A rediscovery of Thoreau's interactions with everyday objects and how they shaped his thought.Though we may associate Henry David Thoreau with ascetic renunciation, he accumulated a variety of tools, art, and natural specimens throughout his life as a homebuilder, surveyor, and collector. In some of these objects, particularly Indigenous artifacts, Thoreau perceived the presence of their original makers, and he called such objects "mindprints." Thoreau believed tha...

In a world obsessed with the virtual, tangible things are once again making history. Tangible Things invites readers to look closely at the things around them, ordinary things like the food on their plate and extraordinary things like the transit of planets across the sky. It argues that almost any material thing, when examined closely, can be a link between present and past. The authors of this book pulled an astonishing array of materials out of storage--from a pencil manufactur...

This book is an exploration of how art—specifically paintings in the European manner—can be mobilized to make knowledge claims about the past. No type of human-made tangible thing makes more complex and bewildering demands in this respect than paintings. Ivan Gaskell argues that the search for pictorial meaning in paintings yields limited results and should be replaced by attempts to define the point of such things, which is cumulative and ever subject to change. He shows that whi...

Vermeer’s Wager stands at the intersection of art history and criticism, philosophy and museology. Using a familiar and celebrated painting by Johannes Vermeer as a case study, Ivan Gaskell explores what it might mean to know and use a work of art. He argues that art history as generally practised, while successfully asserting certain claims to knowledge, fails to take into account aspects of the unique character of works of art. Our relationship to art is mediated, not only through reprod...

Most historians rely principally on written sources. Yet there are other traces of the past available to historians: the material things that people have chosen, made, and used. This book examines how material culture can enhance historians' understanding of the past, both worldwide and across time. The successful use of material culture in history depends on treating material things of many kinds not as illustrations, but as primary evidence. Each kind of material thing-and there are many...

This new account of international modernism explores the complex motivations behind this revolutionary movement and assesses its triumphs and failures. The work of the main architects of the movement such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Adolf Loos, Le Corbusier, and Mies van der Rohe is re-examined shedding new light on their roles as acknowledged masters. Alan Colquhoun explores the evolution of the movement fron Art Nouveau in the 1890s to the megastructures of the 1960s, revealing the often cont...

The Books That Shaped Art History reassesses the impact of some of the most important texts of art history published during the twentieth century. Each of the sixteen incisive chapters focuses on a single title and is written by a leading art historian, curator or one of the promising scholars of todays generation. In bringing these cross-generational contributions together, this book provides a varied and invaluable overview of the history of art, told through its seminal texts. The sixte...

This is the most accessible architectural theory book that exists. Korydon Smith presents each common architectural subject – such as tectonics, use, and site – as though it were a conversation across history between theorists by providing you with the original text, a reflective text, and a philosophical text. He also introduces each chapter by highlighting key ideas and asking you a set of reflective questions so that you can hone your own theory, which is essential to both your success ...

Whether it is being studied or critiqued, the art canon is usually understood as an authoritative list of important works and artists. This collection breaks with the idea of a singular, transcendent canon. Through provocative case studies, it demonstrates that the content of any canon is both historically and culturally specific and dependent on who is responsible for the canon’s production and maintenance. The contributors explore how, where, why, and by whom canons are formed; how they ...

Conceptual art in the Western world is in crisis. That is the view of many people who are disillusioned with what they regard as its attention-seeking antics, where artists themselves have proudly proclaimed 'the death of art'. Why has art been on this road to destruction, and how did it get there? How does one make sense of the bewildering complexity of Conceptual art, and how does one extract meaning from its diverse and sometimes bizarre manifestations?This predicament needs exp...

As public interest in modern art continues to grow, as witnessed by the spectacular success of Tate Modern and the Bilbao Guggenheim, there is a real need for a book that will engage general readers, offering them not only information and ideas about modern art, but also explaining its contemporary relevance and history. This book achieves all this and focuses on interrogating the idea of 'modern' art by asking such questions as: What has made a work of art qualify as modern (or f...

Theatre and Performance Design: A Reader in Scenography is an essential resource for those interested in the visual composition of performance and related scenographic practices.Theatre and performance studies, cultural theory, fine art, philosophy and the social sciences are brought together in one volume to examine the principle forces that inform understanding of theatre and performance design.The volume is organised thematically in five sections: