Product Description

This deeply personal account of emotion and vulnerability draws upon anecdotes related to individual works of art to present a chronicle of how people have shown emotion before works of art in the past.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #136986 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From the Back Cover
Pictures and Tears is a strange and wonderful investigation into paintings and the emotions they evoke.
In past centuries, viewers were often moved by paintings. Fourth-century Greek painting depicted people in states of extreme grief, so that the viewer might respond in kind. Crying in front of paintings was commonplace in the Middle Ages. There were more tears in the eighteenth century, and then again in the age of Romanticism. Why have the last hundred years been so dry by comparison?
James Elkins writes about his encounter with Bellini's Ecstasy of St. Francis in the Frick Collection, the effect of the Rothko Chapel on visitors, our responses to Caravaggio, Greuze, Friedrich, Bouts, David, Ingres, Regnault, a Kamakura period landscape, and Van Gogh. Hundreds of correspondents shared with him their experiences of crying in front of paintings, fleshing out what becomes a history of emotion and vulnerability, and an inquiry into the nature of art.
This is a book for people who have wondered at the power of painting and been moved by it, perhaps even to tears. Also includes an 8-page color insert.

About the Author
James Elkins is Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is the author of many books, including How to Use Your Eyes and What Painting Is, both published by Routledge.