| Search | About | Preferences | Interact | Help | |
| 150 million books. 1 search engine. | ||
James Elkins
new books, used books, rare books by James Elkins
› Find all books by 'James Elkins' and compare prices› Find signed collectible books by 'James Elkins'
Compression Vs. Expression: Containing and Explaining the World's ArtISBN 0300097905 (0-300-09790-5)
Softcover, Yale Univ Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Compression Vs. Expression: Containing and Explaining the World's Art'More editions of Compression Vs. Expression: Containing and Explaining the World's Art:
How to Use Your Eyesby James ElkinsISBN 0415922542 (0-415-92254-2)
Hardcover, Routledge
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'How to Use Your Eyes'More editions of How to Use Your Eyes:
The Object Stares Back: On the Nature of Seeingby James ElkinsISBN 0156004976 (0-15-600497-6)
Softcover, Harcourt
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Object Stares Back: On the Nature of Seeing'More editions of The Object Stares Back: On the Nature of Seeing:
-
Our Beautiful, Dry, and Distant Texts: Art History As Writingby James ElkinsISBN 0415926637 (0-415-92663-7)
Softcover, Routledge
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Our Beautiful, Dry, and Distant Texts: Art History As Writing'Book summary:How do psychoanalytic, semiotic, deconstructive, and other interpretations represent works of art? What can they see, and what must they miss? In Our Beautiful, Dry, and Distant Texts, Elkins suggests that the philosophic problems posed by these questions are essentially insuperable because philosophy makes demands of visual artifacts that they can answer only by becoming mirror images of philosophic discourse. Elkins argues that writing is what art historians produce, and, whether such writing is a transparent vehicle for the transmission of facts or an embattled forum for the rehearsal of institutional relations and constructions of history, it is an expressive medium, with the capacity for emotion and reflection. Therefore, it needs to be taken seriously for its own sake: it is the testament of art history and of individual historians, and it is only weakened and slighted by versions of history that imagine it either as uncontrolled dissemination or objective discovery and reporting. Elkins's investigation is not a prescription for opening art history to new influences or for focusing it on particular problems. It is a plea for circumspection in the entire endeavor of trying to force images into words, and in the curious vocation of writing the history of art. [via]
More editions of Our Beautiful, Dry, and Distant Texts: Art History As Writing:
Pictures and Tears: A History of People Who Have Cried in Front of Paintingsby James ElkinsISBN 0203506693 (0-203-50669-3)
Hardcover, Taylor & Francis Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Pictures and Tears: A History of People Who Have Cried in Front of Paintings'More editions of Pictures and Tears: A History of People Who Have Cried in Front of Paintings:
Stories of Artby James ElkinsISBN 0415939437 (0-415-93943-7)
Softcover, Routledge
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Stories of Art'Book summary:Stories of Art is James Elkins's intimate history of art. Concise and original, this engaging book is an antidote to the behemoth art history textbooks from which we were all taught. As he demonstrates so persuasively, there can never be one story of art. Cultures have their own stories - about themselves, about other cultures - and to hear them all is one way to hear the multiple stories that art tells. But each of us also has our own story of art, a kind of private art history made up of the pieces we have seen, and loved or hated, the effects they had on us, and the connections that might be drawn among them.
Elkins opens up the questions that traditional art history usually avoids. What about all the art not produced in Western Europe or in the Europeanized Americas? Is it possible to include Asian art and Indian art in the story? What happens when one does? To help us find answers, he uses both Western and non-Western artworks, tables of contents from art histories written in cultures outside the centre of Western European tradition, and strangely wonderful diagrams of how artworks might connect through a single individual. True multiculturalism may be an impossibility, but art lovers can each create a story of art that is right for themselves.
[via]More editions of Stories of Art:
Visual Literacyby James ElkinsISBN 0415958113 (0-415-95811-3)
Softcover, Routledge
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Visual Literacy'More editions of Visual Literacy:
-
What Painting Isby James ElkinsISBN 0415926629 (0-415-92662-9)
Softcover, Routledge
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'What Painting Is'Book summary:Unlike many books on painting that usually talk about art or painters, James Elkins compelling and original work focuses on alchemy, for like the alchemist, the painter seeks to transform and be transformed by the medium.
In What Painting Is, James Elkins communicates the experience of painting beyond the traditional vocabulary of art history. Alchemy provides a magical language to explore what it is a painter really does in her or his studio - the smells, the mess, the struggle to control the uncontrollable, the special knowledge only painters hold of how colours will mix, and how they will look.
Written from the perspective of a painter-turned-art historian, What Painting Is is like nothing you have ever read about art.
[via]More editions of What Painting Is:
Why Are Our Pictures Puzzles?: On the Modern Origins of Pictorial Complexityby James ElkinsISBN 0415919428 (0-415-91942-8)
Softcover, Routledge
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Why Are Our Pictures Puzzles?: On the Modern Origins of Pictorial Complexity'More editions of Why Are Our Pictures Puzzles?: On the Modern Origins of Pictorial Complexity:
-
Why Art Cannot Be Taught: A Handbook for Art Studentsby James ElkinsISBN 0252069501 (0-252-06950-1)
Softcover, Univ of Illinois Pr
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Why Art Cannot Be Taught: A Handbook for Art Students'Book summary:In this smart survival guide for students and teachers - the only book of its kind - James Elkins examines the "curious endeavor to teach the unteachable" that is generally known as college-level art instruction. This singular project is organized around a series of conflicting claims about art: Art can be taught, but nobody knows quite how; Art can be taught, but it seems as if it can't be since so few students become outstanding artists; Art cannot be taught, but it can be fostered or helped along; Art cannot be taught or even nourished, but it is possible to teach right up to the beginnings of art so that students are ready to make art the moment they graduate; and, Great art cannot be taught, but more run-of-the-mill art can be. Elkins traces the development (or invention) of the modern art school and considers how issues such as the question of core curriculum and the intellectual isolation of art schools affect the teaching and learning of art. He also addresses the phenomenon of art critiques as a microcosm for teaching art as a whole and dissects real-life critiques, highlighting presuppositions and dynamics that make them confusing and suggesting ways to make them more helpful. Elkins' no-nonsense approach clears away the assumptions about art instruction that are not borne out by classroom practice. For example, he notes that despite much talk about instilling visual acuity and teaching technique, in practice neither teachers nor students behave as if those were their principal goals. He addresses the absurdity of pretending that sexual issues are absent from life-drawing classes and questions the practice of holding up great masters and masterpieces as models for students capable of producing only mediocre art. He also discusses types of art - including art that takes time to complete and art that isn't serious - that cannot be learned in studio art classes. "Why Art Cannot Be Taught" is a response to Elkins' observation that "we know very little about what we do" in the art classroom. His incisive commentary illuminates the experience of learning art for those involved in it, while opening an intriguing window for those outside the discipline. [via]
More editions of Why Art Cannot Be Taught: A Handbook for Art Students:
![[powered by Muze Inc.]](http://i.bookfinder.com/images/site/muze/powered_by_muze.gif){kind=small}