Contains seven essays. Three of them use only pictures. Examines the relationship between what we see and what we know.

An exciting new critical voice explores what it is that makes great art great through an illuminating analysis of the world’s artistic masterpieces. From a carved mammoth tusk (ca. 40,000 BCE) to Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights (1505–1510) to Duchamp’s Fountain (1917), a remarkable lexicon of astonishing imagery has imprinted itself onto the cultural consciousness of the past 40,000 years. Author Kelly Grovier devotes himself to illuminating these and more than fifty other seminal works in this radical new history of art. Stepping away from biography, style, and the chronology of “isms” that preoccupies most of art history, A New Way of Seeing invites a new interaction with art, one in which we learn from the artworks and not just about them. Grovier identifies that part of the artwork that bridges the divide between art and life and elevates its value beyond the visual to the vital. This book challenges the sensibility that conceives of artists as brands and the works they create as nothing more than material commodities to hoard, hide, and flip for profit. Lavishly illustrated with many of the most breathtaking and enduring artworks ever created, Kelly Grovier casts fresh light on these famous works by daring to isolate a single, and often overlooked, detail responsible for its greatness and power to move.

First Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

When you look at an image, what do you see and feel? What do you want your audience to see and feel when they view your work? For over thirty years, Dr. Richard Zakia helped thousands of photographers hone in on their creative vision through the inspirational, informative text and images included in his classic book, Perception and Imaging. More than a step-by-step photography instruction manual, Perception and Imaging explores the fundamental act of photography – seeing – through a uniquely comprehensive combination of technique, history, visual perception, philosophy and psychology. No matter your level of technical skill, you can learn to think more clearly about what you wish to convey in your images. Fully revised to account for the unique influences and consequences of the digital revolution and online photosharing, John Suler newly addresses digital impermanence, sensory and cognitive overload, and the selfie, and their effects on perception. Additional coverage also includes microexpressions, Rorschach inkblots and subliminal reactions, transference, and synectics.

"An inside view of the Lakota world-of the meaning of Lakota song and dance, of their history, of what it is to be Lakota in America today. . . . A lasting personal tribute to the Lakota way of living."-Whole Earth Review. "A unique, in-depth presentation on Lakota music and the profession of singer, a useful contemporary Oglala representation of the core of their culture, and a version of the involvement of the American Indian Movement on Pine Ridge Reservation, told by a man who was affiliated but not a principal leader. . . . This is a subjective statement, well and persuasively written."-Choice. Severt Young Bear stood in the light-in the center ring at powwows and other gatherings of Lakota people. As founder and, for many years, lead singer of the Porcupine Singers, a traditional singing and drumming group, he also stood, figuratively, in the light of understanding the cherished Lakota heritage. Young Bear's own life in Brotherhood Community, Porcupine District of the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation, is the linchpin of this narrative, which ranges across the landscape of Dakota culture, from the significance of names to the search for modern Lakota identity, from Lakota oral traditions to powwows and giveaways, from child-rearing practices to humor and leadership. "Music is at the center of Lakota life, " says Young Bear; he describes in rich detail the origins and varieties of Lakota song and dance. Severt Young Bear performed with the Porcupine Singers throughout North America, taught at Oglala Lakota College, and served on the Oglala Sioux tribal council. He was music and dance consultant for the films Dances with Wolves and Thunder Heart. This book is the fruit of his longfriendship and collaboration with R. D. Theisz, a fellow Porcupine Singer and professor of communications and education at Black Hills State University.

Hale provides a tour of our buildings and our social history, examines the principles that animate beautiful buildings, and offers hope for recapturing the lost magic of architecture.

Harry Wolcott discusses the fundamental nature of ethnographic studies, offering important suggestions on improving and deepening research practices for both novice and expert researchers.

40 inspirational reflections exquisitely illustrated-for personal or group contemplation."During a visit to Venice in 1876, the mother of Lilias Trotter heard that John Ruskin, then fifty-seven, was in the city to work on drawings and to revise his book of 1851-53, The Stones of Venice. Carefully drafting a letter of introduction, she must have hoped that Lilias might receive some instruction in drawing or at least some general commendation from the foremost writer on art of his day. Probably she was expecting no more than that, although there would have been the obvious excitement of personal contact with one of the most famous people in the English-speaking world. Having given 'somewhat sulky permission,' Ruskin was surprised to see 'extremely rightminded and careful work,' and asked 'that the young lady might be allowed to come out sketching with me.' 'She seemed to learn everything the instant she was shown it,' he recalled, 'and ever so much more than she was taught.'"Stephen Wildman, Professor of History of Art, Lancaster University, Director, Ruskin Library and Research Centre

The history of western metaphysi from Plato onwards is dominated by the dualism of being and appearance. What something really is (its true being) is believed to be hidden behind the 'mere appearances' through which it manifests. Twentieth-century European thinkers radically overturned this foundation. With Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer came a major step towards taking appearance seriously, exploring a way of seeing that draws attention back 'upstream', from what is experienced into the act of experiencing. Understood in this way, perception is a dynamic event, a 'phenomenon', in which the observer participates. Henri Bortoft guides us through this dynamic way of seeing in various areas of experience -- in distinguishing things, the finding of meaning, and the relationship between thought and words. He also explores similarities with Goethe's reflections on the coming-into-being of the living plant. Here, in another reversal of classical thinking, we find that even in their 'diversity of appeareances', living things are not separate but in relation. Diversity is the dynamic unity of life itself. Expanding the scope of his previous book, The Wholeness of Nature, the author shows how Goethean insights combine with the dynamic way of seeing in continental philosophy to offer us an actively experienced 'life of meaning'. This book will be of interest to anyone who wants to understand the contribution and wider implications of modern European thought in the world today.