Search results for ""Author Steve Edwards""

Since the production of the first negative by William Henry Fox Talbot in Wiltshire’s Lacock Abbey in 1835, English photography has played a central role in revolutionizing the production of images, yet it has largely evaded critical attention. The Making of English Photography investigates this new enterprise—and specifically how professional photographers shaped a strange aesthetic for their practice. The Making of English Photography examines the development of English photography as an industrial, commercial, and (most problematically) artistic enterprise. Concentrating on the first decades of photography’s history, Edwards tracks the pivotal distinction between art and document as it emerged in the writings of the “men of science” and professional photographers, suggesting that this key opposition is rooted in social fantasies of the worker. Through a close reading of the photographic press in the 1860s, he both reconstructs the ideological world of photographers and employs the unstable category of photography to cast light on art, class, and industrial knowledge. Bringing together an array of early photographs, recent historical and theoretical scholarship, and extensive archival sources, The Making of English Photography sheds new light on the prevailing discourses of photography as well as the antinomies of art and work in a world shaped by social division.

Read more less

Photographs are an integral part of our daily lives from sensationalist images in tabloid papers and snapshots, to art photograpy displayed in galleries and sold through international art markets. In this thought-provoking exploration of the subject, Edwards combines a sense of the historical development of photography with an analysis of its purpose and meaning within a wider cultural context. He interrogates the way we look and think about photographs, and considers such issues as truth and recording, objectivity and fine art, identity and memory. 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.

Read more less

From the travails of art critical language in the late eighteenth century to the upheaval of the Paris Commune of 1871, from neo-classical art criticism to the Paris Commune of 1871, from Bizet's Carmen and Edith Piaf's song to the culture of gay cruising, this collection of Rifkin's essays map a work beyond any one discipline.

Read more less

This is the third of three text books, published in association with the Open University, which offer an innovatory exploration of art and visual culture. Through carefully chosen themes and topics rather than through a general survey, the volumes approach the process of looking at works of art in terms of their audiences, functions and cross-cultural contexts. While focused on painting, sculpture and architecture, it also explores a wide range of visual culture in a variety of media and methods. "1850-2010: Modernity to Globalisation" includes essays which engage directly with topical issues around art and gender, globalisation, cultural difference and curating, as well as explorations of key canonical artists and movements and of some less well-documented work of contemporary artists.

Read more less