Art and its Objects PDF Download

Author: Richard Wollheim
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107113806
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
This book is an influential study of the central questions and philosophical issues raised by art.

Author: David Carrier
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271036060
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Is writing a world art history possible? Does the history of art as such even exist outside the Western tradition? Is it possible to consider the history of art in a way that is not fundamentally Eurocentric? In this highly readable and provocative book, David Carrier, a philosopher and art historian, does not attempt to write a world art history himself. Rather, he asks the question of how an art history of all cultures could be written—or whether it is even possible to do so. He also engages the political and moral issues raised by the idea of a multicultural art history. Focusing on a consideration of intersecting artistic traditions, Carrier negotiates the way meaning and understanding shift or are altered when a visual object from one culture, for example, is inserted into the visual tradition of another culture. A World Art History and Its Objects proposes the use of temporal narrative as a way to begin to understand a multicultural art history.

Author: Luca Cottini
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487516118
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
The Art of Objects is a cultural history of early Italian industrialism, set against the political, social, and intellectual background of post-unification Italy, and a cutting-edge investigation of the formation of Italy's industrial culture at the turn of the twentieth century. Providing a close examination of several objects of mass consumption, including watches, photographs, bicycles, gramophones, cigarettes, and toys, author Luca Cottini explores the transformation of these objects from commercial items into aesthetic and philosophical icons. By focusing on the cultural significance of these objects as they enter the market and appear in contemporary works of art and literature, The Art of Objects outlines a comprehensive view of the age between the unification of Italy and Fascism, encompassing production and consumption, aesthetics and entrepreneurship, industry and the humanistic tradition. The observation of the slow formation of new languages, practices, and experiences around these objects also provides valuable insight into the creative laboratory of Italy's early industrial culture. By reconstructing the origins of the Italian culture of design, the book ultimately investigates Italy's critical reception of industrialism, the nation's so-called "imperfect" modernization, and its ongoing quest for an original way to modernity.

Author: Jeanette Winterson
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307363635
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
In ten interlocking essays, the acclaimed author of Written on the Body and Art & Lies reveals art as an active force in the world--neither elitist nor remote, available to those who want it and affecting those who don't. Original, personal, and provocative, these essays are not so much a point of view as they are a way of life, revealing "a brilliant and deeply feeling artist at work" (San Francisco Chronicle).

Author: M. Anna Fariello
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 9780810857018
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Throughout the 20th century, there were increasing numbers of artists who chose to work within a fine art aesthetic (i.e., expressive, communicative, innovative, unique) while simultaneously embracing qualities associated with craft production (i.e., intimacy, materiality, labor, ritual). At the periphery of their world loomed issues of status, gender, community, and economics. This fluid situation made for an exciting mix of ideas that helped perpetuate an ongoing debate within an art world no longer as monothematic as it appeared in print. Objects and Meaning expands upon a national conversation questioning how various academic disciplines and cultural institutions approach and assign meaning to artist-made objects in postmodern North America. Although most of the discourse since the mid 20th century revolved around the split between art and craft, the contributors to this collection of essays take a broader view, examining the historical, cultural, and theoretical perspectives that defined the parameters of that conversation. Their focus is on issues concerning works that appeared to 'cross over' from mainstream art to an amorphous and pluralistic aesthetic milieu that has yet to be defined. The essays collected for this volume, loosely organized into three groupings_Historical Contexts, Cultural Systems, and Theoretical Frames_contribute to a deeper understanding of the meaning of objects and how that meaning comes to be defined. Although the style of writing in this collection ranges from passionate conviction to cool observation with points of view from different professional backgrounds, each essay reflects original ideas introduced into the cultural dialogue during this period.

Author: Marjorie Shelley
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
ISBN: 1588397122
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
The Metropolitan Museum of Art houses one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive collections of works of art from antiquities to modern and contemporary material. Their preservation is a responsibility shared by the many individuals employed at the Museum who oversee and have direct contact with the collection on a daily basis. The Care and Handing of Art Objects—first published in the 1940s and continually updated—offers a guide to the best practices in handling and preserving works of art while on display, in storage and in transit. It explains many of the fundamental principles of conservation that underlie these methods. One of its goals is to make the complexities of caring for a collection readily accessible. The first part offers basic guidelines for the preservation of the diverse types of materials and art objects found in the Met. Each chapter addresses the physical characteristics specific to the particular category, and the environmental, handling and housing factors to which one should be alert to prevent damage and ensure their preservation. Written by experts in the respective specialty, it addresses the Museum’s vast holdings summarizing the most critical preservation issues, many of which are amplified by photographs. As the table of contents makes evident these range from paintings on canvas and works on paper and photographs to furniture and objects made of stone, wood and metals to arms and armor, upholstery, ethnographic materials and many others. Part II succinctly describes factors that affect the collection as a whole: among them, current environmental standards for temperature, relative humidity, light exposure, storage and art in transit. Based on Museum protocols it addresses emergency preparedness and response, and integrated pest management. For easy reference, it includes charts on storage and display conditions, on factors contributing to deterioration, and a glossary of conservation terms, principles, and housing materials referenced in the individual chapters. Drawing upon the knowledge of conservators, scientists, and curators from many different departments, as well as technicians and engineers whose expertise crosses boundaries of culture, chronology, medium and condition, The Care and Handing of Art Objects is primarily directed to staff at the Met. It is, no less, an invaluable resource for students, collectors, small museums, museum study programs, art dealers, and members of the public who want to enhance their understanding of how works of art are safeguarded and the role environment, handling and materials play in making this possible.

Author: Graham Harman
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 9781509512683
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In this book, the founder of object-oriented ontology develops his view that aesthetics is the central discipline of philosophy. Whereas science must attempt to grasp an object in terms of its observable qualities, philosophy and art cannot proceed in this way because they don't have direct access to their objects. Hence philosophy shares the same fate as art in being compelled to communicate indirectly, allusively, or elliptically, rather than in the clear propositional terms that are often taken – wrongly – to be the sole stuff of genuine philosophy. Conceiving of philosophy and art in this way allows us to reread key debates in aesthetic theory and to view art history in a different way. The formalist criticism of Greenberg and Fried is rejected for its refusal to embrace the innate theatricality and deep multiplicity of every artwork. This has consequences for art criticism, making pictorial content more important than formalism thinks but less entwined with the social sphere than anti-formalism holds. It has consequences for art history too, as the surrealists, David, and Poussin, among others, gain in importance. The close link between aesthetics and ontology also invites a new periodization of modern philosophy as a whole, and the habitual turn away from Kant’s thing-in-itself towards an increase in philosophical "immanence" is shown to be a false dawn. This major work will be of great interest to students and scholars of philosophy, aesthetics, art history and cultural theory.

Author: Margareta Ingrid Christian
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022676480X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Margareta Ingrid Christian unpacks the ways in which, around 1900, art scholars, critics, and choreographers wrote about the artwork as an actual object in real time and space, surrounded and fluently connected to the viewer through the very air we breathe. Theorists such as Aby Warburg, Alois Riegl, Rainer Maria Rilke, and the choreographer Rudolf Laban drew on the science of their time to examine air as the material space surrounding an artwork, establishing its “milieu,” “atmosphere,” or “environment.” Christian explores how the artwork’s external space was seen to work as an aesthetic category in its own right, beginning with Rainer Maria Rilke’s observation that Rodin’s sculpture “exhales an atmosphere” and that Cezanne’s colors create “a calm, silken air” that pervades the empty rooms where the paintings are exhibited. Writers created an early theory of unbounded form that described what Christian calls an artwork’s ecstasis or its ability to stray outside its limits and engender its own space. Objects viewed in this perspective complicate the now-fashionable discourse of empathy aesthetics, the attention to self-projecting subjects, and the idea of the modernist self-contained artwork. For example, Christian invites us to historicize the immersive spatial installations and “environments” that have arisen since the 1960s and to consider their origins in turn-of-the-twentieth-century aesthetics. Throughout this beautifully written work, Christian offers ways for us to rethink entrenched narratives of aesthetics and modernism and to revisit alternatives.

Author: Edward Town
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300254105
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 523

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Book Description
An engaging, encyclopedic account of the material world of early modern Britain as told through a unique collection of dated objects The period from 1500 to 1800 in England was one of extraordinary social transformations, many having to do with the way time itself was understood, measured, and recorded. Through a focused exploration of an extensive private collection of fine and decorative artworks, this beautifully designed volume explores that theme and the variety of ways that individual notions of time and mortality shifted. The feature uniting these more than 450 varied objects is that each one bears a specific date, which marks a significant moment—for reasons personal or professional, religious or secular, private or public. From paintings to porringers, teapots to tape measures, the objects—and the stories they tell—offer a vivid sense of the lived experience of time, while providing a sweeping survey of the material world of early modern Britain.

Author: Paola Antonelli
Publisher: The Museum of Modern Art
ISBN: 087070611X
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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