Art as Image and Idea


Book Description

A book on the functions, styles and structure of the major visual art forms, this text is reputed to have the best treatment available on the theory and practice of art criticism. It examines the connection between the visual, social, and physical dimensions of everyday life in which the arts perform essential roles, while illustrating clearly the common features of theme and style in works of art separated by time and culture.




Image, Action, and Idea in Contemporary Jewish Art


Book Description

Contemporary Jewish art is a growing field that includes traditional as well as new creative practices, yet criticism of it is almost exclusively reliant on the Second Commandment’s prohibition of graven images. Arguing that this disregards the corpus of Jewish thought and a century of criticism and interpretation, Ben Schachter advocates instead a new approach focused on action and process. Departing from the traditional interpretation of the Second Commandment, Schachter addresses abstraction, conceptual art, performance art, and other styles that do not rely on imagery for meaning. He examines Jewish art through the concept of melachot—work-like “creative activities” as defined by the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides. Showing the similarity between art and melachot in the active processes of contemporary Jewish artists such as Ruth Weisberg, Allan Wexler, Archie Rand, and Nechama Golan, he explores the relationship between these artists’ methods and Judaism’s demanding attention to procedure. A compellingly written challenge to traditionalism, Image, Action, and Idea in Contemporary Jewish Art makes a well-argued case for artistic production, interpretation, and criticism that revels in the dual foundation of Judaism and art history.




What Do Pictures Want?


Book Description

Why do we have such extraordinarily powerful responses toward the images and pictures we see in everyday life? Why do we behave as if pictures were alive, possessing the power to influence us, to demand things from us, to persuade us, seduce us, or even lead us astray? According to W. J. T. Mitchell, we need to reckon with images not just as inert objects that convey meaning but as animated beings with desires, needs, appetites, demands, and drives of their own. What Do Pictures Want? explores this idea and highlights Mitchell's innovative and profoundly influential thinking on picture theory and the lives and loves of images. Ranging across the visual arts, literature, and mass media, Mitchell applies characteristically brilliant and wry analyses to Byzantine icons and cyberpunk films, racial stereotypes and public monuments, ancient idols and modern clones, offensive images and found objects, American photography and aboriginal painting. Opening new vistas in iconology and the emergent field of visual culture, he also considers the importance of Dolly the Sheep—who, as a clone, fulfills the ancient dream of creating a living image—and the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11, which, among other things, signifies a new and virulent form of iconoclasm. What Do Pictures Want? offers an immensely rich and suggestive account of the interplay between the visible and the readable. A work by one of our leading theorists of visual representation, it will be a touchstone for art historians, literary critics, anthropologists, and philosophers alike. “A treasury of episodes—generally overlooked by art history and visual studies—that turn on images that ‘walk by themselves’ and exert their own power over the living.”—Norman Bryson, Artforum




Images and Understanding


Book Description

How do you paint a picture of God, or dance about death, or draw a diagram explaining infinity? Images and Understanding explores the human problem of transferring facts and ideas from one mind to another--the problem of how we see things. We create images, not just in the form of pictures and diagrams, but with words, demonstrations, and even music and dance. The editors present their findings in six sections: the essence of images, movement, narration, making images, images and thought, and images and meaning. Each section begins with an explanatory introduction and is followed by contributions from internationally distinguished figures in fields as diverse as choreography, psychology, computer science, philosophy and art. Images and Understanding arrives at a new perspective on imagery through the eyes of both science and art, and provides new insights about images and new ideas about understanding.




Varieties of Visual Experience


Book Description

"A classic on the functions, styles and structure of the major visual art forms, this well-received text is reputed to have the best treatment available on the theory and practice of art criticism. It examines the connection between the visual, social, and physical dimensions of everyday life in which the arts perform essential roles, while illustrating clearly the common features of theme and style in works of art separated by time and culture. For art critics, artists, and all those interested in art criticism."--Publisher.




Idea Into Image


Book Description

"As far back as the third millennium B.C. the Egyptians were investigating questions that concern us still - questions about being and non-being, about the meaning of death, about the nature of the cosmos and of man, about the basis of human society and the legitimization of power. The Egyptians knew that their answers could never be definitive, and this flexible and pluralistic approach is the essence of their philosophical position.







Psychology


Book Description




Elements of Psychology


Book Description

"This treatise is intended primarily for those who have not already studied psychology, and now propose to give it thoughtful attention. It is therefore elementary, as its title indicates, and is introductory to the abundant and growing literature of the science. Though no previous acquaintance with the subject is requisite, yet as it can by no means be made light and easy, even an elementary treatise must presuppose mental maturity in the reader, and habits of thoughtful study. For him I have tried to prepare a statement of psychological doctrine broad and true, on which he may build by his own thinking and wider reading. If his occupations do not permit this, he will at least have acquired a rounded knowledge of the generally approved principles and chief features of the science. A reader already acquainted with the history and literature of psychology will find many familiar things restated. Let him remember that the treatise is for the novice. But he will find some familiar things modified, and some things new. A few may be indicated as follows : The material object immediately perceived; the argument for immediate perception; the modified view of intuition; the argument for duality; the relation of feeling to cognition; the character and place assigned to belief; the separation of feeling and desire; the defense of freedom in willing"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved).