Pictures and Tears: How a Painting Can Make You Cry
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Review
..."a provocative and felicitous inquiry... the most arresting facet of his unique investigation is his charting of the declining value society places on heartfelt reactions to art... Elkins elucidates subtle conceptions of pictoral time, presence, and absence; criticizes the bloodlessness of most art-history texts; and indicts the marketplace atmosphere of most museums. Prized by Romantics in the not-so-distant past, art-inspired tears are disdained in our brittle, ironic milieu, a psychological and spiritual diminishment Elkins boldly and rightly decries."
-Donna Seaman, "Booklist
"To cry in front of art is not a sign of weakness: it is the flexing of a truly aesthetic power. That is the truth we gain from James Elkins' admirably engaged and engaging book."
-Nigel Spivey, author of "Enduring Creation
"A history of weeping, a meditation on our deepest responses to art, and an ethnography of his own tribe of art historians, "Pictures and Tearsattempts to reclaim aesthetic experience from what Elkins calls 'the poison well' of art history and theory. I wish I could have read this book before I had written my own."
-Tom Lutz, author of "Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears
"In the course of reading this book I found the following to be especially valuable: Eileen John's questioning of traditional propositional accounts of knowledge in "Art and Knowledge," Alan Goldman's defense of the much attacked concepts of aesthetic ewww.trs.nyc.ny.us.experience and attitude in "The Aesthetic," and Denis Dutton's listing of characteristics of art found in all cultures in "Aesthetic Universals." This is an immensely useful book that belongs in every college library andon the bookshelves of all serious students of aesthetics. It certainly exemplifies the editors' claim that philosophical aesthetics is a vibrant field today." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism Spring 2003."
-Donna Seaman, "Booklist
"To cry in front of art is not a sign of weakness: it is the flexing of a truly aesthetic power. That is the truth we gain from James Elkins' admirably engaged and engaging book."
-Nigel Spivey, author of "Enduring Creation
"A history of weeping, a meditation on our deepest responses to art, and an ethnography of his own tribe of art historians, "Pictures and Tearsattempts to reclaim aesthetic experience from what Elkins calls 'the poison well' of art history and theory. I wish I could have read this book before I had written my own."
-Tom Lutz, author of "Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears
"In the course of reading this book I found the following to be especially valuable: Eileen John's questioning of traditional propositional accounts of knowledge in "Art and Knowledge," Alan Goldman's defense of the much attacked concepts of aesthetic ewww.trs.nyc.ny.us.experience and attitude in "The Aesthetic," and Denis Dutton's listing of characteristics of art found in all cultures in "Aesthetic Universals." This is an immensely useful book that belongs in every college library andon the bookshelves of all serious students of aesthetics. It certainly exemplifies the editors' claim that philosophical aesthetics is a vibrant field today." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism Spring 2003."
Product Description
Art Does art leave you cold? And is that what it's supposed to do? Or is a painting meant to move you to tears? Hemingway was reduced to tears in the midst of a drinking bout when a painting by James Thurber caught his eye. And what's bad about that? In Pictures and Tears, art historian James Elkins tells the story of paintings that have made people cry. Drawing upon anecdotes related to individual works of art, he provides a chronicle of how people have shown emotion before works of art in the past, and a meditation on the curious tearlessness with which most people approach art in the present. Deeply personal, Pictures and Tears is a history of emotion and vulnerability, and an inquiry into the nature of art. This book is a rare and invaluable treasure for people who love art. Also includes an 8-page color insert.
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First Sentence
MARK ROTHKO LEANED BACK in his armchair, studying her through his thick glasses. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
MARK ROTHKO LEANED BACK in his armchair, studying her through his thick glasses. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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4.0 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A compassionate validation of the individual spirit, 8 Mar 2002
By Grady Harp - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Pictures and Tears: A History of People Who Have Cried in Front of Paintings: How a Painting Can Make You Cry (Hardcover)
Jame Elkins has written a book that should be in the librairies of schools, art historians, incipient and experienced art lovers. In a winning conversational style of writing Elkins makes the case for subjective response to paintings, both past and present. And in doing so he gives a brief course in at history (he is an art historian, actively teaching) that is less a chronological evaluation of politics and sociology and techniques of painting than it is a survey of how people have responded to paintings through time. His precis: we are in this century prevented from "experiencing" paintings, so immersed are we in swallowing the opinions of scholars and critics and our own spiritual aridity. He examines why certain people are able to cry in their encounter with paintings, others are moved to physiologic reactions, while others speedily walk past image after image in their need to huury past another obligatory check point in claiming cultural awareness. In many ways this is a sad treatise on the fact that we have arrived at a time when we don't embrace our vulnerability, don't admit that something so apparently inanimate as an old master painting - if given the quantity and quality of time to absorb it - can touch inner secret caves and cause us to light up our souls and our existence by responding with unfettered eyes and heart.Elkins investigates the various responses (including his own) to the Rothko Chapel, to Giotto, to Renaissance paintings, to the Romantics, to Friedrich, and to Picasso's "Guernica". These are in the form of summation of letters written to him in response to his question "Have you ever cried at paintings?" sent to previous students, art historians, and friends. His findings show that art historians in general have encouraged us to examine paintings as examples of technique, of historical settings, of schools of thought in the past: such academic dissection has replaced the individual response to the visual image. And fortunately for us the author concludes that the visceral response to paintings is more important than the cell of academic cold shelter.
For those of us who have committed our lives to bridging the gap between the painter and the public, encouraging everyone to go to the museums, galleries, schools, and churches to experience the indefinable majesty of emotional response to art, this little book is a godsend. Buy it, read it slowly, break down your own barriers, open your mind, and you will find validation of your inner artist. This is a "beautiful presence" of an artistic expression and we are indebted to Elkins for his courage in writing it.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A book to always return to, 23 April 2009
By Michael Saur - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Pictures and Tears: A History of People Who Have Cried in Front of Paintings (Paperback)
"Pictures and Tears" is a rare book, smart, knowledgeable and soulful, an eloquent homage to the mysteries of art. I bought it several times and gave it to friends, most of them painters. I also gave it to Oliver Sacks, who I interviewed for a German magazine, after he told me he was working on a book on tears.
6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
AFFECTING AND AFFECTIONATE BOOK, 8 Feb 2004
By Timothy C. Wingate - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Pictures and Tears: A History of People Who Have Cried in Front of Paintings: How a Painting Can Make You Cry (Hardcover)
This book is beautifully illustrated with paintings by Caravaggio, Greuze, Bellini (Giovanni), Bouts, and Friedrich along with a picture of a chapel designed by Mark Rothko.As the blurb states, it is a "strange and wonderful investigation into paintings and the emotions they conjure."
The book is eloquently written by the author James Elkins who is a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has also authored "How To Use Your Eyes" and "What Painting Is".
This is a highly affecting book and will give hours of pleasure to those discerning readers who have the privilege to read the author's opus.
Timothy Wingate from OTTAWA CANADA
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