Omschrijving
Cynthia Freeland explains why innovation and controversy are valued in the arts, weaving together philosophy, art theory, and many engrossing examples. She discusses blood, beauty, culture, money, sex, web sites, and research on the brain's role in perceiving art. This clear, lively book will engage the public, introductory students, and teachers in the arts.
Review from previous edition So many of the questions that define us as a culture have been raised through and by the art of recent decades, that without coming to terms with our art, we can scarcely understand ourselves. Cynthia Freeland has written a very smart book, in which high philosophical intelligence is applied to difficult questions raised by real works of art. It immediately situates the reader where thought and action meet, and since the issues are inescapable, it should be required reading for everyone. 'I know of no work that moves so swiftly and with so sure a footing through the battle zones of art and society today.'
This pocket potboiler provides some answers, a lot of questions and plenty of entertainment along the way
this is a pacy and readable introduction to art history
admirable for its scope, compactness and exceptional clarity. Reader-friendly and thought-provoking
a book of simplicity and clarity that may well come to rival John Berger's Ways of Seeing as a reader's digest of the rubric of theories that make up contemporary art criticism . . . This is a valuable book for anyone perplexed by the arcane theorising of contemporary art
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Cynthia A. Freeland is professor of philosophy at the University of Houston. She has published on topics in the philosophy of art and film, ancient Greek philosophy, and feminist theory. She is also author of The Naked and the Undead: Evil and the Appeal of Horror (1999) and co-editor of Philosophy and Film (1995).