What Heaven Looks Like: Comments on a Strange Wordless Book
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.22 (702 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1946053023 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 128 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-09-20 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Rediscovered, it proves fascinating."—Kirkus Reviews Featured in the Publishers Weekly Fall 2017 Announcements . Critical Praise for What Heaven Looks Like by James Elkins "A cryptic artifact is the source of endless fascination in this alluring annotated reproduction."—Publishers Weekly It might be a delicious intrigue cooked up by Borges: a manuscript of fuzzy provenance, consisting of 52 paintings, rests unvisited on the shelves of a library for generations
It's just a log from the woodpile, stood on end. Sometimes, he writes, we can glimpse the artist's sources—Baroque religious art, genre painting, mythology, alchemical manuscripts, emblem books, optical effects. But always she distorts her images, mixes them together, leaves them incomplete—always she rejects familiar stories and clear-cut meanings. But as the artist looks, and looks, colors begin to appear—shapes—even figures. In this daring refusal to make sense, Elkins sees an uncannily modern attitude of doubt and skepticism; he draws a portrait of the artist as an irremediably lonely, amazingly independent soul, inhabiting a distinct historical moment between the faded Renaissance and the overconfident Enlightenment. What Heaven Looks Like is a rare event: an encounter between a truly perceptive historian of images, and a master conjurer of them.. An unknown masterpiece of visionary art—as daring as Blake or Goya, but utterly different—reproduced in full color, with a commentary by one of our most original art historians Somewhere in Europe—we don't know where—around 1700. The soft, damp bark; the gently raised growth rings; the dark radial cracks—nothing could be more ordinary. She turns to a sheet of paper and begins to p
His scholarship has focused on the history and theory of images in art, science, and nature; his many books include What Painting Is, Pictures and Tears, and The Object Stares Back: On the Nature of Seeing. James Elkins is E. Presently he is working on an experimental novel with images. C. . Chadbourne Chair of Art Histo