The Birth And Rebirth Of Pictorial Space
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: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
Few subjects in art history are as technically demanding yet as visually rewarding as the story of pictorial space — and John White's The Birth and Rebirth of Pictorial Space stands as one of the most authoritative accounts ever written on the subject. The work traces the evolution of spatial representation from the flat, symbolic conventions of ancient Greek vase painting through the revolutionary perspective systems of the Italian Renaissance, charting how artists across centuries grappled with the fundamental problem of rendering three-dimensional reality on a two-dimensional surface. White argues with scholarly precision that this history is not linear but cyclical — a series of discoveries, losses, and rediscoveries that mirror the broader cultural upheavals of Western civilisation. A landmark of art-historical scholarship, this volume is celebrated for the rigour and clarity White brings to complex visual and mathematical ideas, making the geometry of perspective legible to the dedicated reader without sacrificing intellectual depth. Drawing on a vast range of primary sources and artworks, he illuminates the contributions of figures from ancient Greek painters to Giotto, Duccio, and the great masters of the Quattrocento. For anyone serious about understanding how the Western pictorial tradition was constructed — and reconstructed — this remains an essential, irreplaceable text.
Author: John White
Format: Hardback
Published: 1957, Faber and Faber
Genre: History of arts
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Good
Markings: Previous owner
Few subjects in art history are as technically demanding yet as visually rewarding as the story of pictorial space — and John White's The Birth and Rebirth of Pictorial Space stands as one of the most authoritative accounts ever written on the subject. The work traces the evolution of spatial representation from the flat, symbolic conventions of ancient Greek vase painting through the revolutionary perspective systems of the Italian Renaissance, charting how artists across centuries grappled with the fundamental problem of rendering three-dimensional reality on a two-dimensional surface. White argues with scholarly precision that this history is not linear but cyclical — a series of discoveries, losses, and rediscoveries that mirror the broader cultural upheavals of Western civilisation. A landmark of art-historical scholarship, this volume is celebrated for the rigour and clarity White brings to complex visual and mathematical ideas, making the geometry of perspective legible to the dedicated reader without sacrificing intellectual depth. Drawing on a vast range of primary sources and artworks, he illuminates the contributions of figures from ancient Greek painters to Giotto, Duccio, and the great masters of the Quattrocento. For anyone serious about understanding how the Western pictorial tradition was constructed — and reconstructed — this remains an essential, irreplaceable text.