From An Inquiry into the Beauties of Painting 1761: Daniel Webb. 84. From The Antiquities of Athens 1762: James Stewart and Nicholas Revett. 85. From A History of Ancient Art 1764: Johann Joachim Winckelmann. 86. 'Of the Camera Obscura' from Essay on Painting 1764: Francesco Algarotti. 87. From Laocoön: on the Limitations of Painting and Poetry 1766: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. 9. Aesthetics and the Sublime:. 88. From Reflections on Poetry 1735: Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten. 89. 'Prolegomena' to Aesthetica 1750: Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten. 90. From The Analysis of Beauty 1753: William Hogarth. 91. 'Dialogue on Taste' 1755: Allan Ramsay. 92. 'Of the Standard of Taste' 1757: David Hume. 93. From A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful 1757: Edmund Burke. 94. 'An Essay on Taste' 1757: Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu. 95. 'Essay on Taste' 1757: Voltaire. 96. Letters to 'The Idler' 1759: Joshua Reynolds. 97. From Conjectures on Original Composition 1759: Edward Young. 98. From Giphantia 1760: Charles François Tiphaigne de la Roche. 99. From Aesthetica in Nuce 1762: Johann Georg Hamann. 100. From Reflections on Beauty and Taste in Painting 1762: Anton Raphael Mengs. 101. 'Beautiful, Beauty' from Philosophical Dictionary 1764: Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet). 102. 'Of Taste' from Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man 1785: Thomas Reid. 10. The Practice of Criticism:. 103. Reflections on Some Causes of the Present State of Painting in France 1747: Etienne La Font de Saint-Yenne. 104. From 'Letter on the Exhibition of Works of Painting, Sculpture, etc.' 1747: Jean-Bernard, Abbé le Blanc. 105. From 'Letter on Painting, Sculpture and Architecture' 1748: Louis-Guillaume Baillet de Saint-Julien. 106. 'On Composition' 1750: Comte de Caylus. 107. From Essay on Architecture 1753: Marc-Antoine, Abbé Laugier. 108. 'Letter to M. de Bachaumont on Taste in the Arts and Letters' 1751: Jean-Baptiste de La Curne de Sainte-Palaye. 109. 'Art' from the Encyclopédie 1751: Denis Diderot. 110. 'Genius' from the Encyclopédie 1757: Jean-Francois, Marquis de Saint-Lambert. 111. 'Observation' from the Encyclopédie 1765: Anonymous. 112. From the Correspondence Littéraire 1756: Friedrich Melchior, Baron Grimm. 113. 'Reflexions on Sculpture' 1761: Etienne Falconet. 114. From the 'Salon of 1763', 1763: Denis Diderot. 115. From the 'Salon of 1765' and 'Notes on Painting' 1765: Denis Diderot. 116. From the 'Salon of 1767', 1768: Denis Diderot. Part IV: A Public Discourse:. Introduction. 11. Consolidation and Instruction:. 117. Letter to Richard Graves 1760: William Shenstone. 118. 'Of Academies' c.1760-1: William Hogarth. 119. From 'Letter on Sculpture' 1765: Frans Hemsterhuis. 120. 'A Discourse upon the Academy of Fine Art at Madrid' 1766: Anton Raphael Mengs. 121. Correspondence 1766-7: Benjamin West and John Singleton Copley. 122. On the Death of General Wolfe c.1771: Benjamin West. 123. From Discourses on Art, III, VI and XI 1770-82: Joshua Reynolds. 124. Discourse IX 1780: Joshua Reynolds. 125. On Exhibtions by Angelica Kauffman 1775-86: Various Reviewers. 126. From An Inquiry into the Real and Imaginary Obstructions to the Acquisition of the Arts in England 1774: James Barry. 127. From 'Disconnected Thoughts on Painting, Sculpture and Poetry' 1781: Denis Diderot. 128. From Treatise on the Principles and Rules of Painting 1781: Jean-Etienne Liotard. 129. From A Review of the Polite Arts in France 1782: Valentine Green. 130. 'Address to the Royal Academy of San Fernando regarding the Method of Teaching the Visual Arts' 1792: Francisco Goya. 131. From the Dictionnaire des Arts de Peinture, Sculpture et Gravure 1792: Claude-Henri Watelet and Pierre-Charles Lévesque. 132. A Letter to the Dilettanti Society 1798: James Barry. 12. Revolution:. 133. From Mémoires Secrets 1783-5: Anonymous. 134. Letter to Joseph-Marie Vien 1789: Charles-Étienne-Gabriel Cuvillier. 135. Review of the Salon of 1789: Comte de Mende Maupas. 136. 'Artists' Demand' 1789: Students of the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts. 137. Letter to Thomas Jefferson 1789: John Trumbull. 138. Response to Edmund Burke 1790: Mary Wollstonecraft. 139. 'On the System of Teaching' from Considerations on the Arts of Design in France 1791: Antoine Quatremère de Quincy. 140. On his Picture of Le Peletier 1793: Jacques-Louis David. 141. Preliminary Statement to the Official Catalogue of the Salon 1793: Gazat, Minister of the Interior/Anonymous. 142. 'The Jury of Art' 1793: Jacques-Louis David. 143. Proposal for a Monument to the French People 1793: Jacques-Louis David. 144. Project for the Apotheoses of Barra and Viala 1794: Jacques-Louis David. 145. 'Foreword' to the Historical and Chronological Description of the Monuments of Sculpture 1795/7: Alexandre Lenoir. Part V: Nature and Human Nature:. Introduction. 13. The Human as Subject:. 146. Letters 1758-73: Thomas Gainsborough. 147. On Thomas Gainsborough 1788: Joshua Reynolds. 148. 'Of the Effects of Genius' 1770: William Duff. 149. 'On German Architecture' 1772: Johann Wolfgang Goethe. 150. On London, from Letter to Baldinger 1775: Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. 151. From Essays on Physiognomy 1775-8: Johann Kaspar Lavater. 152. From Sculpture: Some Observations on Form and Shape from Pygmalion's Creative Dream 1778: Johann Gottfried Herder. 153. 'What is Enlightenment?' 1784: Immanuel Kant. 154. From 'On the Creative Imitation of Beauty' 1788: Karl Phillip Moritz. 155. From Critique of Judgment 1790: Immanuel Kant. 156. From Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste 1790: Archibald Alison. 157. From Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man 1795-6: Friedrich Schiller. 158. From 'On Naive and Sentimental Poetry' 1795-6: Friedrich Schiller. 159. Letter to Karl Friedrich von Heinitz 1796: Asmus Jakob Carstens. 160. The 'Earliest System-Programme of German Idealism' c.1796: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. 14. Landscape and the Picturesque:. 161. 'Unconnected Thoughts on Gardening' 1764: William Shenstone. 162. 'The Principles of Painting' from Essays on Prints 1768: William Gilpin. 163. 'Letter on Landscape Painting' 1770: Salomon Gessner. 164. Exchange of Letters on Landscape Painting 1784: Salomon Gessner and Konrad Gessner. 165. From Observations on the River Wye 1782: William Gilpin. 166. 'Landscape (Arts of Design)' from General Theory of the Fine Arts 1771-4: Johann Georg Sulzer. 167. Review of The Fine Arts in their Origin, their True Nature and Best Application, by J.G. Sulzer 1772: Johann Wolfgang Goethe. 168. 'Nature' 1782-3: Georg Christof Tobler. 169. 'A New Method of Assisting the Invention in Drawing Original Compositions of Landscape' 1785: Alexander Cozens. 170. 'On Landscape Painting' 1790: Johann Kaspar Lavater. 171. From 'On Picturesque Beauty' and 'On Picturesque Travel' 1792: William Gilpin. 172. 'On Landscapes and Seapieces' from Charis, or on Beauty and the Beautiful in the Imitative Arts 1793: Friedrich Ramdohr. 173. From 'An Essay on the Picturesque' 1794: Sir Uvedale Price. 174. From The Landscape: A Dramatic Poem 1795: Richard Payne Knight. 175. From 'A Dialogue on the Distinct Characters of the Picturesque and the Beautiful' 1801: Sir Uvedale Price. 176. Notebook and Diary Entires, c.1790 to 1797: Katherine Plymley. 177. 'Letter on Landscape Painting' 1795: Francois René, Comte de Chateaubriand. 178. 'On Poetry and Our Relish for the Beauties of Nature' 1797: Mary Wollstonecraft. 179. From Northanger Abbey c.1799-1803: Jane Austen. Part VI: Romanticism:. Introduction. 15. Romantic Aesthetics:. 180. From 'Critical Fragments' 1797: Friedrich Schlegel. 181. From 'Athenaeum Fragments' 1798: Friedrich Schlegel. 182. 'Fugitive Thoughts' 1798-1801: Novalis. 183. From Aphorisms on Art 1802: Joseph Görres. 184. 'Advertisement' from Lyrical Ballads 1798: William Wordsworth. 185. From Preface to Lyrical Ballads 1800: William Wordsworth. 186. From Description of Paintings in Paris and the Netherlands in the Years 1802-04 1805: Friedrich Schlegel. 187. From 'Concerning the Relation of the Plastic Arts to Nature' 1807: Friedrich Schelling. 188. 'The Spirit of True Criticism' from A Course of Lectures Dramatic Art and Literature 1808: August Wilhelm Schlegel. 189. From 'Aphorisms on Art' 1788-1818: Henry Fuseli. 190. 'On the Principles of Genial Criticism' 1814: Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 191. From A Philosophical View of Reform 1819-20: Percy Bysshe Shelley. 16. Painting and Fiction:. 192. From Confessions from the Heart of an Art-Loving Friar 1796: Wilhelm Wackenroder. 193. From Franz Sternbald's Wanderings 1798: Ludwig Tieck. 194. On the Caprichos 1799: Francisco de Goya. 195. The Blue Flower from Henry of Ofterdingen 1799-1801: Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg). 196. Letters 1802: Philipp Otto Runge. 197. From Corinne 1807: Madame de Staël. 198. Letters 1799-1805: William Blake. 199. Marginal Notes to Reynolds' Discourses 1801-9: William Blake. 200. From Descriptive Catalogue 1809: William Blake. 201. Introduction to The Grave 1808: Henry Fuseli. 202. From Views on the Dark Side of Natural Science 1808: Gotthilf Heinrich Schubert. 203. 'Remarks Upon a Landscape Painting Intended as an Altar Piece by Herr Friedrich' 1809: Friedrich Ramdohr. 204. On The Cross in the Mountains, Letter to Schulz 1809: Caspar David Friedrich. 205. 'Various Emotions before a Seascape by Friedrich' 1810: Clemens Brentano. 206. 'Emotions before Friedrich's Seascape' 1810: Heinrich Kleist. 207. 'Letter from a Young Poet to a Young Painter' 1810: Heinrich Kleist. 208. 'Beethoven's Instrumental Music' 1813: E.T.A. Hoffmann. 209. Letter to Arndt 1814: Caspar David Friedrich. Part VII: Observation and Tradition:. Introduction. 17. Objects of Study:. 210. Introduction to the Propyläen 1798: Johann Wolfgang Goethe. 211. From Reflections on the Present Condition of the Female Sex 1798: Priscilla Wakefield. 212. From 'Advice to a Student on Painting, and Particularly on Landscape' 1800: Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes. 213. Letters to Dunthorne 1799-1814: John Constable. 214. 'An Account of a Method of Copying Paintings Upon Glass, and of Making Profiles' 1802: Thomas Wedgwood and Humphry Davy. 215. 'On Landscape Painting' 1803: Karl Ludwig Fernow. 216. From Essays on the Anatomy of Expression in Painting 1806: Charles Bell. 217. Letter to Goethe 1806: Philipp Otto Runge. 218. From Theory of Colours 1810: Johann Wolfgang Goethe. 219. 'Backgrounds, Introduction of Architecture and Landscape' 1811: Joseph Mallord William Turner. 220. From A Treatise on Landscape Painting and Effect in Water Colours 1813-14: David Cox. 221. Preface to Etchings of Rustic Figures 1815: William Henry Pyne. 222. From Daylight: A Recent Discovery in the Art of Painting 1817: Henry Richter. 223. Advice on the Painting of Portraits c.1820-30: Elizabeth Vigée-Lebrun. 18. The Continuity of Symbols:. 224. 'Discourse to the Students of the Royal Academy' 1792: Benjamin West. 225. 'The Painting of the Sabines' 1799: Jacques-Louis David. 226. 'Discourse Addressed to Vien' 1800: Pupils of David. 227. 'Of the Subjects of Pictures' from The Genius of Christianity 1802: François-René, Comte de Chateaubriand. 228. Letter to Passavant 1808: Franz Pforr. 229. 'The Three Ways of Art' 1810: Friedrich Overbeck. 230. Letter to Joseph Görres 1814: Peter Cornelius. 231. From The Description of Egypt 1809-20: Edmé François Jomard (ed., et al). 232. 'Style' after 1810: John Flaxman. 233. From Symbolism and Mythology of the Ancient Peoples, Particularly the Greeks 1810: Georg Friedrich Creuzer. 234. The Debate on the Elgin Marbles 1808-1816:. Letter to the Monthly Magazine 1808: George Cumberland. Letter to the Earl of Elgin 1809: Benjamin West. Letters to de Quincy and the Earl of Elgin 1815: Antonio Canova. From Report of the Parliamentary Select Committee on the Earl of Elgin's Collection of Marbles 1816. From The Judgement of Connoisseurs upon Works of Art 1816: Benjamin Robert Haydon. 'The Fine Arts' from Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica 1816: William Hazlitt. 235. From Notebooks and Letters c.1813-21: Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres. 236. From An Inquiry into the Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology 1818: Richard Payne Knight. Bibliography. Copyright Acknowledgements. Index.

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Book SynopsisThe first major survey of photography's place in recent art history.Trade Review"Presented thematically, with succinct texts that are both readable and informative, the book meets both academic and general needs, without ever compromising the images in display."—Pictured "Imagine the best group show of photographers you've ever seen. Now imagine it's a book. Campany skillfully curates the leading lights of post-1960 into a thematically arranged form with tempting essays by Barthes and Baudrillard into the bargain. It's a timely survey that aspires to be the document of record for the most exciting, universal and accessible art form we've got."—i-D "Art and Photography... charts the acceptance of photography as an art form. Originally considered a mechanical process, photography is now one of the most widely practiced arts. Exploring developments from the Sixties to the present day, this beautiful book covers every major school, style and name, and includes work by the likes of Jeff Wall, Andreas Gursky and Gillian Wearing. The perfect family album."—Vogue "Phaidon's Themes and Movements series seeks to provide the late 20th-century art history books of the future."—Art Monthly

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisDebra Bricker Balken offers the first ever complete biography of Harold Rosenberg's brilliant, fiercely independent life and the five decades in which he played a leading role in US cultural, intellectual, and political history.Trade Review"[This] book is a thoroughgoing, well-researched biography of Harold Rosenberg, but it’s also really an intellectual history of New York City, over six decades." * Brooklyn Rail *"Balken’s insightful and admiring biography seeks to reclaim Rosenberg for the pantheon. Through an intellectual history, Balken skillfully recounts the range and depth of this unusual man, who sustained commitments to a panoply of subjects—art, aesthetics, criticism, poetry, Marxism—without ever succumbing to any party line. . . . Balken’s book gives a panoramic view of Rosenberg’s complex arguments, and does so unimpeded by jargon." * Dissent *"This biography is a formidable attempt at offering us some insight into a figure who lived in a city that, after the Second World War, was on fire with ideas, power, ambition, and art." * Hyperallergic *“[A] perfect compendium of the convoluted social and political history of the 20th century. . . As Balken’s biography beautifully illustrates, [Rosenberg's] critical insights and writing, like the virtues of painters whose work he extolled, was crafted as romantic and heroic exploration of the mysteries of personal identity, private meaning, and public commitment in action.” * Critics at Large *"The most extensive study of the critic to date." * New York Review of Books *"An exceptional achievement, the book is both fact-filled and nuanced." * Art & Object *"The author's ability to decipher the entanglements of a cultural milieu that emerged from this intellectual hotbed is remarkable, and her historical precision alongside some 15 years of research is especially noteworthy. Ms. Balken's writing is compelling and evenhanded, illuminating some of the last century's most conspicuous intellectual scuffles, social convolutions, and cultural progress with stunning lucidity." * The East Hampton Star *"Harold Rosenberg: A Critic’s Life is a highly enjoyable read and will become a valuable reference work for any study of the New York School." * The Critic *"Debra Bricker Balken has published the first complete biography of a New York intellectual usually associated with the promotion of abstract expressionism, for decades a presence in the city’s cultural life . . . The son of a modest Jewish tailor and a law graduate who never practiced, Rosenberg reconciled his Marxist convictions with an independence that distanced him from New York’s progressive elite, finding his best conversation companions in the world of artists." * Living Architecture *"Well-researched. . . . Balken paints Rosenberg as an outsider by design, and recreates the people, places, and intellectual movements that influenced the fiercely independent thinker from his native Brooklyn to bohemian, leftist Manhattan in the 1930s." * Publishers Weekly *“This thoroughly researched biography of Harold Rosenberg, America’s greatest art critic, vividly captures the Rosenberg I knew as an intellect and a friend—I couldn’t put it down.” * Jonathan Fineberg, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign *“In her mesmerizing, tough-minded, and prodigiously researched intellectual biography of Harold Rosenberg, Balken tracks the legendary art critic’s extraordinary intellectual journey through almost every major esthetic and political development—and battle—in the US and France from 1930 through the 1960s. This welcome book challenges readers to consider what it is about Rosenberg that we still need and whether there might ever be another prominent working critic with his independence, culture, and engaged and poetic imagination.” * Michael Brenson, art critic and art historian *“A most impressive achievement, Balken’s exhaustively researched biography of Harold Rosenberg constitutes a significant contribution to our knowledge of American intellectual and artistic life during this unusually fertile period.” * Charles W. Haxthausen, Williams College *Table of ContentsPrologue 1 Never had any dreams: Borough Park 2 In the landscape of sensibility: East Houston Street 3 A capacity for action: Poetry: A Magazine of Verse and The New Act 4 We write for the working class: The American Writers’ Congress 5 You would have to be recluse to stay out of it: Art Front 6 American Stuff 7 Myth and History: Partisan Review 8 Partisans and Politics 9 A Totally Different America: Washington, DC 10 The Profession of Poetry: Trance above the Streets 11 Death in the Wilderness: The OWI and the American Ad Council 12 Notes on Identity: VVV and View 13 Possibilities 14 Les Temps modernes 15 An explanation to the French of what was cooking: “The American Action Painters” 16 Guilt to the Vanishing Point: Commentary Magazine 17 A Triangle of Allegiances: Arendt and McCarthy 18 The Tradition of the New 19 Pop Culture and Kitsch Criticism 20 Play Acting: Arshile Gorky 21 Problems in Art Criticism: Artforum 22 Location Magazine and the Long View 23 The New Yorker 24 The Professor of Social Thought Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Illustration Credits Index

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Book SynopsisDeals with the exploration and theorisation of Modern and Contemporary art of Iran through the examination of art movements and artistic practices in relation to other cultural, social and political discourses during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.Trade Review"Few scholars of contemporary Islamic art, a seriously underdeveloped field, exhibit both range and staying power. Keshmirshekan, the outstanding specialist on its richest subset, Iranian art, does just that. In good, plain, jargon-free English and with clear, concise arguments and passionate commitment, he highlights the treasures of modern and contemporary art in Iran and beyond.?" -Robert Hillenbrand, University of Edinburgh

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Book SynopsisIn closely-read case studies, we encounter artworks by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Ana Mendieta, Louise Bourgeois, Alina Szapocznikow, Anna Maria Maiolino, Vera Frenkel, Sarah Kofman and Chantal Akerman to explore trauma and bereavement, fatal illness, Holocaust experience, migration, exile and the encounter with political horror and atrocity.Trade ReviewIn Griselda Pollock’s brilliantly-staged encounters between contemporary art and psychoanalysis, the aesthetic emerges as the space in which we can be responsive to the traces of trauma and live with its after-effects. Through incisive and carefully-articulated theoretical insights and reparative acts of close reading, Pollock offers us new ways of thinking about painful aftermaths as well as a new vocabulary for feminist visual studies.Marianne Hirsch, William Peterfield Trent Professor of English and Comparative Literature in the Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality at Columbia UniversityIn this powerful latest book, Griselda Pollock brings her writing on her key concept of `the virtual feminist museum’ to a new phase. What are the legacies of trauma in visual space? How might they be gendered? And is there a psychic realm to which women are closer that allows for a generative creativity equal to the horrors of our times? Once again, the meticulous, detailed respect she shows towards her chosen women artists is matched by a sustained theoretical scrutiny, both of which have become the hallmark of her unique feminist intervention into our understanding of images.Jacqueline Rose, Professor of English at Queen Mary, University of London -- .Table of ContentsPrefaceIntroduction: Trauma and artworkingI Sounds of subjectivity1. Gasping at violence: Daphne’s open mouth and the trauma of gender2. Seduction, mourning and invocation: The geometry of absence in work by Louise Bourgeois3. Being and language: Anna Maria Maiolino’s gestures of exile and connectionII Memorial bodies4. Traumatic encryption: The sculptural dissolutions of Alina Szapocznikow5. Fictions of fact: Memory in transit in Vera Frenkel’s video installation worksIII Passage through the object6. Deadly objects and dangerous confessions: The tale of Sarah Kofman’s father’s pen7. ‘… that, again!’: Pathosformula as transport station of trauma in the cinematic journey of Chantal AkermanBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisAddresses questions such as: Why do we find ourselves returning to certain pictures time and again? What is it we are looking for? And how does our understanding of an image change over time?Trade Review". . . as compelling as a thriller...Clark shows that this [book] really is the merest doorway to what is ultimately a truly sublime mystery."—John McEwan, The Tablet". . . an eloquent plea for a new way of experiencing and talking about art."—BBC Radio 3 Nightwaves website"What’s important about this book is simply that it takes ‘inexhaustibility’ seriously. … The Sight of Death is a characteristically mobile text – lucid, dogged, swankily sophisticated, intractably self-conscious, humorous, agonised, driven. … And the whole argument of this book, naturally, is that the thought isn’t simply there to be grasped. It unfolds through steady and repeated acts of looking. That is how pictures operate, when they do well. They ask you back."—Tom Lubbock, The Independent". . . intended as an antidote to a culture in which images thrive but are instantly consumed and forgotten. It’s almost a detective story as Clark pieces together the evidence derived from repeated looking… Clark’s account is proof that some works really do deserve this kind of scrutiny, and that close attention to things is an adventure."—Andrew Mead, Architects Journal"[An] absorbing book . . . Part (muted) autobiography, part critique of his profession as an art historian – and more than anything else a rapt account of what it is to look attentively and inattentively and still be able to think politically – Clark has written a book about loss of attention and the possibilities of its recovery. . . . There is a strange meditative suspense about what is going to be revealed by Clark’s unfussy scrutiny of the pictures. The plain subtlety of the writing and the beautiful reproductions throughout…make the experience of reading the book akin to the process Clark is describing. . . . It is not incidental that at a time when there is more visual art than ever before, most writing about the visual arts is either mind-numbingly pretentious and cliquey or boringly descriptive and without vision. Clark’s book could not be more timely."—Adam Phillips, The Observer"Part of this is a revolt against the present-day dominance of the moving image, and partly a rebuke to the so-called elitism of pure contemplation. The result is wonderfully dynamic, and . . . relevant in ways that could not have been foreseen. . . . [Clark] is as far removed from comfortable connoisseurship, with its usual signifiers, as it is possible to be, yet what is internalised and noted is rigorously true to what the painter intended the viewer to apprehend. . . . What it proves – and this is entirely acceptable – is that the best antidote to reading is looking. . . . Forget blockbuster exhibitions: this is the way to see pictures."—Anita Brookner, The Spectator"An original and outstanding book. You might think [Clark] would not have enough to say. Or that if he had, it would be about himself or his reading. But he has more than enough, and none of it is indulgently subjective or interpretively pat. . . . Without jargon, Clark records what he notices, what questions remain hanging, what stirs his sympathy and imagination. … It does not give the end away to say he reaches few conclusions. His is an open-ended back-and-forth, almost an imaginary conversation with the painter. Tidy formulas would betray the spirit of his experiment. He writes as someone who finds it urgent to bring out and show off reticent objects of love, rather than as a connoisseur or teacher. . . . The Sight of Death [is] a powerful vindication of close looking on its own terms."—Edmund Fawcett, RA Magazine"Clark's book is either the most pretentious nonsense ever written or a work of genius. But which?...he surely is right to want to debunk the old myth that images reveal themselves in a single, highly charged moment. The Sight of Death is a sustained attack on what Clark calls the 'visual flow'. The more images that come at us - be they ads, or magazine covers, or reproductions of famous paintings - the more necessary it becomes 'to suggest what is involved in truly getting to know something by making a picture of it: to state the grounds for believing that some depictions are worth retuning to."—Rachel Cooke, The Observer"A revelatory exercise in art criticism."—Matthew Sweet, The Independent on Sunday

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Book Synopsis"A curator, a paintings conservator, a photographer, and a conservation scientist walk into a bar." What happens next? In lively and accessible prose, color science expert Roy S. Berns helps the reader understand complex color-technology concepts and offers solutions to problems that occur when art is displayed, conserved, imaged, or reproduced. Berns writes for two types of audiences: museum professionals seeking explanations for common color-related issues and students in conservation, museum studies, and art history programs. The seven chapters in the book fall naturally into two sections: fundamentals, covering topics such as spectral measurements, metamerism, or color inconstancy; and applications, where artwork display, painting materials, and color reproduction are discussed. A unique feature of this book is the use of more than 200 images as its main medium of communication, employing color physics, color vision, and imaging science to produce visualizations throughout the pages. An annotated bibliography complements the main text with suggestions for further reading and more in-depth study of particular topics. Engaging, incisive, and absolutely critical for any scholar or student interested in color science, Color Science and the Visual Arts is sure to become a key reference for the entire field.Trade Review"Berns delivers . . . by providing novel and clear explanations of how colour is perceived in and around an artwork. [This book] provides an excellent introduction for students of conservation or any field dealing with the presentation of art objects. It is also a valuable source for anyone wishing to review or update their understanding of (mostly) painted surfaces, their display and reproduction. The text is intended to be an accessible, go-to source and succeeds." --Art Libraries Journal "Bridging the gap between chemistry, mathematics, psychology, art conservation, art history, and the fine arts, Color Science and the Visual Arts provides an unparalleled look at the way these discipline intersect and how the science of color relates to the display, creation, and reproduction of works of art."--Art Libraries Society, North America

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Book SynopsisTraces the lineage of moving-image installation through architecture, painting, sculpture, performance, expanded cinema, film history, and countercultural film and videoTrade Review[A] wild ride of a book... Elwes has made an admirable assault on the field and I am sure this book will influence generations of students. Art Monthly Fascinating. Cinema TechnologyTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction 1. Architecture 2. Painting 3. Sculpture 4. Performance 5. Film History 6. Film as Film 7. Structural Film: Detractions and Revisions 8. The Dialectics of Spectatorship 9. Expanded Cinema 10. Sound 11. Video Installation 12. Closing Thoughts Bibliography Index

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