Vision, reflection, and desire in western painting / David Summers.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Summers, David, 1941-

Series:

Bettie Allison Rand lectures in art history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Optics and art--Europe.

Optics and art.

Painting, European.

Visual perception.

Europe.

Physical Description:

213 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps (some color) ; 25 cm.

Other Title:

Vision, reflection, & desire in western painting

Place of Publication:

Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, [2007]

Summary:

Spanning more than 2,500 years in the history of art, this book demonstrates how the rise and diffusion of the science of optics in ancient Greece and the Mediterranean world correlated to pictorial illusion in the development of Western painting from Hellenistic Greece to the present. The spread of understanding of how light is transmitted, reflected, and refracted is evident in the works of artists such as Brunelleschi, van Eyck, Alberti, and Leonardo. The interplay between optics and painting that influenced the course of Western art, Summers says, persisted as a framework for the realism of Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and Goya and continues today in modern photography and film. With 12 color and 79 b&w illus.

Contents:

Shadow-painting and scene-painting: the beginnings of optics and classical art

Speculum animatum

Speculum mundi

Narcissus and the mirror without stain

Afterword: perspective, optics, and the material subject.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [187]-199) and index.

ISBN:

9780807831106

0807831107

OCLC:

122291417