Before the Renaissance and Reformation, holy images were treated not as "art" but as objects of veneration which possessed the tangible presence of the Holy. the faithful believed that these images served as relics and were able to work miracles, deliver oracles, and bring victory to the battlefield. In this magisterial book, Hans Belting traces the long history of the sacral image and its changing role--from surrogate for the represented image to an original work of art--in European culture. Likeness and Presence looks at the beliefs, superstitions, hopes, and fears that come into play as people handle and respond to sacred images, and presents a compelling interpretation of the place of the image in Western history. -- Back cover

This volume presents and describes 50 of the artist's works with essays by leading Richter experts. It also includes personal testimonials in previously unpublished letters as well as a conversation between Gerhard Richter and Richter expert Uwe Schneede. This book provides new insight into the complexity of Richter's imagery in which banality and evil confront one another: the dreams and aspirations of the times, fast cars and new travel possibilities; personal memories; the oppressive past; contemporary politics; and both trivial and meaningful everyday objects. The cycle 18 Oktober 1977 (1988), which deals with the death of members of the Red Army Faction ('Baader-Meinhof gang') plays an important role in our understanding of the evocative power of these pictures from the 1960s. Richter's intense preoccupation with this event concludes this group of paintings from photographs. This cycle, which was loaned to the Bucerius Kunst forum in Hamburg by the New York Museum of Modern Art, has led to a new interpretation and positioning of Richter's work.

Images of war saturated American culture between the 1940s and the 1970s, as U.S. troops marched off to battle in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Exploring representations of servicemen in the popular press, government propaganda, museum exhibits, literature, film, and television, Andrew Huebner traces the evolution of a storied American icon--the combat soldier. Huebner challenges the pervasive assumption that Vietnam brought drastic changes in portrayals of the American warrior, with the jaded serviceman of the 1960s and 1970s shown in stark contrast to the patriotic citizen-soldier of World War II. In fact, Huebner shows, cracks began to appear in sentimental images of the military late in World War II and were particularly apparent during the Korean conflict. Journalists, filmmakers, novelists, and poets increasingly portrayed the steep costs of combat, depicting soldiers who were harmed rather than hardened by war, isolated from rather than supported by their military leadership and American society. Across all three wars, Huebner argues, the warrior image conveyed a growing cynicism about armed conflict, the federal government, and Cold War militarization.

Candid photographs of rock legends at work and at play during the sixties fill a personal album, highlighted with comments and reminiscences by the author

The first comprehensive survey of this exciting new medium of visual expression; it is an essential reference for anyone who wants to understand this revolution.

The recent 50th anniversaries of the first human spaceflights by the Soviet Union and the United States, and the 30th anniversary of the launching of the first U.S. Space Shuttle mission, have again brought to mind the pioneering accomplishments of the first quarter century of humans in space. Historians, political scientists and others have extensively examined the technical, programmatic and political history of human spaceflight from the 1960s to the 1980s, but work is only beginning on the social and cultural history of the pioneering era. One rapidly developing area of recent scholarship is the examination of the images of spacefarers in the media, government propaganda and popular culture. How was space travel imagined in the visual media on the cusp of human spaceflights? How were astronauts and cosmonauts represented in official and quasi-official media portraits? And how were those images reproduced and transformed by in the imagination of film-makers, movie producers, popular writers, and novelists? Spacefarers addresses these questions with nine contributions from scholars in the field of aerospace history, Russian and American history, and English literature. These essays are preceded by an introduction by the editor, who discusses their place in the historiography of spaceflight and social and cultural history. The book will have potential appeal to a wide variety of scholars in history, literature and the social sciences and will include a number of striking visual images.

Spectacular collection of over 100 colour photos of this famous basketball team.