Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art from Egypt to Star Wars

ISBN-13: 9780307278029 / Angielski / Miękka / 2013 / 224 str.

Camille Paglia

Opis

Modern life is a sea of images. With so much visual data bombarding us--from personal devices to mass media--our brains must rapidly adapt to make sense of it all. Here to guide us is America's premier intellectual provocateur, Camille Paglia.
In these pages, Paglia returns to the subject that made her famous, situating our current visual environment within the epic scope of all of art history. With trademark audacity, Paglia tours through more than two dozen seminal paintings, sculptures, architectural styles, performance pieces, and digital art works that have transformed our world. Combining close analysis with historical context, she trains our eye to each image--from an Egyptian tomb to Jackson Pollock's abstract "Green Silver" to RenEe Cox's daring performance piece "Chillin' with Liberty." And in her stunning conclusion, she declares the avant-garde tradition dead and film director George Lucas the world's greatest living artist. Written with energy, erudition, and wit, "Glittering Images" will profoundly change the way we see.

Recenzje

A magisterial, poetically composed, and masterly study. . . . Paglia writes rhapsodically of art s power. . . . [She is] one of the most erudite public intellectuals in America. The Philadelphia Inquirer

Highlights Ms. Paglia s impressive range and famously eclectic tastes. . . . [She is] a critic determined to teach the redemptive possibilities of patient, informed observation. The Wall Street Journal

Riveting. . . . Revelatory. . . . Subtle, penetrating and sometimes funny. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
 
[Paglia is] an art-for-art s-sake worshiper of art and literature whose close readings, influenced by Walter Pater and Sigmund Freud, are pyrotechnic and passionate. San Francisco Chronicle

Dazzling. . . . Compulsively readable. . . . Paglia at her best. . . . The lean precision of the book is a marvel. . . . Her choices range from the classic and expected to the obscure and the startling. . . . Even her explorations of the more familiar works will have you marveling anew. Salon

Paglia [is] an intellectual sensation. . . . Here we find Paglia s bewitching eye, matched with her gift for language, at its best. City Journal

Artists, questing outsiders, are still with us, still finding their way, making their way. Perhaps some of them will be inspired by the glittering images Camille Paglia offers here. Los Angeles Times

An essential work by an essential public intellectual. Vice

Paglia is a lively, bracingly outspoken writer able to draw on her knowledge of both fine arts and popular culture. National Post

A fascinating, uncommonly accessible look at the history of images in Western art. . . . [Paglia is] an incisive cultural critic, a dedicated teacher and a nimble-minded writer. Cincinnati City Beat

An intelligently detailed examination of 29 works of art, ranging from a tomb painting of Egyptian Queen Nefertari to George Lucas film Revenge of the Sith. . . . Paglia is a wonderful popularizer of art history and art appreciation. Kirkus Reviews

Succinct, lively, and illuminating. . . . Paglia s bold and rigorous, handsomely illustrated and welcoming art iconography will accomplish her mission to provoke, enlighten, and inspire.. Booklist (starred)

A valuable cultural critique and an elucidating history. . . . [A] highly reflective and imaginative history of images in Western art. . . . Paglia writes with energetic lucidity, and her entries on the Laocoön and Donatello s Mary Magdalene are standouts in this absorbing volume. Publishers Weekly

The ever-provocative Paglia returns. . . . She proclaims that the avant-garde is dead and that George Lucas is our greatest living artist. This will get the smart folks talking. Library Journal

Spis treści

Introduction

1 Resurrection: Queen Nefertari
2 Mystic Vision: Idols of the Cyclades
3 The Race: Charioteer of Delphi
4 Roof of Air: Porch of the Maidens
5 God s Snare: Laocoön
6 Sky of Gold: Saint John Chrysostom
7 Living Letters: The Book of Kells
8 Solitary Watcher: Donatello, Mary Magdalene
9 Island of Love: Titian, Venus with a Mirror
10 Lord of the Sea: Agnolo Bronzino, Portrait of Andrea Doria as Neptune
11 Blaze of Glory: Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Chair of Saint Peter
12 Satin Knights: Anthony Van Dyck, Lord John Stuart and his Brother, Lord Bernard Stuart
13 Swirling Line: The French Rococo
14 Martyr of the Revolution: Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Marat
15 Arctic Ruin: Caspar David Friedrich, The Sea of Ice
16 City in Motion: Édouard Manet, At the Café
17 Melting Color: Claude Monet, Irises
18 Heaven and Hell: Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d Avignon
19 Heart of Stone: George Grosz, Life Makes You Happy!
20 Dance of the Mind: Tamara de Lempicka, Portrait of Doctor Boucard
21 Luncheon in the Twilight Zone: René Magritte, The Portrait
22 Romance of the Grid: Piet Mondrian, Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow
23 Elegance at Ease: John Wesley Hardrick, Xenia Goodloe
24 Shooting Stars: Jackson Pollock, Green Silver
25 Sun and Rain: Andy Warhol, Marilyn Diptych
26 On the Road: Eleanor Antin, 100 Boots
27 Electric: Walter De Maria, The Lightning Field
28 Blue Dawn: Renée Cox, Chillin with Liberty
29 Red River: George Lucas, Revenge of the Sith

Acknowledgments
Index

O autorze

Camille Paglia is University Professor of Humanities and Media Studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She is the author of four previous books: Break, Blow, Burn; Sexual Personae; Sex, Art, and American Culture; and Vamps & Tramps. She has also written The Birds, a study of Alfred Hitchcock.