Looking at the Overlooked: Four Essays on Still Life Painting (Essays in Art & Culture)

In this, the only up-to-date critical work on still life painting in any language, Norman Bryson analyzes the origins, history and logic of still life, one of the most enduring forms of Western painting. The first essay is devoted to Roman wall-painting while in the second the author surveys a major segment in the history of still life, from seventeenth-century Spanish painting to Cubism. The third essay tackles the controversial field of seventeenth-century Dutch still life. Bryson concludes in the final essay that the persisting tendency to downgrade the genre of still life is profoundly rooted in the historical oppression of women.In Looking at the Overlooked, Norman Bryson is at his most brilliant. These superbly written essays will stimulate us to look at the entire tradition of still life with new and critical eyes. Historically And Culturally, The Societies That Produced Still Life Painting Could Hardly Be More Diverse. What Is It, Then, That Allows Us To Place Such Different Types Of Image In A Single Category? Norman Bryson Argues That The Family Resemblances Between The Different Types Of Still Life Stem From Their Common Portrayal Of A Level Of Material Culture That Retains Its Fundamental Outlines Through Long Spans Of Time And Across The Boundaries And Divisions Of National Culture: The Culture Of Domestic Routine And The Rituals Of Hospitality. How This 'low Plane Reality' Is Historically Viewed And Inflected By The 'higher' Levels And Discourses Of The Surrounding Culture Is The Fundamental Subject Of This Book.