Average customer rating:
|
Visual Culture and the German Middle Ages (The New Middle Ages)
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 European
| Regional
| History & Criticism
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
Communications
| Skills
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Medieval
| World
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Germany
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
| Classics
| Comic
| Contemporary
| Literary
General
| Criticism & Theory
| History & Criticism
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Movements & Periods
| History & Criticism
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
| Arthurian Romance
| Beat Generation
| General
| Gothic Revival
| Medieval
| Modernism
| Postmodernism
| Renaissance
| Romanticism
| Surrealism
| Victorian
Medieval
| Classics
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Culture
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Fiction Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Look Inside Nonfiction Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
ASIN: 1403964440
Release Date: 2005-04-28 |
Book Description
This multidisciplinary collection of essays draws on various theoretical approaches to explore the highly visual nature of the Middle Ages and expose new facets of old texts and artifacts. The term "visual culture" has been used in recent years to refer to modern media theory, film, modern art and other contemporary representational forms and functions. But this interest in visuality is not only a modern phenomenon. Discourses on visual processes pervade the works of medieval theologians, scholastics, and secular poets alike. The Middle Ages was a highly visual period in which images, objects, and performance played a dominant communicative and representative role in both secular and religious areas of society. The essays in this volume, which present various perspectives on medieval visual culture, provide a critical historical basis for the study of visuality and visual processes.
Book Description
Artwork by John Updike.
Customer Reviews:
A Delightful and Beautiful Book.......2007-07-22
In the 23 essays in JUST LOOKING: ESSAYS ON ART, John Updike is a delightful guide and insightful companion as he reviews art across the centuries. Throughout, Updike's voice is totally engaging, informed but never pedantic, respectful but not reverential. Here is a sample:
o "From his art, we might imagine him [Renoir] a plump, rosy, placid man, but in fact, he was bony-faced, nervous, reactionary, and restless."
o "This painting of Wertheimer tells us what we have been missing in even the more admirable of Sargent's portraits: an at-ease emotional possession of the subject that enables him to concentrate on making a painting. Where no warming familiarity exists, a certain distancing finesse takes over."
o "In 1944, Robert Motherwell wrote of his friend Jackson Pollock, `His principal problem is to discover what his true subject is. And since painting is his thought's medium, the resolution must grow out of the process of his painting itself.' Three years later, in sudden full stride, Pollock could state, `When I am in my painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing.' Pollock painting is the subject of Pollock's paintings."
o "[Modigliani] ...drank while he painted and liked to complete a canvas in one sitting."
o "As his eyes increasingly dimmed, Degas perforce experimented with roughness of execution, never losing his underlying integrity of drawing."
o "Faces gave [Fairfield] Porter a lot of trouble and his paint thickens as he worries over them."
JUST LOOKING: ESSAYS ON ART is also beautiful book with great reproductions. These tie seamlessly to Updike's commentary and enable the reader to fully appreciate his wonderful insights.
If you can't get to your local museum to visit the Vermeers (thank you, New York), this book is a superb alternative.
A Fine Art Critic Too!.......2000-08-06
Painting is to Updike what music was to Anthony Burgess: not so much a second love as a parallel infatuation. One always knew it from his prose: from the references to painters and painterly styles, and from the conspicuously visual quality of his description. It is good, then, to have this collection of the writer's thoughts on selected artists and art-works. He is neither too academic nor too personal in his opinions, and speaks with authority but without jargon. Of the longer essays, 'Something Missing' struck me as particularly good - a tentative, penetrating, careful pondering about what it is in John Singer Sargent's work that misses the mark of great art. The shorter pieces offer bite-sized reflections on single paintings or objects: 'Some Rectangles of Blue' discusses an abstract work by Richard Diebenkorn in such a way that one not only feels enlightened about the particular work but about abstract painting generally. As a critic, Updike has a refreshing freedom from academic orthodoxy - 'We are on the verge here of poster art', he reflects on some of Renoir - and as a (verbal) artist himself has licence to entertain as well as instruct with his prose. The book is lavishly illustrated with uncompromising colour reproductions and, of all his books, the most pleasant simply to hold in the hands.
Book Description
From the Gibson Girl to the flapper, from the vamp to the New Woman, Carolyn Kitch traces mass media images of women to their historical roots on magazine covers, unveiling the origins of gender stereotypes in early-twentieth-century American culture.
Kitch examines the years from 1895 to 1930 as a time when the first wave of feminism intersected with the rise of new technologies and media for the reproduction and dissemination of visual images. Access to suffrage, higher education, the professions, and contraception broadened women's opportunities, but the images found on magazine covers emphasized the role of women as consumers: suffrage was reduced to spending, sexuality to sexiness, and a collective women's movement to individual choices of personal style. In the 1920s, Kitch argues, the political prominence of the New Woman dissipated, but her visual image pervaded print media.
With seventy-five photographs of cover art by the era's most popular illustrators, The Girl on the Magazine Cover shows how these images created a visual vocabulary for understanding femininity and masculinity, as well as class status. Through this iconic process, magazines helped set cultural norms for women, for men, and for what it meant to be an American, Kitch contends.
Customer Reviews:
Women in the Media: A Brief Account.......2005-04-08
America is more than familiar with the stereotypical blonde bombshells that grace the covers of magazines, television programs, movies, and advertisements. In Carolyn Kitch's book she is able to outline the origins of how stereotypical images came about. Her extensive background in the media along with the use of actual magazine illustrations allows her to present her arguments in a way that anyone with an interest in women's history in the media can understand.
Kitch's book maintains the reader's interest by citing specific examples, providing information about the time period, and providing illustrations. Keeping a loosely chronological form allows the book to flow, but the ideas of the time period are more important to Kitch than keeping a pattern. She breaks at appropriate points to discuss alternate visions that challenged and reinforced stereotypes in the media.
While Kitch's book is effective, it is not extensive. Its sheer size just doesn't allow Kitch to get as in depth as she could. She promises so much in the introduction, but isn't able to deliver all that she promises.
The books briefness keeps it from being extensive, but it is still able to provide me with a more organized knowledge of how stereotypes of women in the media such as the ever-popular blonde bombshell came about.
Great reading and great images.......2005-03-25
I found this book to contain great ideas and images about the changes in masculinity and femininity as portrayed in the American media. My students enjoyed the ideas in class discussions as well.
Tracing women's lives & representations: a fascinating read!.......2002-04-13
As the saying goes, "Beauty is not skin deep." Of course, that doesn't matter to the American media; it would seem that in their opinion, there's no place in our society for anyone whose beauty is not evident on the surface. Moreover, the standards of beauty on television and in the print media set the bar quite high. A pretty face won't do; to be a superstar, you need to bare lots of skin, like Britney.
Thinking back to Victorian-era prudishness, when a girl's *ankles* couldn't be exposed and when a woman's place was in the home, it's hard to imagine how our culture got to this point. How did we women get to where we are today? And what relationships, if any, are there between the way we live life and the media images surrounding us?
To learn the answers to these questions and more, read "The Girl on the Magazine Cover." Kitch, a journalist and historian, presents a compelling case for women's journey from "matronly" to "dangerous but beautiful" to "cute, skinny, and sexually free." Her focus is on 1895 through 1930, a period of some of the most rapid changes in our history, when technology, early feminism, and higher education intersected. Kitch argues that one result of their intersection was the "new woman," whose liberation was quickly co-opted by the forces of capitalism and consumerism into little more than a marketing tool. (Progress, indeed!)
Note that Kitch's focus is broader than the title would imply: She devotes one chapter to depictions of African-American women, another to the crisis of masculinity faced by men in this era of change, and still another to families. Her epilogue is quite strong, drawing connections between the depictions of women in early magazines to the depictions of women on television today.
In sum, "The Girl on the Magazine Cover" is an evocative, compelling contribution to the fields of mass communication and women's studies. Kitch's arguments are sound, backed with extensive research and illustrated by well-chosen reproductions of period magazine artwork. If the media, women's rights, and/or stereotyping are of interest, then this is the book for you!
Womens images on magazine covers - more than surface meaning.......2002-02-20
After obtaining some old women's magazines from the 1900's, I wanted to learn more about drawings of women which graced these magazine covers. I also wanted to understand why illustrations were used far more often than photos, even after photos were used for the ads within the magazines themselves.
This book was just what I needed to understand not only what the illustrators were trying to say about women's roles at the time but about how so many of these images and stereotypes of the "ideal" woman still permeate our magazines (and culture) today. If you've ever doubted that "what goes around comes around again" when it comes to women's stereotypes and ideals, reading this book may change your mind.
For those familiar with such icons of The Golden Age of Illustration as C. Coles Phillips's Fadeaway Girls or the rather sophisticated women of J. C. Leyendecker or any other artists of the time, this book will be a delight, revealing new insights about the artists visions. For those interested in social history, the book is equally engaging, showing how artist who drew cover girls for popular magazines such as Life, Saturday Evening Post and Good Housekeeping also worked for major businesses and even the government, helping to perpetuate the popular images of women throughout the culture.
Book Description
Sight and Spirituality in Early Netherlandish Painting examines the importance of vision as a narrative and thematic concern in works by artists such as Jan van Eyck, Petrus Christus, and Roger van der Weyden. Bret Rothstein argues that their paintings invited the viewer to demonstrate a variety of mental skills. Depicting religious visual experience, these works alluded to the imperceptibility of the divine and implicated the viewer’s own experience as part of a larger spiritual and intellectual process. Rothstein demonstrates how and why the act of seeing became a highly valued skill, one to be refined and displayed, as well as a source of competition among both artists and patrons.
Average customer rating:
- Future Thinking
- Insightful look into future of communication
- Powerful insight
- Interesting, but left wanting more
- Ahead of his time
|
The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word
Mitchell Stephens
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Television
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
History & Criticism
| Television
| Entertainment
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Social Situations
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Media Studies
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Literacy
| Education
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Foreign Languages
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Performing Arts
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Reference Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Arts & Photography
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Entertainment
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Nonfiction
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Reference
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Digital Storytellers: The Art of Communicating the Gospel in Worship
-
Visual Literacy": Image
-
Handbook of Visual Analysis
-
Design Matters: Creating Powerful Imagery for Worship
-
The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe
ASIN: 0195098293 |
Book Description
For decades educators and cultural critics have deplored the corrosive effects of electronic media on the national consciousness. The average American reads less often, writes less well. And, numbed by the frenetic image-bombardment of music videos, commercials and sound bites, we may also, it is argued, think less profoundly. But wait. Is it just possible that some good might arise from the ashes of the printed word? Most emphatically yes, argues Mitchell Stephens, who asserts that the moving image is likely to make our thoughts not more feeble but more robust. Through a fascinating overview of previous communications revolutions, Stephens demonstrates that the charges that have been leveled against television have been faced by most new media, including writing and print. Centuries elapsed before most of these new forms of communication would be used to produce works of art and intellect of sufficient stature to overcome this inevitable mistrust and nostalgia. Using examples taken from the history of photography and film, as well as MTV, experimental films, and Pepsi commercials, the author considers the kinds of work that might unleash, in time, the full power of moving images. And he argues that these works--an emerging computer-edited and -distributed "new video"--have the potential to inspire transformations in thought on a level with those inspired by the products of writing and print. Stephens sees in video's complexities, simultaneities, and juxtapositions, new ways of understanding and perhaps even surmounting the tumult and confusions of contemporary life. Sure to spark lively--even heated--debate, The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word belongs in the library of millennium-watchers everywhere.
Customer Reviews:
Future Thinking.......2003-01-02
Although Stephen's writing style may make it difficult for the scholar to take him seriously (he sounds more like an Info-Age
geek than a academic), he presents some extrordinary ideas that shouldn't be ignored or overlooked. For example, his list of the new elements and principles of design spawned by Info-Age art
forms is revolutionary. A must read for the Info-Age artist,
art critic, social-critic, or art educator!
Insightful look into future of communication.......2001-12-20
I teach a graduate design class, and this book is a great way to let students think about their role in the fast changing world of visual communications. Stephens has a great way of putting things in perspective, and notes that each fundamental change in communication has met with resistance, i.e. we still think of TV as the Boob Tube. When I read it a few years ago, it seemed so new--it's fun to see how his theories are quickly melding into our culture seamlessly. It's been an optional read for my students--now it's time to make it mandatory!
Powerful insight.......2001-05-20
I read Stephen's last summer and I'm now rereading parts of it in preparation for using video in my classroom next Fall. There's no doubt what Stephen says is true. The role of the image can often be even more powerful than the word. For example, Henry Hampton's documentary, Eyes on the Prize, conveys much more emotionally and intellectually than any book on the Civil Rights Movement. Even the most prolific readers out there are moved by powerful motion pictures and documentaries. So far me Stephen's work is only a start in terms of examining what we can be done with visual communication, especially the video.
Interesting, but left wanting more.......2000-10-30
His take that nobody has really fully taken advantage of "the language" of video because it is still in its infancy was very interesting and supported pretty well in the book. However, I felt there has to be more to developing video than the fast cuts of Pellington who he so often refers to. Also, I felt he undervalued the contribution new media will have, choosing to encapsulate aspects of interactivity and other digital technologies under the umbrella term of "video." It seems if video is going to fulfill a new function in terms of its ability to change how we get information and even think, it will do so within the framework of digital media, in which video, still images and words can each co-exist seamlessly and utilize their particular strengths.
His ideas are intriguing and challenging and his clear writing style makes the book a very good read. Even with what I felt were the weaknesses mentioned above, his challenge to video to rise above what it is now is needed and will hopefully encourage even more people to experiment with what video can do.
Ahead of his time.......2000-03-15
With TV viewing increasing, it is no wonder more people depend on television than books or newspapers. Mr. Stephens states that the image has not conquered the word yet, it may not happen at all, but he fears it will. Eloquently written and researched, with an excellent chapter 'thinking "above the stream"' that includes director Mark Pellington (Arlington Road). This book is especially useful for journalism students.
Book Description
New technology enables super vision--both superhuman visual powers and actual supervision by surveillance. In Super Vision, which accompanies the inaugural exhibit at the new Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, a broad selection of important works in a variety of media expresses both the ecstatic and the threatening aspects of vision and reveals visual experience as a source of both pleasure and fear.
These works reflect the digital era's profound shift in the nature of visuality itself--as computer graphics and imaging, digitization, and virtuality have transformed both the nature of representation and our relationship to it. Among the leading contemporary artists exploring the changing nature of contemporary visual experience in Super Vision are Bridget Riley, Anish Kapoor, and Gabriel Orozco, with works that bend, twist, and dissolve space, leaving us unsure of the boundaries between inside and outside, surface and depth, self and others. Other works by artists including Jeff Koons, Julie Mehretu, and Andreas Gursky, express aspects of virtuality--some explicitly, some more subtly--and explore the changes in the way we see and understand two-dimensional images. Vision in the twenty-first century is potentially everywhere, all the time; there is no way to escape it. Works by Sigmar Polke, Yoko Ono, Tony Oursler, Thomas Ruff, and others respond in complex ways to this disembodied and penetrating quality of vision. The many full-color images in Super Vision are accompanied by essays by exhibition curator Nicholas Baume, art historian David Joselit, and media theorist McKenzie Wark.
Copublished with the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston.
Average customer rating:
|
Reading America: Text as Cultural Force
Matthew Guillen
Manufacturer: Academica Press,LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Law
| Subjects
| Books
Legal History
| Perspectives on Law
| Law
| Subjects
| Books
Legal Writing
| One-L
| Law
| Subjects
| Books
General
| History & Criticism
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Look Inside Fiction Books
| Trip
| Specialty Stores
| Books
ASIN: 193314629X |
Product Description
Is there a unique visual infrastructure that keeps and defines a culture? Dr Matthew Guillen,the distinguished professor of Anglo-American Law at the University of Paris X11,argues that American culture is built on visual modality and specifically the written word as best exemplified by the law and jurisprudence. Major American writing (Melville, James etc) as well as popular culture is discussed as a "reading".
Book Description
How can art enhance and enrich the Christian faith? What is the basis for a relationship between the church and visual imagery? Can the art world and the Protestant church be reconciled? Is art idolatry and vanity, or can it be used to strengthen the church? Grounded in historical and biblical research, William Dyrness offers students and scholars an intriguing, substantive look into the relationship between the church and the world of art. Faith and art were not always discordant. According to Dyrness, Israel understood imagery and beauty as reflections of God's perfect order; likewise, early Christians used art to teach and inspire. However, the Protestant church abandoned visual arts and imagery during the Reformation in favor of the written word and has only recently begun to reexamine art's role in Christianity and worship. Dyrness affirms this renewal and argues that art, if reflecting the order and wholeness of the world God created, can and should play an important role in modern Christianity.
Customer Reviews:
Perspective.......2006-03-11
This book brings a whole new perspective to the table of Christianity and the arts. Dyrness is able to argue that such things are an essential part of Christian life, especially if we are to live holistically. I enjoyed it very much.
Phenominal Scholarly Overview.......2003-10-26
I really enjoyed how this book looked very practically at the arts and the evolution of them within the church. It gives not only a historical requirement to continue to press for more artistic use and involvement in the modern movement of the church, but also gives practical ways in which to do so. If you're involved in creative arts ministry in any capacity, you probably should read this book in order to get your berings.
Book Description
Visual studies is a rapidly expanding intellectual field, growing throughout colleges and universities around the world. But is it asking the most interesting questions? And is it just too easy to do?
In his latest book, James Elkins offers a road map through the field of visual studies, describing its major concerns and its principal theoretical sources. Then, with the skill and insight that have marked his successful books on art and visuality, Elkins takes the reader down a side road where visual studies can become a more interesting place. Why look only at the same handful of theorists? Why exclude from one's field of vision non-Western art or the wealth of scientific images?
The centerpiece of Visual Studies is Elkins's proposal for ten ways in which visual studies could be made more difficult -- theoretically, practically, and in terms of its interpretative and historical range. As Stories of Art offered an antidote to the authorized version of art history, Visual Studies: A Skeptical Introduction proposes a refreshingly open-minded introduction to a growing field.
This handsome volume is illustrated throughout.
Customer Reviews:
several points.......2005-01-16
I was initially interested in the newly emerging field of visual studies, however after reading several of elkins' other books as well as taking a course taught by the author, I have lost what interest I had. This book follows similar themes as his others and while it does a fantastic job of presenting problems within the field, it does not present any feasible alternatives.
Concerning the images included, it is problematic that elkins does not then interpret at least some of the images. However, I do not believe that elkins is leaving this task for the reader to do. Having listened to his lectures I believe that elkins includes the images simply because they strike him in some way or another, not because they have any relevance to the field in question. This lack of relevance seems to pervade the majority of his literature and indeed the field as a whole.
If you have the time..........2004-08-06
Not by any means an introduction to the field of visual studies, however it is true to its title in that it indeed is skeptical. If you do not have a previous knowledge of visual studies, this book will not provide much clarification. The text comes across as a curriculum guide for educators. Elkins is proficient at pointing out the flaws of the discipline, and I'd agree that it is "too easy." Elkins provides many great examples of images from science to dogtags that could be de-coded under the rubric of visual studies. However, after providing these examples, he does not actually go through any interpretative process. Perhaps he is leaving this task for the reader to do..? Knowing how intelligent Elkins is, I would have loved to read his interpretations of the examples he provides. Elkins also provides a good precis of the canonical literature.
This is not a ground-breaking book, but if you are involved in any way with this field of knowledge, I'd definately suggest it. Otherwise, seek elsewhere for a more thorough introduction.
Books:
- Vitamin D: New Perspectives in Drawing (Themes)
- Wedding Bouquets: Over 300 Designs for Every Bride
- Where to Draw the Line: How to Set Healthy Boundaries Every Day
- Wide Open: Inspiration & Techniques for Art Journaling on the Edge (Book & Card Kit)
- Wide Open: Inspiration & Techniques for Art Journaling on the Edge (Book & Card Kit)
- A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, Third Edition (PMBOK Guides)
- Advergaming Developer's Guide: Using Macromedia Flash MX 2004 and Macromedia Director MX (Game Development Series)
- Algorithm Design
- Architect's Essentials of Starting a Design Firm (The Architect's Essentials of Professional Practice)
- Architectural Graphic Standards, Tenth Edition (Book only)
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- What Makes Sammy Run
- Marooned in Realtime
- Flashman and the Tiger
- Heart Trouble
- History: Fiction or Science
- Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy: An Introduction to Principles, Applications, and Experiment
- Palladian Days: Finding a New Life in a Venetian Country House
- Changing Impressions: Marcantonio Raimondo & Sixteenth Century Print Connoisseurship
- Field and Laboratory Methods for General Ecology
- Sverdlovsk Oblast Investment & Business Guide
