The Pensive Image

The Pensive Image

Author: Hanneke Grootenboer

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2021-02-16

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 022671800X

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Grootenboer considers painting as a form of thinking in itself, rather than a subject of philosophical and interpretive thought. While the philosophical dimension of painting has long been discussed, a clear case for painting as a form of visual thinking has yet to be made. Traditionally, vanitas still life paintings are considered to raise ontological issues while landscapes direct the mind toward introspection. Grootenboer moves beyond these considerations to focus on what remains unspoken in painting, the implicit and inexpressible that manifests in a quality she calls pensiveness. Different from self-aware or actively desiring images, pensive images are speculative, pointing beyond interpretation. An alternative pictorial category, pensive images stir us away from interpretation and toward a state of suspension where thinking through and with the image can start. In fluid prose, Grootenboer explores various modalities of visual thinking— as the location where thought should be found, as a refuge enabling reflection, and as an encounter that provokes thought. Through these considerations, she demonstrates that artworks serve as models for thought as much as they act as instruments through which thinking can take place. Starting from the premise that painting is itself a type of thinking, The Pensive Image argues that art is capable of forming thoughts and shaping concepts in visual terms.


Book Synopsis The Pensive Image by : Hanneke Grootenboer

Download or read book The Pensive Image written by Hanneke Grootenboer and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-02-16 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grootenboer considers painting as a form of thinking in itself, rather than a subject of philosophical and interpretive thought. While the philosophical dimension of painting has long been discussed, a clear case for painting as a form of visual thinking has yet to be made. Traditionally, vanitas still life paintings are considered to raise ontological issues while landscapes direct the mind toward introspection. Grootenboer moves beyond these considerations to focus on what remains unspoken in painting, the implicit and inexpressible that manifests in a quality she calls pensiveness. Different from self-aware or actively desiring images, pensive images are speculative, pointing beyond interpretation. An alternative pictorial category, pensive images stir us away from interpretation and toward a state of suspension where thinking through and with the image can start. In fluid prose, Grootenboer explores various modalities of visual thinking— as the location where thought should be found, as a refuge enabling reflection, and as an encounter that provokes thought. Through these considerations, she demonstrates that artworks serve as models for thought as much as they act as instruments through which thinking can take place. Starting from the premise that painting is itself a type of thinking, The Pensive Image argues that art is capable of forming thoughts and shaping concepts in visual terms.

Arcimboldo

Arcimboldo

Author: Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2010-05-15

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0226426882

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In Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s most famous paintings, grapes, fish, and even the beaks of birds form human hair. A pear stands in for a man’s chin. Citrus fruits sprout from a tree trunk that doubles as a neck. All sorts of natural phenomena come together on canvas and panel to assemble the strange heads and faces that constitute one of Renaissance art’s most striking oeuvres. The first major study in a generation of the artist behind these remarkable paintings, Arcimboldo tells the singular story of their creation. Drawing on his thirty-five-year engagement with the artist, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann begins with an overview of Arcimboldo’s life and work, exploring the artist’s early years in sixteenth-century Lombardy, his grounding in Leonardesque traditions, and his tenure as a Habsburg court portraitist in Vienna and Prague. Arcimboldo then trains its focus on the celebrated composite heads, approaching them as visual jokes with serious underpinnings—images that poetically display pictorial wit while conveying an allegorical message. In addition to probing the humanistic, literary, and philosophical dimensions of these pieces, Kaufmann explains that they embody their creator’s continuous engagement with nature painting and natural history. He reveals, in fact, that Arcimboldo painted many more nature studies than scholars have realized—a finding that significantly deepens current interpretations of the composite heads. Demonstrating the previously overlooked importance of these works to natural history and still-life painting, Arcimboldo finally restores the artist’s fantastic visual jokes to their rightful place in the history of both science and art.


Book Synopsis Arcimboldo by : Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann

Download or read book Arcimboldo written by Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-05-15 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s most famous paintings, grapes, fish, and even the beaks of birds form human hair. A pear stands in for a man’s chin. Citrus fruits sprout from a tree trunk that doubles as a neck. All sorts of natural phenomena come together on canvas and panel to assemble the strange heads and faces that constitute one of Renaissance art’s most striking oeuvres. The first major study in a generation of the artist behind these remarkable paintings, Arcimboldo tells the singular story of their creation. Drawing on his thirty-five-year engagement with the artist, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann begins with an overview of Arcimboldo’s life and work, exploring the artist’s early years in sixteenth-century Lombardy, his grounding in Leonardesque traditions, and his tenure as a Habsburg court portraitist in Vienna and Prague. Arcimboldo then trains its focus on the celebrated composite heads, approaching them as visual jokes with serious underpinnings—images that poetically display pictorial wit while conveying an allegorical message. In addition to probing the humanistic, literary, and philosophical dimensions of these pieces, Kaufmann explains that they embody their creator’s continuous engagement with nature painting and natural history. He reveals, in fact, that Arcimboldo painted many more nature studies than scholars have realized—a finding that significantly deepens current interpretations of the composite heads. Demonstrating the previously overlooked importance of these works to natural history and still-life painting, Arcimboldo finally restores the artist’s fantastic visual jokes to their rightful place in the history of both science and art.

Pictures of Nothing

Pictures of Nothing

Author: Kirk Varnedoe

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2023-10-17

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 0691252963

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An illuminating exploration of the meaning of abstract art by acclaimed art historian Kirk Varnedoe "What is abstract art good for? What's the use—for us as individuals, or for any society—of pictures of nothing, of paintings and sculptures or prints or drawings that do not seem to show anything except themselves?" In this invigorating account of abstract art since Jackson Pollock, eminent art historian Kirk Varnedoe, the former chief curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, asks these and other questions as he frankly confronts the uncertainties we may have about the nonrepresentational art produced in the past five decades. He makes a compelling argument for its history and value, much as E. H. Gombrich tackled representation fifty years ago in Art and Illusion, another landmark A. W. Mellon Lectures volume. Realizing that these lectures might be his final work, Varnedoe conceived of them as a statement of his faith in modern art and as the culminating example of his lucidly pragmatic and philosophical approach to art history. He delivered the lectures, edited and reproduced here with their illustrations, to overflowing crowds at the National Gallery of Art in Washington in the spring of 2003, just months before his death. With brilliance, passion, and humor, Varnedoe addresses the skeptical attitudes and misunderstandings that we often bring to our experience of abstract art. Resisting grand generalizations, he makes a deliberate and scholarly case for abstraction—showing us that more than just pure looking is necessary to understand the self-made symbolic language of abstract art. Proceeding decade by decade, he brings alive the history and biography that inform the art while also challenging the received wisdom about distinctions between abstraction and representation, modernism and postmodernism, and minimalism and pop. The result is a fascinating and ultimately moving tour through a half century of abstract art, concluding with an unforgettable description of one of Varnedoe's favorite works. Please note: All images in this ebook are presented in black and white and have been reduced in size.


Book Synopsis Pictures of Nothing by : Kirk Varnedoe

Download or read book Pictures of Nothing written by Kirk Varnedoe and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-10-17 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illuminating exploration of the meaning of abstract art by acclaimed art historian Kirk Varnedoe "What is abstract art good for? What's the use—for us as individuals, or for any society—of pictures of nothing, of paintings and sculptures or prints or drawings that do not seem to show anything except themselves?" In this invigorating account of abstract art since Jackson Pollock, eminent art historian Kirk Varnedoe, the former chief curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, asks these and other questions as he frankly confronts the uncertainties we may have about the nonrepresentational art produced in the past five decades. He makes a compelling argument for its history and value, much as E. H. Gombrich tackled representation fifty years ago in Art and Illusion, another landmark A. W. Mellon Lectures volume. Realizing that these lectures might be his final work, Varnedoe conceived of them as a statement of his faith in modern art and as the culminating example of his lucidly pragmatic and philosophical approach to art history. He delivered the lectures, edited and reproduced here with their illustrations, to overflowing crowds at the National Gallery of Art in Washington in the spring of 2003, just months before his death. With brilliance, passion, and humor, Varnedoe addresses the skeptical attitudes and misunderstandings that we often bring to our experience of abstract art. Resisting grand generalizations, he makes a deliberate and scholarly case for abstraction—showing us that more than just pure looking is necessary to understand the self-made symbolic language of abstract art. Proceeding decade by decade, he brings alive the history and biography that inform the art while also challenging the received wisdom about distinctions between abstraction and representation, modernism and postmodernism, and minimalism and pop. The result is a fascinating and ultimately moving tour through a half century of abstract art, concluding with an unforgettable description of one of Varnedoe's favorite works. Please note: All images in this ebook are presented in black and white and have been reduced in size.

The Phantom Image

The Phantom Image

Author: Patrick R. Crowley

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2019-12-10

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 022664829X

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Drawing from a rich corpus of art works, including sarcophagi, tomb paintings, and floor mosaics, Patrick R. Crowley investigates how something as insubstantial as a ghost could be made visible through the material grit of stone and paint. In this fresh and wide-ranging study, he uses the figure of the ghost to offer a new understanding of the status of the image in Roman art and visual culture. Tracing the shifting practices and debates in antiquity about the nature of vision and representation, Crowley shows how images of ghosts make visible structures of beholding and strategies of depiction. Yet the figure of the ghost simultaneously contributes to a broader conceptual history that accounts for how modalities of belief emerged and developed in antiquity. Neither illustrations of ancient beliefs in ghosts nor depictions of afterlife, these images show us something about the visual event of seeing itself. The Phantom Image offers essential insight into ancient art, visual culture, and the history of the image.


Book Synopsis The Phantom Image by : Patrick R. Crowley

Download or read book The Phantom Image written by Patrick R. Crowley and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-12-10 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing from a rich corpus of art works, including sarcophagi, tomb paintings, and floor mosaics, Patrick R. Crowley investigates how something as insubstantial as a ghost could be made visible through the material grit of stone and paint. In this fresh and wide-ranging study, he uses the figure of the ghost to offer a new understanding of the status of the image in Roman art and visual culture. Tracing the shifting practices and debates in antiquity about the nature of vision and representation, Crowley shows how images of ghosts make visible structures of beholding and strategies of depiction. Yet the figure of the ghost simultaneously contributes to a broader conceptual history that accounts for how modalities of belief emerged and developed in antiquity. Neither illustrations of ancient beliefs in ghosts nor depictions of afterlife, these images show us something about the visual event of seeing itself. The Phantom Image offers essential insight into ancient art, visual culture, and the history of the image.

Ribbon of Darkness

Ribbon of Darkness

Author: Barbara Maria Stafford

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2019-06-18

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 022663051X

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Over the course of her career, Barbara Stafford has established herself the preeminent scholar of the intersections of the arts and sciences, articulating new theories and methods for understanding the sublime, the mysterious, the inscrutable. Omnivorous in her research, she has published work that embraces neuroscience and philosophy, biology and culture, pinpointing connections among each discipline’s parallel concerns. Ribbon of Darkness is a monument to the scope of her work and the range of her intellect. At times associative, but always incisive, the essays in this new volume take on a distinctly contemporary purpose: to uncover the ethical force and moral aspects of overlapping scientific and creative inquiries. This shared territory, Stafford argues, offers important insights into—and clarifications of—current dilemmas about personhood, the supposedly menial nature of manual skill, the questionable borderlands of gene editing, the potentially refining value of dualism, and the limits of a materialist worldview. Stafford organizes these essays around three concepts that structure the book: inscrutability, ineffability, and intuitability. All three, she explains, allow us to examine how both the arts and the sciences imaginatively infer meaning from the “veiled behavior of matter,” bringing these historically divided subjects into a shared intellectual inquiry and imbuing them with an ethical urgency. A vanguard work at the intersection of the arts and sciences, this book will be sure to guide readers from either realm into unfamiliar yet undeniably fertile territory.


Book Synopsis Ribbon of Darkness by : Barbara Maria Stafford

Download or read book Ribbon of Darkness written by Barbara Maria Stafford and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-06-18 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the course of her career, Barbara Stafford has established herself the preeminent scholar of the intersections of the arts and sciences, articulating new theories and methods for understanding the sublime, the mysterious, the inscrutable. Omnivorous in her research, she has published work that embraces neuroscience and philosophy, biology and culture, pinpointing connections among each discipline’s parallel concerns. Ribbon of Darkness is a monument to the scope of her work and the range of her intellect. At times associative, but always incisive, the essays in this new volume take on a distinctly contemporary purpose: to uncover the ethical force and moral aspects of overlapping scientific and creative inquiries. This shared territory, Stafford argues, offers important insights into—and clarifications of—current dilemmas about personhood, the supposedly menial nature of manual skill, the questionable borderlands of gene editing, the potentially refining value of dualism, and the limits of a materialist worldview. Stafford organizes these essays around three concepts that structure the book: inscrutability, ineffability, and intuitability. All three, she explains, allow us to examine how both the arts and the sciences imaginatively infer meaning from the “veiled behavior of matter,” bringing these historically divided subjects into a shared intellectual inquiry and imbuing them with an ethical urgency. A vanguard work at the intersection of the arts and sciences, this book will be sure to guide readers from either realm into unfamiliar yet undeniably fertile territory.

Sandro Botticelli

Sandro Botticelli

Author: Julia Cartwright

Publisher:

Published: 1920

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13:

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Book Synopsis Sandro Botticelli by : Julia Cartwright

Download or read book Sandro Botticelli written by Julia Cartwright and published by . This book was released on 1920 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Still Life

Still Life

Author: Norbert Schneider

Publisher: Taschen

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 9783822820810

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How do the objects in a still life reflect the customs, ideas and aspirations of the time? This is one of the questions which Schneider asks in this book. Still lifes chart the history of scientific discoveries and their acceptance as well as the gradual replacement of the mediaeval concept of the world.


Book Synopsis Still Life by : Norbert Schneider

Download or read book Still Life written by Norbert Schneider and published by Taschen. This book was released on 2003 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do the objects in a still life reflect the customs, ideas and aspirations of the time? This is one of the questions which Schneider asks in this book. Still lifes chart the history of scientific discoveries and their acceptance as well as the gradual replacement of the mediaeval concept of the world.

The Rhetoric of Perspective

The Rhetoric of Perspective

Author: Hanneke Grootenboer

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2006-12-31

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 0226309703

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Perspective determines how we, as viewers, perceive painting. We can convince ourselves that a painting of a bowl of fruit or a man in a room appears to be real by the way these objects are rendered. Likewise, the trick of perspective can prevent us from being absorbed in a scene. Connecting contemporary critical theory with close readings of seventeenth-century Dutch visual culture, The Rhetoric of Perspective puts forth the claim that painting is a form of thinking and that perspective functions as the language of the image. Aided by a stunning full-color gallery, Hanneke Grootenboer proposes a new theory of perspective based on the phenomenological aspects of non-narrative still-life, trompe l'oeil, and anamorphic imagery. Drawing on playful and mesmerizing baroque images, Grootenboer characterizes what she calls their "sophisticated deceit," asserting that painting is more about visual representation than about its supposed objects. Offering an original theory of perspective's impact on pictorial representation, the act of looking, and the understanding of truth in painting, Grootenboer shows how these paintings both question the status of representation and explore the limits and credibility of perception. “An elegant and honourable synthesis.”—Keith Miller, Times Literary Supplement


Book Synopsis The Rhetoric of Perspective by : Hanneke Grootenboer

Download or read book The Rhetoric of Perspective written by Hanneke Grootenboer and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2006-12-31 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perspective determines how we, as viewers, perceive painting. We can convince ourselves that a painting of a bowl of fruit or a man in a room appears to be real by the way these objects are rendered. Likewise, the trick of perspective can prevent us from being absorbed in a scene. Connecting contemporary critical theory with close readings of seventeenth-century Dutch visual culture, The Rhetoric of Perspective puts forth the claim that painting is a form of thinking and that perspective functions as the language of the image. Aided by a stunning full-color gallery, Hanneke Grootenboer proposes a new theory of perspective based on the phenomenological aspects of non-narrative still-life, trompe l'oeil, and anamorphic imagery. Drawing on playful and mesmerizing baroque images, Grootenboer characterizes what she calls their "sophisticated deceit," asserting that painting is more about visual representation than about its supposed objects. Offering an original theory of perspective's impact on pictorial representation, the act of looking, and the understanding of truth in painting, Grootenboer shows how these paintings both question the status of representation and explore the limits and credibility of perception. “An elegant and honourable synthesis.”—Keith Miller, Times Literary Supplement

Photography: The Art of Deception

Photography: The Art of Deception

Author:

Publisher: Amherst Media

Published: 2016-10-17

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 1682030946

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Photography is a lie. Just think about it: photographers create two-dimensional images that sometimes even lack color and then expect everyone who views the image to believe that this is how the subject and scene appeared in front of the lens, in real life. What is truly amazing is that people fall for the visual trickery readily, almost as if they want to be deceived. It gets better: people still believe that one can photograph only what is really there. In this book, Irakly Shanidze reveals the smoke and mirrors that the best photographers use to surprise, entertain, and inspire viewers. He explains that the individual features of photographer’s perception and technical limitations of his equipment make him do things that may eventually make a picture look very different from how a viewer would see the same scene with a naked eye and can lead to a ruined picture. Conversely, photographers who understand these phenomena can use the aforementioned “constraints” to deliberately adjust the level of truthfulness in their pictures. In each beautifully illustrated chapter, Shanidze discloses the photographic tools that enterprising photographers can use to create visual deception (e.g., to create a sense of dimension, create day-for-night effects, establish mood, simulate candid photographs, and generally suspend disbelief—without the time-consuming post-processing!). In doing so, he describes the image objectives (in other words, defines the image concepts) and introduces the tools needed to achieve them—whether a lens of a certain focal length, a light of a specific wattage, or a given shutter speed. He also deconstructs some of his favorite images to show readers how he was able to create a chiseled deception of his own. Armed with this book, photographers will learn to truly take the reins in their photographic pursuits and deliver supercharged, iconic, storytelling images.


Book Synopsis Photography: The Art of Deception by :

Download or read book Photography: The Art of Deception written by and published by Amherst Media. This book was released on 2016-10-17 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Photography is a lie. Just think about it: photographers create two-dimensional images that sometimes even lack color and then expect everyone who views the image to believe that this is how the subject and scene appeared in front of the lens, in real life. What is truly amazing is that people fall for the visual trickery readily, almost as if they want to be deceived. It gets better: people still believe that one can photograph only what is really there. In this book, Irakly Shanidze reveals the smoke and mirrors that the best photographers use to surprise, entertain, and inspire viewers. He explains that the individual features of photographer’s perception and technical limitations of his equipment make him do things that may eventually make a picture look very different from how a viewer would see the same scene with a naked eye and can lead to a ruined picture. Conversely, photographers who understand these phenomena can use the aforementioned “constraints” to deliberately adjust the level of truthfulness in their pictures. In each beautifully illustrated chapter, Shanidze discloses the photographic tools that enterprising photographers can use to create visual deception (e.g., to create a sense of dimension, create day-for-night effects, establish mood, simulate candid photographs, and generally suspend disbelief—without the time-consuming post-processing!). In doing so, he describes the image objectives (in other words, defines the image concepts) and introduces the tools needed to achieve them—whether a lens of a certain focal length, a light of a specific wattage, or a given shutter speed. He also deconstructs some of his favorite images to show readers how he was able to create a chiseled deception of his own. Armed with this book, photographers will learn to truly take the reins in their photographic pursuits and deliver supercharged, iconic, storytelling images.

1971

1971

Author: Darby English

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2016-12-20

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 022627473X

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In this book, art historian Darby English explores the year 1971, when two exhibitions opened that brought modernist painting and sculpture into the burning heart of United States cultural politics: Contemporary Black Artists in America, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and The DeLuxe Show, a racially integrated abstract art exhibition presented in a renovated movie theater in a Houston ghetto. 1971: A Year in the Life of Color looks at many black artists’ desire to gain freedom from overt racial representation, as well as their efforts—and those of their advocates—to further that aim through public exhibition. Amid calls to define a “black aesthetic,” these experiments with modernist art prioritized cultural interaction and instability. Contemporary Black Artists in America highlighted abstraction as a stance against normative approaches, while The DeLuxe Show positioned abstraction in a center of urban blight. The importance of these experiments, English argues, came partly from color’s special status as a cultural symbol and partly from investigations of color already under way in late modern art and criticism. With their supporters, black modernists—among them Peter Bradley, Frederick Eversley, Alvin Loving, Raymond Saunders, and Alma Thomas—rose above the demand to represent or be represented, compromising nothing in their appeals for interracial collaboration and, above all, responding with optimism rather than cynicism to the surrounding culture’s preoccupation with color.


Book Synopsis 1971 by : Darby English

Download or read book 1971 written by Darby English and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-12-20 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, art historian Darby English explores the year 1971, when two exhibitions opened that brought modernist painting and sculpture into the burning heart of United States cultural politics: Contemporary Black Artists in America, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and The DeLuxe Show, a racially integrated abstract art exhibition presented in a renovated movie theater in a Houston ghetto. 1971: A Year in the Life of Color looks at many black artists’ desire to gain freedom from overt racial representation, as well as their efforts—and those of their advocates—to further that aim through public exhibition. Amid calls to define a “black aesthetic,” these experiments with modernist art prioritized cultural interaction and instability. Contemporary Black Artists in America highlighted abstraction as a stance against normative approaches, while The DeLuxe Show positioned abstraction in a center of urban blight. The importance of these experiments, English argues, came partly from color’s special status as a cultural symbol and partly from investigations of color already under way in late modern art and criticism. With their supporters, black modernists—among them Peter Bradley, Frederick Eversley, Alvin Loving, Raymond Saunders, and Alma Thomas—rose above the demand to represent or be represented, compromising nothing in their appeals for interracial collaboration and, above all, responding with optimism rather than cynicism to the surrounding culture’s preoccupation with color.