How Do We Look: The Body, the Divine, and the Question of Civilization by Mary Beard (PDF)

Description

From prehistoric Mexico to modern Istanbul, Mary Beard looks beyond the familiar canon of Western imagery to explore the history of art, religion, and humanity. Conceived as a gorgeously illustrated accompaniment to “How Do We Look” and “The Eye of Faith,” the famed Civilisations shows on PBS, renowned classicist Mary Beard has created this elegant volume on how we have looked at art. Focusing in Part I on the Olmec heads of early Mesoamerica, the colossal statues of the pharaoh Amenhotep III, and the nudes of classical Greece, Beard explores the power, hierarchy, and gender politics of the art of the ancient world, and explains how it came to define the so-called civilized world. In Part II, Beard chronicles some of the most breathtaking religious imagery ever made―whether at Angkor Wat, Ravenna, Venice, or in the art of Jewish and Islamic calligraphers― to show how all religions, ancient and modern, have faced irreconcilable problems in trying to picture the divine. With this classic volume, Beard redefines the Western-and male-centric legacies of Ernst Gombrich and Kenneth Clark. 92 illustrations

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “Readers will be grateful to have wise, witty Beard as guide and companion… Beard is charming and insightful piece by piece.” ― San Francisco Chronicle”The title of the book?How Do We Look?could also refer to the physical quality of the book itself. Its design, use, and style harken back to the concise, entertaining, well-made, solid little books popular a few years ago. In that, Beard again explores a means of perceptions (and a practical meaning of educating)… If your summer vacation proved a disappointment, make this little book your consolation.” ― Robert S. Davis, New York Journal of Books”Slim yet insightful…. Beard expands her view beyond western Europe to offer an admirable survey of cultures from Egypt to China, Judaism to Christianity, centuries past to the modern era, all while emphasizing the significance of the viewer over the artist…. As Beard emphasizes the power of the context in which we look at and interpret art, she ultimately suggests that civilization itself is a leap of faith. Beard is having fun in this joyfully accessible primer, backed with a robust appendix, for all interested in a new perspective on religion, art, and history.” ― Katharine Uhrich, Booklist [starred review]”The renowned classicist delivers another tantalizing morsel of analysis, this time on ‘art, and our reactions to it, over thousands of years and across thousands of miles’…. Yet another triumph for Beard: a joy to read, too short for certain, packed with lessons quickly absorbed.” ― Kirkus Reviews [starred review] About the Author A professor of classics at Cambridge University, Mary Beard is the author of the best-selling SPQR and Women & Power and the National Book Critics Circle Award–nominated Confronting the Classics. A popular blogger and television personality, Beard is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Art is notoriously difficult to discuss. In a book as brief as this one, Professor Beard is not going to be able to make any great inroads into the problem. Still, as the two divisions here indicate, she has a couple of points to make. Art always says more about the viewer than it does “objectively”. In the first part of this study, Professor Beard looks at the presentation of the human form in art. In the second part, she examines the function of art in religion.In the opening pages, we see some ancient views of the human figure from meso-America, Egypt, and China. She then examines the development of the nude, particularly in Greek art, culminating in the “revolution” created by Praxiteles: the Aphrodite of Knidos. She has high claims for this piece which, apart from the noted realism of Greek nudes, transformed figures into objects of desire. It is an interesting thought, though I would have been interested in how this figure related to the mother-figure nudes that have been produced since prehistoric times.In the second part, starting from Angkor Wat and moving through Christian and Islamic art, Professor Beard looks at the history of depicting religious figures. In some sense, this is a simpler topic than the first. The use of art for complex storytelling (particularly in pre-literate ages) has generated certain styles. The long history of iconoclasm has left its marks across art around the world and continues to do so.Professor Beard deserves credit for tackling this complex subject. She makes her points concisely and well, and the photographs scattered on nearly every page helps make things clearer. If one goes in aware that this is a very limited discussion, then there are interesting things to learn.

⭐This a short book that looks at two aspects of art in history and culture – how the human body has been represented across centuries and how art has been used to explain/depict/reinforce religion and religious thought.The essays themselves are short (4-5 pages) but the accompanying pictures are terrific and enhance the whole presentation significantly.

⭐Mary Beard is a very thoughtful observer of modern human culture. Her SPQR is her best work, but this new book offers many multi-dimensional observations about world art not often thought or spoken by a single author. Well done.

⭐Very enjoyable ,easy read w high education factor. Could have been a little longer.

⭐I rather enjoyed Mary Beard’s “How do we look”. It’s a pretty fast-paced overview of various art objects throughout history (not connected in any particular way other than Mrs. Beard’s line of thinking, it seems, which doesn’t make it any less interesting), all the while raising a ton of “meta” questions along the way. If you’re a serious art history buff then you won’t find it too engrossing unless you are especially interested in this the author’s opinion ; however, if you’re just an interested reader with an open mind, this book proves to be hugely entertaining and makes you go “Ah, yes! I forgot about this place!” and deep in thoughts about it you go…Some views of the author can be a bit out there for a conservative reader (but I appreciated her down-to-earth view on certain things), so it’s important to keep an aforementioned open mind. In the end, it is her take on the subject. It’s very amusing, however, to find an unexpected outlook on something and think about the way this conclusion was made.”How do we look” will take only a few hours to read (plus time to think about and/or discuss things – the controversial story about Aphrodite led me to some interesting debates). It’s full of photographs of art pieces or places, sometimes long forgotten (it’s always a pleasure to re-discover the beauty of a certain work you never got to see in person and filed in the back of your mind for later); and it is by no means presents itself as a monumental work on art history. It seems that it was written more as a thought-provoking entertaining non-fiction, mostly for those who have interest in art, human history and like to ponder on things.Happy Reading!

⭐It has become fashionable, for some time, to disparage the work of Lord Kenneth Clark’s efforts with the book and television series “Civilization” as steeped in Eurocentric, male, hegeministic expressions of colonialism and dismissal of larger world culture. The difficulty is that his counterparts, like Ms Beard here, can’t seem to find anything original or interesting to say. Casual and paper thin comparisons of Olmec figures with classical Greek sculpture manage to say noting meaningful about either but serve only to call attention to the authors bona fides as someone who can buy an airplane ticket to all corners of the globe. Her underlying thesis, which is hardly one at all, that we must consider the role of the viewer in completing the meaning of a work of art, is something one might expect in a sophomore art history seminar. Neither original nor insightful. The second star was for the bibliography which she should have read more carefully in trying to form a cogent premise.

⭐I recently re-watched the original 13 part series Civilization from 50 years ago. Twice. Its fantastic! It is of course 50 years behind some of humanity’s greatest scientific accomplishments, particularly archeological & historical, but it is a well articulated masterpiece of one man’s vision. I have since watched the new Civilizations series several times as well. Not bothering with the dumbed-down American version, but absorbing the much richer original BBC version. And, it is as fantastic as its predecessor! I especially appreciate the depths Professor Beard takes us. In the episodes and in this book, she makes what could easily have been a dalliance with pretty objects into revelations of their importance. Her intellect and expertise is a gift to us all. I recomend this book whole heartedly. (As I recommend the many other books she’s written). And having been fortunate enough to have seen most of the objects she describes with my own eyes, I recommend visiting them as well. As she points out, they have a lot to tell about us.

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