The Education of the Eye: Painting, Landscape, and Architecture in Eighteenth-Century Britain
Peter de Bolla
The Education of the Eye examines the origins of visual culture in eighteenth-century Britain. It claims that at the moment when works of visual art were first displayed and contemplated as aesthetic objects two competing descriptions of the viewer or spectator promoted two very different accounts of culture. The first was constructed on knowledge, on what one already knew, while the second was grounded in the eye itself. Though the first was most likely to lead to a socially and politically elite form for visual culture, the second, it was held, would almost certainly end up in the chaos of ... Read more
The book will interest historians of eighteenth-century British culture and historians of architecture, art, and landscape, as well as readers generally curious about the origins of our current visual culture.
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About Peter de Bolla
Reviews for The Education of the Eye: Painting, Landscape, and Architecture in Eighteenth-Century Britain
Albion "...The detailed analyses and discussions of the various ways of looking are both fascinating and illuminating."
The Art Book