Postures: Body Language in Art
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Postures: Body Language in Art
Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?
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See moreThis copiously illustrated work by the ever-provocative Morris is a pioneering and lively exploration of the importance of body language in how people understand art.
Desmond Morris, bestselling author of The Naked Ape, explores how understanding posture and body language can change the way we look at art.
Examining the body language displayed in works of art is a whole new way of looking at art. The gestures portrayed can reflect the mores of a particular period in history, the customs of a certain culture, or a fashion in artistic styles. Exploring these with masterful subtlety, celebrated artist and anthropologist Desmond Morris uncovers fascinating insights about changing social attitudes and conventions through history and around the world, finding surprising similarities as well as now rarely used gestures.
Morris selects a number of key gestures, such as the handshake, the pointed foot, or the glove-slap, and groups them by the message they are intended to convey, such as Greetings, Status and Threats. He discusses the previously unconsidered symbolism behind these. What is understood as a gang sign today may have borne a more enigmatic meaning for Botticelli. And what did Napoleon's hidden hand really mean? Postures: Body Language in Art uniquely combines the author's expertise in both art and social science, so that even the most familiar paintings are suddenly seen in a new light.
Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?
Irish Times praises Morris’s writing, highlighting that his text "sparkles with wit" and carries readers away with enthusiasm, presenting art in a completely new light.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780500022610
Publisher: Thames & Hudson Ltd
Format: Hardback
Date Published: 03 October 2019
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Thames & Hudson Ltd
Illustration: 300 Illustrations, color
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Width: 165.0mm
Height: 240.0mm
Weight: 1060g
Pages: 320
Collections
About the Author
Desmond Morris is a zoologist, ethnologist and painter, as well as a popular author in human sociobiology. He is the bestselling author of The Naked Ape (1967), The Human Zoo (1969), Manwatching (1977), Body Talk: A World Guide to Gestures (1994), The Artistic Ape: Three Million Years of Art (2013) and The Lives of the Surrealists (Thames & Hudson, 2018), as well as many other titles.
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