Richard Neer - Böcker

We often assume that works of visual art are meant to be seen. Yet that assumption may be a modern prejudice. The ancient world - from China to Greece, Rome to Mexico - provides many examples of statues, paintings, and other images that were not intended to be visible. Instead of being displayed, they were hidden, buried, or otherwise obscured. In this third volume in the Visual Conversations in Art & Archaeology series, leading scholars working at the intersection of archaeology and the history of art address the fundamental question of art's visibility. What conditions must be met, what has to be in place, for a work of art to be seen at all? The answer is both historical and methodological; it concerns ancient societies and modern disciplines, and encompasses material circumstances, perceptual capacities, technologies of visualization, protocols of classification, and a great deal more. The emerging field of archaeological art history is uniquely suited to address such questions. Intrinsically comparative, this approach cuts across traditional ethnic, religious, and chronological categories to confront the academic present with the historical past. The goal is to produce a new art history that is at once cosmopolitan in method and global in scope, and in doing so establish new ways of seeing - new conditions of visibility - for shared objects of study.

In the fifth century BCE, an artistic revolution occurred in Greece, as sculptors developed new ways of representing bodies, movement, and space. The resulting 'classical' style would prove influential for centuries to come. Modern scholars have traditionally described the emergence of this style as a steady march of progress, culminating in masterpieces like the Parthenon sculptures. But this account assumes the impossible: that the early Greeks were working tirelessly toward a style of which they had no prior knowledge. In this ambitious work, Richard Neer draws on recent work in art history, archaeology, literary criticism, and art theory to rewrite the story of Greek sculpture. He provides new ways to understand classical sculpture in Greek terms, and carefully analyzes the relationship between political and stylistic histories. A much-heralded project, "The Emergence of the Classical Style in Greek Sculpture" represents an important step in furthering our understanding of the ancient world.

Neer uncovers a key moment in the history of early modern art, when painting was understood to be a tool for self-transformation and for living a philosophical life.   In this wide-ranging study, Richard Neer shows how French painters of the seventeenth century developed radically new ways to connect art, perception, and ethics. Cutting across traditional boundaries of classicism and realism, Neer addresses four case studies: Nicolas Poussin, renowned for marrying ancient philosophy and narrative painting; Louise Moillon, who pioneered French still life in the 1630s; Georges de La Tour, a painter of intense and introspective nocturnes; and the Brothers Le Nain, specialists in genre and portraiture who inspired Courbet, Manet, and other painters of modern life. Setting these artists in dialogue with Montaigne, Descartes, Pascal, and others, ranging from the studios of Rome to the streets of Paris, this book provides fresh accounts of essential artworks—some well-known, others neglected—and new ways to approach the relation of art, theory, and daily life.