In this innovative, interdisciplinary study, James Elkins argues against the assumption that images can be adequately described in words. In his view, words must always fail because pictures possess a residue of 'meaningless' marks that cannot be apprehended as signs. On Pictures and the Words that Fail Them is a 1998 text which provides detailed, incisive critiques of fundamental notions about pictures: their allegedly semiotic structures; the 'rational' nature of realism; and the ubiquity of the figure-ground relation. Elkins then opens the concept of images to non-Western and prehistoric ideas, exploring Chinese concepts of magic, Mesopotamian practices of counting and sculpture, religious ideas about hypostasis, philosophical discussions concerning invisibility and blindness, and questions on the limits of the destruction of meaning.
Les mer
1. Marks, Traces, Traits, Contours, Orli, and Splendors; 2. The anti-splendor; 3. Figure and Ground in Philosophy, Neurophysiology, Phenomenology, Psychology, Painting, and Psychoanalysis; 4. The signs of writing; 5. The common origins of pictures, writing, and notation; 6. Different horizons for the concept of image; 7. Nine steps down the ladder of disorder; 8. The unrepresentable, the unpicturable, the inconceivable, the unseeable.
Les mer
An 1998 art historical study of the way in which images and words differ as 'signs'.

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780521624992
Publisert
2011-02-17
Utgiver
Vendor
Cambridge University Press
Vekt
510 gr
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
152 mm
Dybde
20 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
348

Forfatter