Picturing the Beast

Picturing the Beast
Author: Steve Baker
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2001
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780252070303

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Explores how human beings use animals and images of animals to define themselves--and how those depictions interfere with our abilities to understand the true nature of animals.

Postmodern Animal

Postmodern Animal
Author: Steve Baker
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2000-03
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9781861890603

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In The Postmodern Animal, Steve Baker explores how animal imagery has been used in modern and contemporary art and performance, and in postmodern philosophy and literature, to suggest and shape ideas about identity and creativity. Baker cogently analyses the work of such European and American artists as Olly and Suzi, Mark Dion, Paula Rego and Sue Coe, at the same time looking critically at the constructions, performances and installations of Robert Rauschenberg, Louise Bourgeois, Joseph Beuys and other significant late twentieth-century artists. Baker's book draws parallels between the animal's place in postmodern art and poststructuralist theory, drawing on works as diverse as Jacques Derrida's recent analysis of the role of animals in philosophical thought and Julian Barnes's best-selling Flaubert's Parrot.

Book of Beasts

Book of Beasts
Author: Elizabeth Morrison
Publisher: Getty Publications
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2019
Genre: ART
ISBN: 1606065904

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A celebration of the visual contributions of the bestiary--one of the most popular types of illuminated books during the Middle Ages--and an exploration of its lasting legacy. Brimming with lively animals both real and fantastic, the bestiary was one of the great illuminated manuscript traditions of the Middle Ages. Encompassing imaginary creatures such as the unicorn, siren, and griffin; exotic beasts including the tiger, elephant, and ape; as well as animals native to Europe like the beaver, dog, and hedgehog, the bestiary is a vibrant testimony to the medieval understanding of animals and their role in the world. So iconic were the stories and images of the bestiary that its beasts essentially escaped from the pages, appearing in a wide variety of manuscripts and other objects, including tapestries, ivories, metalwork, and sculpture. With over 270 color illustrations and contributions by twenty-five leading scholars, this gorgeous volume explores the bestiary and its widespread influence on medieval art and culture as well as on modern and contemporary artists like Pablo Picasso and Damien Hirst. Published to accompany an exhibition on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center May 14 to August 18, 2019.

Artist Animal

Artist Animal
Author: Steve Baker
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2013-02-27
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1452934843

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Animals have always been compelling subjects for artists, but the rise of animal advocacy and posthumanist thought has prompted a reconsideration of the relationship between artist and animal. In this book, Steve Baker examines the work of contemporary artists who directly confront questions of animal life, treating animals not for their aesthetic qualities or as symbols of the human condition but rather as beings who actively share the world with humanity. The concerns of the artists presented in this book—Sue Coe, Eduardo Kac, Lucy Kimbell, Catherine Chalmers, Olly and Suzi, Angela Singer, Catherine Bell, and others—range widely, from the ecological to the philosophical and from those engaging with the modification of animal bodies to those seeking to further the cause of animal rights. Drawing on extensive interviews he conducted with the artists under consideration, Baker explores the vital contribution that contemporary art can make to a broader conception of animal life, emphasizing the importance of creativity and trust in both the making and understanding of these artworks. Throughout, Baker is attentive to issues of practice, form, and medium. He asks, for example, whether the animal itself could be said to be the medium in which these artists are working, and he highlights the tensions between creative practice and certain kinds of ethical demands or expectations. Featuring full-color, vivid examples of their work, Artist Animal situates contemporary artists within the wider project of thinking beyond the human, asserting art’s power to open up new ways of thinking about animals.

Picturing the Apocalypse

Picturing the Apocalypse
Author: Natasha O'Hear
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2015-06-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0191002968

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The book of Revelation has been a source of continual fascination for nearly two thousand years. Concepts such as The Lamb of God, the Four Horsemen, the Seventh Seal, the Beasts and Antichrist, the Whore of Babylon, Armageddon, the Millennium, the Last Judgement, the New Jerusalem, and the ubiquitous Angel of the Apocalypse have captured the popular imagination. One can hardly open a newspaper or click on a news web site without reading about impending financial or climate change Armageddon, while the concept of the Four Horsemen pervades popular music, gaming, and satire. Yet few people know much about either the basic meaning or original context of these concepts or the multiplicity of different ways in which they have been interpreted by visual artists in particular. The visual history of this most widely illustrated of all the biblical books deserves greater attention. This book fills these gaps in a striking and original way by means of ten concise thematic chapters which explain the origins of these concepts from the book of Revelation in an accessible way. These explanations are augmented and developed via a carefully selected sample of the ways in which the concepts have been treated by artists through the centuries. The 120 visual examples are drawn from a wide range of time periods and media including the ninth-century Trier Apocalypse, thirteenth-century Anglo-Norman Apocalypse Manuscripts such as the Lambeth and Trinity Apocalypses, the fourteenth-century Angers Apocalypse Tapestry, fifteenth-century Apocalypse altarpieces by Van Eyck and Memling, Dürer and Cranach's sixteenth-century Apocalypse woodcuts, and more recently a range of works by William Blake, J. M. W. Turner, Max Beckmann, as well as film posters and stills, cartoons, and children's book illustrations. The final chapter demonstrates the continuing resonance of all the themes in contemporary religious, political, and popular thinking, while throughout the book a contrast will be drawn between those readers of Revelation who have seen it in terms of earthly revolutions in the here and now, and those who have adopted a more spiritual, otherworldly approach.

What are the Animals to Us?

What are the Animals to Us?
Author: David Aftandilian
Publisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2007
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781572334724

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In What Are the Animals to Us? scholars from a wide variety of academic disciplines explore the diverse meanings of animals in science, religion, folklore, literature, and art.

The Photographed Cat

The Photographed Cat
Author: Arnold Arluke
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2013-09-27
Genre: Pets
ISBN: 0815652461

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With more than 130 illustrations, The Photographed Cat: Picturing Close Human-Feline Ties, 1900–1940 is both an archive and an analytical exploration of the close relationships between Americans and their cats during a period that is significant for photography and for modern understandings of animals as pets. This volume examines the cultural implications of feline companions while also celebrating the intimacy and joys of pets and family photographs. In seven thematic sections, Arluke and Rolfe engage with the collection of antique images as representations of real relationships and of ideal relationships, noting the cultural trends and tropes that occur throughout this increasingly popular practice. Whether as surrogate children, mascots, or companions to women, cats are part of modern American life and visual culture. Entertaining, smart, and filled with a collector’s trove of wonderful images, The Photographed Cat pays homage to the surprising range of relationships we have with cats and offers thoughtful consideration of the ways in which we represent them.

Picturing the Wolf in Children's Literature

Picturing the Wolf in Children's Literature
Author: Debra Mitts Smith
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2010
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0415801176

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The wolf has long been a part of the landscape of children's literature. Mitts-Smith analyzes visual images of the wolf in children's books published in Western Europe and North America from 1500 to the present.

Picturing Knowledge

Picturing Knowledge
Author: Brian Scott Baigrie
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 420
Release: 1996-01-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780802074393

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The contributors to this volume examine the historical and philosophical issues concerning the role that scientific illustration plays in the creation of scientific knowledge.

Who is the Beast?

Who is the Beast?
Author: Keith Baker
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 44
Release: 1990
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 9780152960575

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Keith Baker's most popular title is now available as a board book.