Conceived as a gorgeously illustrated accompaniment to ?How Do We Look? and ?The Eye of Faith,? the famed Civilisations shows on PBS, renowned classicist Mary Beard has created this elegant volume on how we have looked at art. Focusing in Part I on the Olmec heads of early Mesoamerica, the colossal statues of the pharaoh Amenhotep III, and the nudes of classical Greece, Be Conceived as a gorgeously illustrated accompaniment to ?How Do We Look? and ?The Eye of Faith,? the famed...
| Title | : | How Do We Look: The Body, the Divine, and the Question of Civilization |
| Author | : | Mary Beard |
| Rating | : | |
| Genres | : | History |
| ISBN | : | 1631494406 |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 240 pages pages |
How Do We Look: The Body, the Divine, and the Question of Civilization Reviews
Reviewed for The Bibliophibian. This volume is a slightly odd book in that the two halves aren?t really related, except by being companions to the same TV series, Civilisation. The first half looks at how the human body has been portrayed throughout history ? so both what we loo...
I remember reading last year that there was a bit of a kerfuffle about the PBS version of the BBC's new Civilisations series--that the shows as seen in Britain had been renamed (respelled to Civilizations), chopped up, edited, and given new voice-overs (dumbed down?) to adapt them for ...
I really like Mary Beard and her perspective on human civilization through her expertise in antiquity. This book focuses on the question of who are we when we are looking at art, not only how do we see art, but how does art reflect our gaze. Using numerous examples of ancient figurativ...
In sum: "So much depends on who is looking, from ancient master or ancient slave to eighteenth-century connoisseur or twenty-first-century tourist. And so much depends on the context in which they look, whether ancient cemetery or temple, English stately home or modern museum. I am not...
watch here 1: The first film by Simon Schama looks at the formative role art and the creative imagination have played in the forging of humanity itself. 2: Mary Beard explores images of the human body in ancient art, from Mexico and Greece to Egypt and China 3: Simon Scha...
When the more recent Civilization was shown on PBS, they edited it a bit from the British version because we can?t have nice things in America since we elected an orange. But they edited out much Mary Beard which is so not right. Really not right. So if you are wondering why...
This was accessible and interesting, which are two things I wouldn't often say about art history. ...
Fascinating read on art and sculpture and how people from long ago memorialized themselves and others. ...- Once I discovered Mary Beard I knew I had to chase down the rest of her books. Like her others, How Do We Look manages to be supremely readable and digestible while containing deep study and scholarly references. The more I'm exposed to her ideas, the more I understand why she's taken ...
I think this was a four star book. I read it three month ago -- the last book I read before we moved and I temporarily gave up reading. Mary Beard is always good, but that whole period is now a blur. ...
A beautiful and witty art survey, about one of my favorite subjects--people and how they represent themselves. What does it mean politically and socially to be painted "warts and all," or as a hundred foot tall, bare-chested incarnation of Ra? Beard carefully chooses pieces from around...
Mary Beard is still the most engaging writer of the history of the ancient world to be found anywhere and this somewhat smaller work is a clear example of that. The title, "How Do We Look," works on a number of fronts in that it contrasts that simplistic question - usually asked when f...
It's good. But it felt too short. Probably for the better since the market for people who want to read 600 pages on the topic is limited. It was a snack. ...
This is a companion book to a TV series (well 2 episodes of said series), so it is a short and somewhat shallow introduction to the topics it covers. The illustrations were very integral to this book, which I appreciated. Unlike most books, I was able to see a picture of each and every...
Reminds me of why I miss my University days. Mary Beard gives us enough information to spark our interest but not so much that it exhausts our appetite for the subject. We aren?t being thrust information that?s purely black and white, this means this and that is that, but being gen...
Very accessible, maybe even too light and brief, but still so many lovely nuggets of insight. ...
Boy oh boy, I hated this book. I haven't seen Civilisations, so I can't compare this companion book to that series. But if the show is anything like How Do We Look, I will be avoiding it. Beard's approach is to tell a historical anecdote or recount the details of a piece of art and ...
How Do We Look is based off Mary Beard's BBC documentary, Civilisations. That makes it slightly janky as a book but still very informative. Probably would have done better in the coffee table format but I probably would not have picked it up then and I'm happy I did. The book center...
Very basic introduction to how we have looked at and engaged with art objects throughout the centuries. This is a very quick read with short chapters focused on a specific place, object, or topic. Unfortunately, it is very Western-centric although Beard says she tried not be. Even ...
«La cerámica pintada, un elemento básico de la vida cotidiana ateniense, desde las fiestas hasta la cocina, se fabricaba a la sombra de uno de los cementerios principales de la ciudad, junto a los recuerdos conmemorativos del pasado de los atenienses y los monumentos de mármol dedi...
The premise of this book is intriguing. Art history often focuses on the artists, and sometimes their models, but seldom the viewers. However, as commissioners of the artwork, as art dealers, and as consumers, viewers determine the value of art and influence the creative processes with...
Can Mary Beard ever write a book that doesn't deserve 5 stars? ...
tl;dr: This is an informative, brief read that gives us some insights into art and the relationship we have had with it over time. I was a little surprised to see Olmec art in the book as it is typically the Aztecs, Mayans and Incans that get the burn in most books, but each of the ...
How Do We Look offers the reader a question well worth exploring: how do humans use art to explain how they think and feel about themselves. This is a question stolen directly from an Intro to Art syllabus, but it is a question worth asking because human imagination is arguably the mos...
Very informative and easy to read prose! This would be a fantastic addition to a 100 level art history class. ...
Sumptuously produced, it was an easy read in one sitting on a rainy afternoon. Mary Beard is a classicist of the highest order, yet this book was, for me, a prime example of overreaching. Her credentials as an art historian or critic are clearly lacking. Her statements are often ped...
I do love Mary Beard, but prefer watching her on TV to reading her articles. However having watched and enjoyed her episodes of 'Civilisations' (much more than I enjoyed Simon Schama's!) it was a pleasure to read this beautifully illustrated volume and remind myself of all the fascinat...
Very quick read, with beautiful photographs of the various monuments and works presented in the show. I love Mary Beard's work, but her style seems to clash with the more formal approach taken by Kenneth Clark in the first series and Schama and Olusoga's episodes. However, for this rev...
?One of its most powerful weapons has always been ?barbarity?: we know that we are civilised by contrasting ourselves with those we deem to be uncivilised, with those who do not - or cannot be trusted to - share our values. Civilisation is a process of exclusion as well as inclus...
When a friend mentioned this book to me I put in on my list to read. I am glad I did. I've seen Mary Beard on PBS programs and enjoyed her enthusiasm, so it was a treat to read her passion for the depiction of the body and the divine in our long history of art. The chapters were well d...
