Optical Allusions is for those people seeking a painstakingly researched, scientifically accurate, eye-themed comic book adventure! Wrinkles the Wonder Brain has lost his bosses eye and now he has to search all of human imagination for it. Along the way, he confronts biology head on and accidentally learns more about eyes and the evolution of vision than he thought possible. And, as if a compelling story with disembodied talking brains, shape-changing proteins, and giant robot eyes wasn't enough, each tale is followed by a fully illustrated, in-depth exploration of the ideas introduced in the comic story. Designed to be a hybrid college text book/comic book, Optical Allusions is suitable for advanced readers with an interest in evolution and real science. 127 pages.

In Optical Allusions: Screens, Paintings, and Poetry in Classical Japan (ca. 800-1200), Joseph T. Sorensen illustrates how painted screens and other visual art objects contributed to the development of some of the essential characteristics of Japanese court poetry.

In this book a leading researcher and artist explores how we see pictures and how they can communicate messages to us, both directly and indirectly by making allusions to objects in space or to stored images in our minds. Originally published in 1990, Dr Wade provides fascinating examples of pictures that communicate hidden messages, either by implying something else, or by a shape or portrait which is carried covertly within another design. He analyses image processing stages in vision, demonstrating that the various stages may be related to styles in representational art. He shows how the way we have been taught to look at and recognise objects, affects the way we see them. The book lavishly illustrates with original examples of visual allusions and includes detailed practical advice on how photographers and designers can create them. Essential reading for photographers, designers, artists, people in film and television, and anyone involved in visual science , visual communication and advertising.

Twelfth Night is the most mature and fully developed of Shakespeare's comedies and, as well as being one of his most popular plays, represents a crucial moment in the development of his art. Assembled by leading scholars, this guide provides a comprehensive survey of major issues in the contemporary study of the play. Throughout the book chapters explore such issues as the play's critical reception from John Manningham's account of one of its first performances to major current comentators like Stephen Greenblatt; the performance history of the play, from Shakespeare's day to the present and key themes in current scholarship, from issues of gender and sexuality to the study of comedy and song. Twelfth Night: A Critical Guide also includes a complete guide to resources available on the play - including critical editions, online resources and an annotated bibliography - and how they might be used to aid both the teaching and study of Shakespeare's enduring comedy.

This book shows that art involves an aesthetics of self-becoming, wherein we do not simply consume artistic meaning, but become empowered—by adapting ourselves to what creation in the different art forms makes possible. Paul Crowther argues that the great political task in aesthetics is no longer the creation of political art as such, but rather the winning back of art and aesthetics as central societal concerns. This involves the overcoming of neo-liberal treatments of art as mere commodity and misguided attitudes that dismiss it as the product of dead white European males. The book begins with a theory of self-consciousness which reveals the necessary role played by the aesthetic in personal identity. It then emphasises how art forms empower through processes of making and aesthetic effects that are unique to them individually. To show this, he considers the ontology of pictorial art, sculpture, installation and assemblage works, architecture, literature, cinema, and music. His arguments concerning these are supported, throughout, by in-depth discussions of specific artworks. The book’s effect, overall is to reorientate aesthetics by showing how art empowers through its revelation of new possibilities of experience. The Aesthetics of Self-Becoming will appeal to philosophers of art and aesthetics, as well as scholars in art history, literary studies, film studies, and music theory who are interested in the book’s central concerns.

"[The Shadow Drawing] reorients our perspective, distills a life and brings it into focus—the very work of revision and refining that its subject loved best." —Parul Sehgal, The New York Times | Editors' Choice An entirely new account of Leonardo the artist and Leonardo the scientist, and why they were one and the same man Leonardo da Vinci has long been celebrated for his consummate genius. He was the painter who gave us the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, and the inventor who anticipated the advent of airplanes, hot air balloons, and other technological marvels. But what was the connection between Leonardo the painter and Leonardo the scientist? Historians of Renaissance art have long supposed that Leonardo became increasingly interested in science as he grew older and turned his insatiable curiosity in new directions. They have argued that there are, in effect, two Leonardos—an artist and an inventor. In this pathbreaking new interpretation, the art historian Francesca Fiorani offers a different view. Taking a fresh look at Leonardo’s celebrated but challenging notebooks, as well as other sources, Fiorani argues that Leonardo became familiar with advanced thinking about human vision when he was still an apprentice in a Florence studio—and used his understanding of optical science to develop and perfect his painting techniques. For Leonardo, the task of the painter was to capture the interior life of a human subject, to paint the soul. And even at the outset of his career, he believed that mastering the scientific study of light, shadow, and the atmosphere was essential to doing so. Eventually, he set down these ideas in a book—A Treatise on Painting—that he considered his greatest achievement, though it would be disfigured, ignored, and lost in subsequent centuries. Ranging from the teeming streets of Florence to the most delicate brushstrokes on the surface of the Mona Lisa, The Shadow Drawing vividly reconstructs Leonardo’s life while teaching us to look anew at his greatest paintings. The result is both stirring biography and a bold reconsideration of how the Renaissance understood science and art—and of what was lost when that understanding was forgotten.

Aperture 155 Optical Allusions: New Perspectives in Spanish Photography Spring 1999 Optical Allusions: New Perspectives in Spanish Photography explores a range of images and perspectives that emerged from a group of photographers in Spain during the 1990s. Eleven portfolios selected for their overlapping thematic and stylistic approaches reveal a rich and idiosyncratic photographic vision, in tune with international developments in photography and the arts. Commentary by the photographers such as Javier Vallhonrat, Pablo Genoveacute;s, and Chema Madoz, provides additional insight into the ideas and practices behind their work. Photographers: Daniel Canogar, Pablo Genoveacute;s, Cristobal Hara, Eduard Ibantilde;ez, Chema Madoz, Ana Teresa Ortega, Mariacute;a Joseacute; Goacute;mez Redondo, Jorge Ribalta, Javier Vallhonrat, Valentin Vallhonrat