The Art of the Body

ISBN: 9781845119300 出版年：2011 页码：257 Michael Squire Bloomsbury Publishing

The art of the human body is arguably the most important and wide-ranging legacy bequeathed to us by Classical antiquity. Ndirected the course of western image-making, it has shaped our collective cultural imaginaantitype, and point of departure. Thfirst concerted attempt to grapple with that legacy: it explores the complex relationship between Graeco-Roman images of the body and subsequent western engagements with them, from the Byzantine icon to Venice Beach (and back again). Instead of approaching his material chronologically, Michael Squire faces up to its inherent modernity. Writiand accessible style, and supplementing hrich array of pictures, he shows how Graeco-Roman images inhabit our world as if they were our own. The Art of ta series of comparative and thematic accounts, demonstrating the range of cultural ideas and anxieties that were explored through the figure of the body both in antiquity and in the various cultural landscapes that came afterwards.If we only strip down our aesthetic investment in the corpus of Graeco-Roman imagery, Squire argues, this material can shed light on both ancient and modern thinking. The result is a stimulating process of mutual illumination - and an exhilarating new approach to Classical art history.