Search results for ""Author Horst Bredekamp""

To this day Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory of the "survival of the fittest" has been visualized with the universal model of a tree of life. But early on in Darwin’s thinking the coral provided a fascinating alternative to the tree as a depiction of the evolution of the species. Horst Bredekamp shows how Darwin, a coral enthusiast and collector, found in it a more adequate illustration of evolution through natural selection: It grows anarchically in all directions and no longer upholds mankind as the "crown of creation." Using this example Darwin is proving himself to be both a destroyer and consummator of traditional natural philosophy. Since antiquity the coral had been a symbol of nature as a whole.

Read more less

Das Buch steht im Zusammenhang des Versuches, die zentrale Rolle der Bilder für die Ausbildung der modernen Philosophie am Beispiel bedeutender Gestalten des siebzehnten Jahrhunderts zu rekonstruieren. Das Projekt begann mit der Erschließung der Staatstheorie aus der Bildpolitik des "Leviathan" von Thomas Hobbes. Mit Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz' Ideen, ein Theater der Natur und Kunst sowie einen Atlas der Einbildungskraft zu errichten, folgt nun die Rekonstruktion eines Projektes, das für das Verständnis seiner Philosophie von tiefgreifender Bedeutung sein könnte. Obwohl Leibniz diese Idee so hartnäckig und ausdauernd wie kaum ein anderes Unternehmen betrieben hat, ist sie in der Forschung bislang so gut wie unbekannt geblieben. Für diesen Umstand war die zersplitterte und unvollständige Überlieferung von Leibniz' Schriften ebenso verantwortlich wie ein mächtiger Strang der Philosophiegeschichte, der die Welt des Haptischen und Visuellen immer dann favorisiert, wenn sie transzendiert wird. Die jüngsten Bände der Akademie-Ausgabe bieten jedoch erstmals die Möglichkeit, Leibniz' Wertschätzung der tastenden und zeichnenden Hand und des neugierigen und geschulten Auges im Zusammenhang zu verfolgen. Seine schier unbegreiflich vielfältigen Denkbewegungen und Aktivitäten erhalten mit dem Projekt des Theaters der Natur und Kunst daher nicht nur eine Ergänzung, sondern einen neuen Rahmen. Leibniz' Faible für das Theatrum Naturae et Artis könnte das Gesamtbild seiner Philosophie verwandeln, weil es die Kluft zwischen Kalkül und Anschauung wie auch zwischen der "Fensterlosigkeit" der Monade und der körperlichen Form ihrer Perzeptionsweisen zugleich vertieft und überbrückt.

Read more less

Heavily represented sections of contemporary philosophy subscribe to the notion of "embodiment". However promising this pragmatic turn of events may be, it remains limited in that it interprets the world as a projection of the cognizing "I". By contrast, Image Acts focuses on the counterforce of the form of images. The book subdivides this sphere into three parts: imitation, substitution, and the pure effect of the form. All three parts are contemplated with examples from antiquity through to the present and the iconoclastic controversies of our times. From this reconstruction of the image act springs the element of a new philosophy of affordance.

Read more less

El presente libro es una obra de madurez, en la que su autor, uno de los más reputados historiadores del arte del panorama actual, sintetiza sus postulados en torno a una teoría de la imagen que es correlato de los Actos de habla de los filósofos del lenguaje. Como alternativa a una historia de las imágenes como fruto de la producción de los hombres de una época, objetivo tradicional de la Historia del arte y la Iconografía, Bredekamp busca explicar las imágenes en su condición de agentes históricos, como núcleo, más que consecuencia, de ciertas dinámicas sociales y ciertos modos de interpretación de la realidad. En este sentido, las imágenes son eficaces cuando actúan como catalizadoras de una cierta dinámica social, en la estela de otros ensayos fundamentales ya publicados en castellano, como los libros de David Freedberg, El poder de las imágenes, y Hans Belting, Antropología del arte. El eje vertebrador del libro es un análisis del poder de las imágenes para motivar la acción human

Read more less

Contemporary biographies of Galilei emphasize, in several places, that he was a masterful draughtsman. In fact, Galilei studied at the art academy, which is where his friendship with Ludovico Cigoli developed, who later became the official court artist. The book focuses on this formative effect – it tracks Galilei’s trust in the epistemological strength of drawings. It also looks at Galilei’s activities in the world of art and his reflections on art theory, ending with an appreciation of his fame; after all, he was revered as a rebirth of Michelangelo. For the first time, this publication collects all aspects of the appreciation of Galilei as an artist, contemplating his art not only as another facet of his activities, but as an essential element of his research.

Read more less

Horst Bredekamp’s subject is the astute deployment and perennial resonance of the startling image of the body politic that dominates the frontispiece to Leviathan: a treatise on the psychology of the individual and the dynamic of the multitude, published in 1651 by the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. Affirming the centrality of such a figural device for this pioneering theorist of the state, Bredekamp goes on to address the art-historical dimension of the mesmerising etched title-page. In his central chapters he explores the extraordinary range of sources – from socio-cultural tradition to scientific advances – on which the author and his artist-collaborator may have drawn. In conclusion, he reveals Hobbes to be no less passionate than shrewd in his belief that the constraints and amenities of a tolerable life in common attest to the potency of the visual. As appendices, two essays and catalogues explore the portraits made of Hobbes as well as illustrations that appeared in his other works, thus systematically completing the exploration of the images connected with this exceptional philosopher.

Read more less

Mouth, lips, tongue, and teeth—speech, pain, and screech—eating, swallowing, spouting off, and spitting—lust and passion: the oral cavity is an extremely stimulating zone of the body, in the truest sense of the word. Science and medicine are not the only fields that have investigated it, though. From antiquity to the present day, art and cultural history have done the same. The Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg has pursued the wide-ranging path of this motif’s history in order to present the first comprehensive show about the mouth in the fall of 2020. The companion publication offers thematically dense essays that not only allow the reader to delve into the topic, but also go far beyond the exhibition itself. The mouth, its inventory and abilities, are closely examined through film history, ethnology, literary theory, and architecture.

Read more less