Learning to Look: A Handbook for the Visual Arts

by Taylor, Joshua Charles

• ISBN13: 9780226791548
• ISBN10: 0226791548
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1981-06-15
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Sometimes seeing is more difficult for the student of art than believing. Taylor, in a book that has sold more than 300,000 copies since its original publication in 1957, has helped two generations of art students "learn to look." This handy guide to the visual arts is designed to provide a comprehensive view of art, moving from the analytic study of specific works to a consideration of broad principles and technical matters. Forty-four carefully selected illustrations afford an excellent sampling of the wide range of experience awaiting the explorer. The second edition of Learning to Look includes a new chapter on twentieth-century art. Taylor's thoughtful discussion of pure forms and our responses to them gives the reader a few useful starting points for looking at art that does not reproduce nature and for understanding the distance between contemporary figurative art and reality.

Author Biography

Joshua C. Taylor is director of the National Museum of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution.

Table of Contents

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION	vii	(2)
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION	ix
ILLUSTRATIONS	3	(48)
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS	3	(2)
ILLUSTRATIONS	5	(46)
AN APPROACH TO THE VISUAL ARTS	51	(110)
1. AN ANALYSIS OF THE WORK OF ART	51	(18)
2. COLOR AND PERSPECTIVE	69	(8)
Color Terminology	69	(4)
Perspective and the Experience of Depth in Painting	73	(4)
3. SOME DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERISTICS WITHIN THE VISUAL ARTS	77	(20)
Drawing and Painting	78	(3)
Graphic Arts	81	(6)
Sculpture	87	(3)
Architecture	90	(7)
4. SOME MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES OF THE ARTIST	97	(42)
Drawing	97	(5)
Painting	102	(7)
Graphic Arts	109	(14)
Sculpture	123	(6)
Architecture	129	(10)
5. THE ARTIST AND THE WORK OF ART	139	(10)
6. THE EYE AND THE MIND	149	(12)
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE	161	(8)
A CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE PERTAINING TO THE VISUAL ARTS, LITERATURE, AND MUSIC	161	(8)
INDEX	169