The Cultural Life of Images: Visual Representation in Archaeology
Pictures are often admired for their aesthetic merits but they are rarely treated as if they had as much to offer as the written word. They are often overlooked as objects of analysis themselves, and tend to be seen simply as adjuncts to the text. Images, however, are not passive, and have a direct impact that engages attention in ways independent of any specific text. Advertising, entertainment and propaganda have realised the extent of this power to shape ideas, but the scientific community has hitherto neglected the ways in which visual material conditions the ways in which we think.
With subjects including prehistoric artworks, excavation illustrations, artists' impressions of ancient sites and peoples and contemporary landscapes, photographs and drawings, this study explores how pictures shape our perceptions and our expectations of the past.
This volume is not concerned with the accuracy of pictures from the past or directly about the past itself, but is interested instead in why certain subjects are selected, why they are depicted the way they are, and what effects such images have on our idea of the past. This collection constitutes a ground-breaking study in historiography which radically reassesses the ways that history can be written.
1113963590
The Cultural Life of Images: Visual Representation in Archaeology
Pictures are often admired for their aesthetic merits but they are rarely treated as if they had as much to offer as the written word. They are often overlooked as objects of analysis themselves, and tend to be seen simply as adjuncts to the text. Images, however, are not passive, and have a direct impact that engages attention in ways independent of any specific text. Advertising, entertainment and propaganda have realised the extent of this power to shape ideas, but the scientific community has hitherto neglected the ways in which visual material conditions the ways in which we think.
With subjects including prehistoric artworks, excavation illustrations, artists' impressions of ancient sites and peoples and contemporary landscapes, photographs and drawings, this study explores how pictures shape our perceptions and our expectations of the past.
This volume is not concerned with the accuracy of pictures from the past or directly about the past itself, but is interested instead in why certain subjects are selected, why they are depicted the way they are, and what effects such images have on our idea of the past. This collection constitutes a ground-breaking study in historiography which radically reassesses the ways that history can be written.
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The Cultural Life of Images: Visual Representation in Archaeology

The Cultural Life of Images: Visual Representation in Archaeology

by Brian Leigh Molyneaux (Editor)
The Cultural Life of Images: Visual Representation in Archaeology

The Cultural Life of Images: Visual Representation in Archaeology

by Brian Leigh Molyneaux (Editor)

Paperback(Reprint)

$58.99 
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Overview

Pictures are often admired for their aesthetic merits but they are rarely treated as if they had as much to offer as the written word. They are often overlooked as objects of analysis themselves, and tend to be seen simply as adjuncts to the text. Images, however, are not passive, and have a direct impact that engages attention in ways independent of any specific text. Advertising, entertainment and propaganda have realised the extent of this power to shape ideas, but the scientific community has hitherto neglected the ways in which visual material conditions the ways in which we think.
With subjects including prehistoric artworks, excavation illustrations, artists' impressions of ancient sites and peoples and contemporary landscapes, photographs and drawings, this study explores how pictures shape our perceptions and our expectations of the past.
This volume is not concerned with the accuracy of pictures from the past or directly about the past itself, but is interested instead in why certain subjects are selected, why they are depicted the way they are, and what effects such images have on our idea of the past. This collection constitutes a ground-breaking study in historiography which radically reassesses the ways that history can be written.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780415513449
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Publication date: 11/04/2011
Series: Theoretical Archaeology Group (Tag)
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 292
Product dimensions: 6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Brian Leigh Molyneaux is Assistant Professor of Archaeology at the University of South Dakota.

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1: Art, Landscape, And The Past; 2: Drawing Inferences; 3: Things, and Things Like Them; 4: ‘ To See is to Have Seen '; 5: Photography and Archaeology; 6: Representation and Reality in Private Tombs of the Late Eighteenth Dynasty, Egypt; 7: Some Greek Images Of Others; 8: The Art and Archaeology of Custer's Last Battle; 9: Revolutionary Images; 10: The Power Of The Picture; 11: Focusing on the Past; 12: The Painter and Prehistoric People
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