Description
Book SynopsisIn a series of discussions of major themes and genres, Graham Clarke gives a clear and incisive account of the photograph's historical development, and elucidates the insights of the most interesting thinkers on the subject such as Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag.
Trade ReviewA readable text discusses the way in which we see and interpret photographs. * The Bookseller *
Fully and often surprisingly illustrated, carefully annotated and captioned, each combines a historical overview with a nicely opinionated individual approach. * Independent on Sunday *
Read this book and you will never look at a photograph in the same way again. * House & Garden *
concise yet comprehensive, and wonderful value * The Irish Times (Dublin) *
An engaging, image-studded survey... Clarke is particularly good at playing two images off against one another to emphasise the cultural assumptions underlying each... Clarke raises fascinating questions about how the portrait seeks to encode social identity. In his representation of landscape, he deftly covers both the picturesque tradition and its opposite, the scientific orientation that viewed photography as a means of mapping and administering land. * V. Penelope Pelizzon, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Vol.40 No.2 *
Clarke does an admirable job of condensing theoretical debates concerning the reading of images * Yorkshire Post (Leeds) *
An important part of the Oxford History of Art series ... It's an enormous subject, but it's tackled in a tremendously accessible manner. A must for anyone interested in taking seriously good pictures. * Swansea South Wales Evening Post *
a superb piece of publishing * Rupert Christiansen, Spectator *
