Description
Book SynopsisFor 300 years, a unique and complex artistic puzzle has been hidden, the solution of which reveals an extraordinary critique of what can be described as the first modern media revolution. The mind behind this puzzle was a Dutch/British still-life painter named Edward Collier. Working around 1700, Collier has been neglected, even forgotten, precisely because his secret messages have never been noticed, let alone understood. Until now. In this book, Dror Wahrman recovers the tale of an extraordinary illusionist artist who engaged in a wholly original way with a major transformation of his generation: an unprecedented explosion in cheap print - newspapers, pamphlets, informational publications, artistic prints - that was produced for immediate release and far-flung circulation faster and in larger quantities that ever before. Edward Collier developed a secret language within his still-life paintings - replete with minutely coded messages, witty games, intricate allusions, and private joke
Trade ReviewWahrman guides the reader through the details of the evidence as he finds it on dozens of canvases and, where possible, in Dutch archives with such a sure hand that most readers will not feel that a better story is possible.... * Journal of Modern History *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Puzzles ; Chapter 1: Print 2.0 c. 1700: A New Media Regime ; Chapter 2: Life Not Still ; Chapter 3: The Nature of Print ; Chapter 4: Marking Time ; Chapter 5: Monarchy in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction ; Chapter 6: Eye Con ; Chapter 7: A Man with an Impossible Temper ; Chapter 8: Tom, Dick, and Henry ; Chapter 9: The Collier Club? ; Chapter 10: Death of the Author? ; Chapter 11: Which Revolution? Or the Memory of Mr. Lory ; Chapter 12: A Signature Gone Wild ; Epilogue ; Notes ; Acknowledgments ; Index
