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The Photograph
http://www.fishpond.co.nz/Books/Photograph-Graham-Clarke/9780192842008
A Visual and Cultural History (Oxford History of Art S.)
By
Graham Clarke
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Price includes NZ wide delivery! Ships from UK supplier | Rating: | | | Format: | Paperback / softback, 248 pages | | Other Information: | colour and black and white halftones throughout | | Published In: | United Kingdom, 10 April 1997 |
From the first misty 'heliograph' taken by Joseph Nicephore Niepce in 1826 to the classic compositions of Cartier-Bresson and Alfred Steiglitz, to the striking postmodern strategies of Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman and Victor Burgin, the history of photography is a record of dazzling and penetrating images. But photographs are also the most pervasive images of our time, infinite in their capacity to record and make moments significant, granting status to everything they touch. So how do we read a photograph? In a series of brilliant discussions of major themes and genres, Graham Clarke gives a clear and incisive account of the photograph's historical development, and elucidates the insights of the most interesting thinkers on the subject such as Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag. At the heart of the book is his ground-breaking examination of the main subject areas - landscape, the city, portraiture, the body, and reportage - and his detailed analysis of exemplary images in terms of their cultural and ideological contexts. |
About the Author
Graham Clarke, Reader in Literary and Image Studies at the University of Kent, Canterbury, serves on the advisory board of the journal, History of Photography. His recent publications include The Portrait in Photography and The American City: Literary & Cultural Perspectives.
ReviewsClarke (literary and image studies, Univ. of Kent, Canterbury) contributes one of the first entries in a series of short texts now being published by Oxford that treat aspects of art history. A vast amount has been written about photography, its history, its practitioners and processes, its influences as an art medium, and its power as a documentary medium, and anyone hoping to write a succinct book on the subject is bound to come up short in one or more of these areas. This high-speed, wholly inadequate survey of photography's early years leaves out a sense of the process of discovering and extending photography's capabilities. The bulk of the subject-oriented chapters deal with photography of landscapes, cities, human forms, and events. Throughout, Clarke attempts to focus the discourse on how photographs convey their meaning. The reproduction quality is good, and the images selected from the 20th century are often quite provocative and memorable. An introductory text for large history of photography and general art history collections.‘Kathleen Collins, New York Transit Museum Archives, Brooklyn
| Publisher: | Oxford Paperbacks | | ISBN: | 0192842005 |
| EAN: | 9780192842008 | | Dimensions: | 23.88 x 16.81 x 1.52 centimeters (0.59 kg) |
| Age Range: |
15+ years |
|
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