Nina Lübbren - Böcker

This ground-breaking book presents a critical study of pictorial narrative in nineteenth-century European painting. Covering works from France, Germany, Britain, Italy and elsewhere, it traces the ways in which immensely popular artists like Jean-Léon Gérôme, Karl von Piloty and William Quiller Orchardson used unique visual strategies to tell thrilling and engaging stories. Regardless of genre, content or national context, these paintings share a fundamental modern narrative mode. Unlike traditional art, they do not rely on textual sources; nor do they tell stories through the human body alone. Instead, they experiment with objects, spaces, cause-and-effect relations and open-ended ambiguity, prompting viewers and reviewers to read for clues in order to weave their own elaborate tales.

From postcards and paintings to photography and film, tourism and visual culture have a long-standing history of mutual entanglement. For centuries art has inspired many an intrepid traveller, and tourism provides an insatiable market for indigenous art, authentic or otherwise. This book explores the complex association between tourism and visual culture throughout history and across cultures. How has tourism been linked to images of colonial expansion? Why are we so intrigued by lost places, such as Tutankhamun's tomb or Machu Picchu, South Americas lost city of the Incas? What is the relationship between art, tourism and landscape preference? What role did commercial tourist photographers play in the imagination of Victorian Britain? Drawing upon examples from across the globe, this exciting new contribution to a popular subject illustrates how tourism and visual culture intersect with one another and in the process become contested ground.