Shadows and enlightenment / Michael Baxandall.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Baxandall, Michael, author.

Contributor:

Yale University Press, publisher.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Art, Modern--18th century.

Art, Modern.

Art, Modern--20th century.

Shades and shadows in art.

Visual perception.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 192 pages, [16] pages of plates) : 68 illustrations (some color)

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, [1995]

Summary:

"Shadows are holes in light. We see them all the time, and sometimes we notice them, but their part in our visual experience of the world is mysterious. In this book, an eminent art historian draws on contemporary cognitive science, eighteenth-century theories of visual perception, and art history to discuss shadows and the visual knowledge they can offer. Michael Baxandall begins by describing the physical constitution and different varieties of shadows. He then sketches the eighteenth-century empirical/nativist debate on the role of shadows in the perception of shape. Next he surveys modern research by cognitive scientists and machine vision workers, explaining how research is divided on the issue of how far and by what means shadows help or hinder perception of shape. Baxandall continues his exploration by recounting a neglected episode of shadow theory, the observations of a group of mid-eighteenth-century French scientists and artists on shadows as related to light and space. Finally he sets these various shadow universes into relation with each other, addressing the special problem of painting shadows, and analyzes Chardin's painting The Young Draughtsman, in which shadow painting is both medium and theme. The book includes an appendix that situates and summarizes the shadow system of Leonardo da Vinci, which has had a strong though partly underground influence on thinking about shadows for five hundred years"--Publisher's description.

Contents:

Introduction : holes in a flux

Enlightenment shadows

Shadow and information

Rococo-empiricist shadow

Painting and attention to shadows

Appendix: Three notes on Leonardo and early Renaissance shadow.

Notes:

Description based on print record and online resource (A&AePortal, viewed on May 15, 2018).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780300220490

0300220499

OCLC:

1042082285