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Portraits have for centuries been one of the most important art forms. But what do portraits tell us? What do they mean? And what makes a picture into a portrait? In this book, leading art philosopher Cynthia Freeland addresses these questions and more. As she shows, portraits have served two fundamental functions throughout the ages. Firstly, they preserve identity, bringing us closer to loved ones who are either absent or dead. And secondly, they tell us something about the subject being portrayed: not just external things such as what they are wearing, but also about the subject's emotions and inner state. Along the way, she addresses a whole host of fascinating problems posed by the art of portraiture. Can a picture of an animal truly be a portrait? How exactly have artists through the ages managed to depict the inner state of the subject being portrayed? Is it in fact possible for an artist to capture someone's individual 'air', their unique aura? And how has science been used to help in this quest? As Freeland shows, portraits are far more than just pretty pictures. They are a fundamental way of looking at ourselves and others, raising profound questions about our identity, how it is revealed, and how it can be preserved even after death.
This dynamic, inspiring, and comprehensive showcase of professional lighting techniques features exciting and innovative work from photographers around the world, explaining the lighting set-ups that are essential to their success.
Portraits are everywhere. One finds them not only in museums and galleries, but also in newspapers and magazines, in the homes of people and in the boardrooms of companies, on stamps and coins, on millions of cell phones and computers. Despite its huge popularity, however, portraiture hasn’t received much philosophical attention. While there are countless art historical studies of portraiture, contemporary philosophy has largely remained silent on the subject. This book aims to address that lacuna. It brings together philosophers (and philosophically minded historians) with different areas of expertise to discuss this enduring and continuously fascinating genre. The chapters in this collection are ranged under five broad themes. Part I examines the general nature of portraiture and what makes it distinctive as a genre. Part II looks at some of the subgenres of portraiture, such as double portraiture, and at some special cases, such as sport card portraits and portraits of people not present. How emotions are expressed and evoked by portraits is the central focus of Part III, while Part IV explores the relation between portraiture, fiction, and depiction more generally. Finally, in Part V, some of the ethical issues surrounding portraiture are addressed. The book closes with an epilogue about portraits of philosophers. Portraits and Philosophy tangles with deep questions about the nature and effects of portraiture in ways that will substantially advance the scholarly discussion of the genre. It will be of interest to scholars and students working in philosophy of art, history of art, and the visual arts.
Can you guess what Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs have in common? Or Angelina Jolie and Mother Teresa? Discover how these individuals changed the course of history with their ideas, discoveries, actions, and inventions, from Johannes Gutenberg to Emma Watson. Short biographies of two seemingly unrelated figures are presented side by side and then open up to a spread discussing their common traits and how their discoveries and actions paved the way for each other and future activists. Each pair is followed by a timeline showing where the individual figures existed in history, along with other important world events. The book ends with a world map, plotting the location of each person discussed, showing how greatness comes from every corner of the world.
“Faces are the most interesting things we see; other people fascinate me, and the most interesting aspect of other people—the point where we go inside them—is the face. It tells all.” —David Hockney Ever since he made his first portraits and self-portraits at the age of sixteen, David Hockney has been fascinated by people—“the human clay,” as W. H. Auden put it—and how they have been represented throughout the history of art. As much as any other artist in recent years, he has embraced, invigorated, and often subverted traditional portraiture, making it a central concern of his work. Through a careful selection of works both iconic and previously unpublished, this book explores the many ways in which Hockney has depicted the people around him, be they famous names such as Andy Warhol, Christopher Isherwood, and W. H. Auden or lifelong friends such as Henry Geldzahler and Celia Birtwell, among many others. It tells the story of the artist’s relationships with family, friends, and lovers, illustrated by works ranging from the intimate and frequently moving studies of his parents and partners to his more recent large-scale double portraits in watercolor. Revealing and always touching, Hockney’s Portraits and People is both a unique record of the life and loves of one of the world’s best-known artists and a valuable glimpse of the moment when life and art meet.
What is art? What counts as an aesthetic experience? Does art have to beautiful? Can one reasonably dispute about taste? What is the relation between aesthetic and moral evaluations? How to interpret a work of art? Can we learn anything from literature, film or opera? What is sentimentality? What is irony? How to think philosophically about architecture, dance, or sculpture? What makes something a great portrait? Is music representational or abstract? Why do we feel terrified when we watch a horror movie even though we know it to be fictional? In Conversations on Art and Aesthetics, Hans Maes discusses these and other key questions in aesthetics with ten world-leading philosophers of art: Noël Carroll, Gregory Currie, Arthur Danto, Cynthia Freeland, Paul Guyer, Carolyn Korsmeyer, Jerrold Levinson, Jenefer Robinson, Roger Scruton, and Kendall Walton. The exchanges are direct, open, and sharp, and give a clear account of these thinkers' core ideas and intellectual development. They also offer new insights into, and a deeper understanding of, contemporary issues in the philosophy of art.
