Defining over 400 terms and phrases that have recently entered discourse on the visual arts, this is the first reference book specializing in explaining and applying theoretical terminology in contemporary art. Since the early 1970s, the vocabulary used to discuss visual art has expanded radically, leaving many teachers, students, artists, and critics without the accurate definitions necessary for fruitful discourse on contemporary culture. This glossary not only serves as a dictionary but as a guide to current theory and criticism of visual art and culture. Terms can be accessed...

National parks are the places that present ideas of nature to Americans: Zion, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone bring to mind quintessential and awe-inspiring wilderness. By examining how rhetoric--particularly visual rhetoric--has worked to shape our views of nature and the "natural" place of humans, Observation Points offers insights into questions of representation, including the formation of national identity.

As Thomas Patin reveals, the term "nature" is artificial and unstable, in need of constant maintenance and reconstruction. The process of stabilizing its...

National parks are the places that present ideas of nature to Americans: Zion, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone bring to mind quintessential and awe-inspiring wilderness. By examining how rhetoric--particularly visual rhetoric--has worked to shape our views of nature and the "natural" place of humans, Observation Points offers insights into questions of representation, including the formation of national identity.

As Thomas Patin reveals, the term "nature" is artificial and unstable, in need of constant maintenance and reconstruction. The process of stabilizing its...