The Claude glass : use and meaning of the black mirror in western art / Arnaud Maillet ; translated by Jeff Fort.
"Arnaud Maillet's The Claude Glass is a contribution to the history of Western visual culture. In this first full-length study of a largely forgotten optical device from the eighteenth-century, Maillet reconfigures our historical understanding of visual experience and meaning in relation t...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English French |
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New York :
Zone Books,
2004.
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| Summary: | "Arnaud Maillet's The Claude Glass is a contribution to the history of Western visual culture. In this first full-length study of a largely forgotten optical device from the eighteenth-century, Maillet reconfigures our historical understanding of visual experience and meaning in relation to notions of opacity, transparency, and imagination. Many are familiar with the Claude glass as a small black convex mirror used by artists and spectators of landscape to reflect a view and make tonal values and areas of light and shade visible. Maillet, in this account, goes well beyond this particular function of the glass and situates it within a richer archaeology of Western thought, exploring the uncertainties and anxieties about mirrors, reflections, and their potential distortions. He takes us from the background of the "black mirror" through a full evaluation of its importance in the age of the picturesque, to its persistence in a range of technological and representational practices such as photography, film, and contemporary art."--BOOK JACKET. |
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| Physical Description: | 300 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 223-287) and index. |
| ISBN: | 1890951471 9781890951474 |