To Destroy Painting / Edition 1

by Louis Marin, Mette Hjort

Overview

The work of the eminent French cultural critic Louis Marin (1931-92) is becoming increasingly important to English-speaking scholars concerned with issues of representation. To Destroy Painting, first published in France in 1977, marks a milestone in Marin's thought about the aims of painting in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A meditation on the work of Poussin and Caravaggio and on their milieux, the book explores a number of notions implied by theories of painting and offers insight into the aims and effects of visual representaion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226505350
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	03/01/1994
Edition description:	1
Pages:	196
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Mette Hjort is professor of visual studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong and affiliate professor of Scandinavian Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Postscript in the Guise of an Introduction
Key Texts
Allegory: The Golden Bough or the Theory of Mimesis
Questions, Hypotheses, Discourse
Readings
Denegation
The Arcadian Landscape
On Nominal Sentences, Fragments, Epitaphs, and Epigraphs
A Letter, a Shadow, and an Interpretive Key
Theoretical and Methodological Introduction
An Analytic Strategy and a Mythical Ruse
The Portrait in the Convex Mirror
The Medusa Head as Historical Painting
Psychoanalytic Interlude
Of Light, Shadows, and Narrative
Et in arca hoc
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Editorial Reviews

Traces the trajectory between two paintings, Poussin's Arcadian Shepherds, and Caravaggio's Head of Medusa, and explores painting by opening up a conversation with the image. Considers key critical texts and correspondence on the paintings, and discusses allegory and The Golden Bough, the Arcadian landscape, and Head of Medusa as an historical painting. Includes b&w illustrations. Paper edition (unseen), $15.95. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews