What photography is /
In What Photography Is, James Elkins examines the strange and alluring power of photography in the same provocative and evocative manner that he explored oil painting in his best-selling What Painting Is. Elkins argues that photograpy is also about meaninglessness--its apparently endless capacity to...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Imprint: | New York : Routledge, 2011. |
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| Summary: | In What Photography Is, James Elkins examines the strange and alluring power of photography in the same provocative and evocative manner that he explored oil painting in his best-selling What Painting Is. Elkins argues that photograpy is also about meaninglessness--its apparently endless capacity to show us things that we do not want or need to see--and pain--extremely powerful images that can sear into our consciousness permanently. Extensively illustrated with a surprising range of images, Elkins demonstrates that what makes photography uniquely powerful is its ability to express the difficulty--physically, psychologically, emotionally, and aethstically--of the act of seeing. In What Photography Is, James Elkins examines the strange and alluring power of photography in the same provocative and evocative manner as he explored oil painting in his best-selling What Painting Is. In the course of an extended imaginary dialogue with Roland Barthes's Camera Lucida, Elkins argues that photography is also about meaninglessness--its apparently endless capacity to show us things that we do not want or need to see--and also about pain, because extremely powerful images can sear permanently into our consciousness. Extensively illustrated with a surprising range of images, the book demonstrates that what makes photography uniquely powerful is its ability to express the difficulty--physical, psychological, emotional, and aesthetic--of the act of seeing. |
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| Physical Description: | xiii, 222 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-222) |
| ISBN: | 9780415995689 041599568X 9780415995696 0415995698 9780203886489 0203886488 |
| Author Notes: | James Elkins is E.C. Chadbourne Chair in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is the author of Pictures and Tears, How to Use Your Eyes, Stories of Art, Visual Studies, Why Are Our Pictures Puzzles, Our Beautiful, Dry, and Distant Texts, On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art, and Master Narratives and Their Discontents, all published by Routledge. He is editor of Art History Versus Aesthetics, Photography Theory, Landscape Theory, The State of Art Criticism, and Visual Literacy, all published by Routledge. |