- Paperback: 272 pages
- Publisher: Thomson Learning; 1st Harvest Ed edition (9 July 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0156004976
- ISBN-13: 978-0156004978
- Product Dimensions: 20.6 x 13.7 x 1.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 144,313 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
At first it appears that nothing could be easier than seeing. We just focus our eyes and take in whatever it is before us. This ability seems detached, efficient, and rational--as if the eyes were competent machines telling us everything about the world without distorting it in any way. Using drawings, paintings, diagrams, and photographs to illustrate his points, Elkins raises intriguing questions and offers astonishing perception about the nature of vision.
From the Author
Contents of the book
This is a meditation on vision. I am especially interested in the idea that seeing is automatic, and that the world is just there to be seen.It seems to me that seeing is very hard to understand: it is partly unconscious, and it is bound up with desire and fear. How, for example, do we see faces? Do we look at a face in the same way as we touch it, moving up and down, following its contours? If the face is frightening, do we look at it in a way that is different from touching? The book brings a number of disciplines to bear on these kinds of questions, including art history, neurobiology, cognitive pscyhology, experiments on animal vision and machine vision, and psychoanalysis. I have taken examples freely from different fields, including medical illustration, fine art, manuals of cosmetics, medieval icons, paleontology, microscopy, physical chemistry, travel illustration, mathematics. The purpose is to ask questions about vision, and to show how little we know about how we see.
This is a meditation on vision. I am especially interested in the idea that seeing is automatic, and that the world is just there to be seen.It seems to me that seeing is very hard to understand: it is partly unconscious, and it is bound up with desire and fear. How, for example, do we see faces? Do we look at a face in the same way as we touch it, moving up and down, following its contours? If the face is frightening, do we look at it in a way that is different from touching? The book brings a number of disciplines to bear on these kinds of questions, including art history, neurobiology, cognitive pscyhology, experiments on animal vision and machine vision, and psychoanalysis. I have taken examples freely from different fields, including medical illustration, fine art, manuals of cosmetics, medieval icons, paleontology, microscopy, physical chemistry, travel illustration, mathematics. The purpose is to ask questions about vision, and to show how little we know about how we see.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
WHAT is the simplest-the absolute minimum-that can be said about seeing? Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
WHAT is the simplest-the absolute minimum-that can be said about seeing? Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A post-modern view of visual perception,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Object Stares Back (Harvest Book) (Paperback)
This book offers a thoughtful and disconcerting view of visual perception that runs counter to the usual modernist view that we all perceive alike, which many of us grew up with. As a graphic designer and educator, I appreciated Elkins' point of view, his approachable writing style, and even the disturbing images he uses to make his point. I recommend this book to other designers and visual communicators.
10 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
On the Nature of Seeing...,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Object Stares Back (Harvest Book) (Paperback)
I remember reading SOMEWHERE-- a textbook on psychology, perhaps??-- that humans absorb about 70% of their world through their eyes. After reading this work, I am convinced it is paradoxically that the real percentage is BOTH less *AND* more than this figure.LESS because we are so often "blind" or unaware of what we see and the very NATURE of what we see and how we see at all. MORE, because so much rests on our ability to see AT ALL, especially in the late 20th century, and especially in our culture, which places such high value on sight (though, perhaps, less value on HOW we see or WHAT is seen). But, again, LESS, because we really don't THINK about what we see or *how* we see... Mr. Elkins, an art historian-- someone TRAINED to see, if you will-- has done much thinking on the topic and theory of sight and what it REALLY means to see. I admit, when I first got this book, I was afraid it would be the sort of dry, academic drivel that one would need to plow through with a dictionary at one's side, coming to the end almost gasping for breath, "there!! <pant, pant> I finished it!!" Not so at all. Mr. Elkins has written an extremely entertaining, thought provoking book on something we all do every day, often for every SECOND of the day (and isn't dreaming a form of seeing, after all, in it's own fashion??), and done it without heavy emphasis on academia, abstract or unknown concepts, or the general feeling-- that I have had in other arenas-- that he clearly wishes us to believe that he is SMARTER than the average reader, and needs to prove it through the use of highly technical jargon or impenetrable metaphor. Again, I say, "not at all." This is a very engaging, thought provoking work that I would heartily recommend to anyone even REMOTELY interested in the ideas behind sight and what is (and is NOT) seen. We do it all the time, every day, from birth to death, in most cases. The least we can do is to listen to a fine thinker like Mr. Elkins and hear HIS thoughts on this complicated, fascinating subject.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.6 out of 5 stars (16 customer reviews) 22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
thinking about seeing,
By Ian A. MacDonald - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Object Stares Back: On the Nature of Seeing (Hardcover)
Elkins succeeds in making the reader rethink what it means to see, to be seen, to be blind. He argues that vision is a dynamic interaction between the observer and the observed that invariably transforms both parties--even when one is inanimate. He's an art historian, but marches confidently through animal behavior, philosophy, sociology and other subjects in persuit of the meaning of vision. The resulting meditations are provocative, and usually quite rigorous, but remain clear and personal in tone and studiously avoid learned jargon. While I felt moved by the book, quite powerfully at places, I'm not sure that I actually went anywhere. Elkins avoids all mechanistic discussion of vision--even though there is much in the physiology of seeing and the quantum physics of observation which support his thesis. Consequently, the overall discussion lacks a certain fiber even though it's fully persuasive in parts. Still, if you care about vision and imagery, you can't go wrong by reading this eloquent, passionate book. It's guaranteed to make you think before you look. 14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A post-modern view of visual perception,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Object Stares Back (Harvest Book) (Paperback)
This book offers a thoughtful and disconcerting view of visual perception that runs counter to the usual modernist view that we all perceive alike, which many of us grew up with. As a graphic designer and educator, I appreciated Elkins' point of view, his approachable writing style, and even the disturbing images he uses to make his point. I recommend this book to other designers and visual communicators.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not what I expected but still a good and interesting read!,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Object Stares Back (Harvest Book) (Paperback)
I agree with the other reviewers, however I do not feel that the book deserves a low review because people's expectations were not met. I expected a more scientific explanation of seeing, but this book is not about that. I was impressed by the writing of Elkins because it is very thought provoking and insightful. I would recommend this book to someone who is interested in seeing the world in a different way, because this book will encourage you to look at things a little more carefully and realize there is much we see, do not see, try not to see and try hard to see but fail to do so. Very interesting book!!!
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