Bodies Of Knowledge: The Psychological Significance Of The Nude In Art
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Very good
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
At the intersection of art history and the human psyche lies a provocative question: what does the naked body reveal about the cultures, desires, and minds that choose to represent it? Liam Hudson's Bodies of Knowledge: The Psychological Significance of the Nude in Art presents a rigorous and fascinating inquiry into one of Western art's most enduring traditions, arguing that the nude is far more than an aesthetic convention — it is a psychological document, a mirror held up to the deepest structures of human consciousness and social meaning. Hudson, a renowned psychologist, brings a uniquely analytical lens to material that art historians have long chronicled through purely formal or iconographic frameworks. His prose is measured yet compelling, weaving together case studies, psychological theory, and close readings of canonical works to illustrate how artists and their audiences project, suppress, and negotiate identity through the depicted body. The result is a work that challenges readers to reconsider what they think they know about art, desire, and the silent grammar of the human form — leaving the unsettling possibility that in studying the nude, we are ultimately studying ourselves.
Author: Liam Hudson
Format: Hardback
Published: 1982, Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Genre: History of arts
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Very good
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
At the intersection of art history and the human psyche lies a provocative question: what does the naked body reveal about the cultures, desires, and minds that choose to represent it? Liam Hudson's Bodies of Knowledge: The Psychological Significance of the Nude in Art presents a rigorous and fascinating inquiry into one of Western art's most enduring traditions, arguing that the nude is far more than an aesthetic convention — it is a psychological document, a mirror held up to the deepest structures of human consciousness and social meaning. Hudson, a renowned psychologist, brings a uniquely analytical lens to material that art historians have long chronicled through purely formal or iconographic frameworks. His prose is measured yet compelling, weaving together case studies, psychological theory, and close readings of canonical works to illustrate how artists and their audiences project, suppress, and negotiate identity through the depicted body. The result is a work that challenges readers to reconsider what they think they know about art, desire, and the silent grammar of the human form — leaving the unsettling possibility that in studying the nude, we are ultimately studying ourselves.