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Learning to Look: A Handbook for the Visual Arts (Phoenix Books)
 
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Learning to Look: A Handbook for the Visual Arts (Phoenix Books) [Paperback]

Joshua C. Taylor (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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Book Description

0226791548 978-0226791548 June 15, 1981 2
Sometimes seeing is more difficult for the student of art than believing. Taylor, in a book that has sold more than 300,000 copies since its original publication in 1957, has helped two generations of art students "learn to look."

This handy guide to the visual arts is designed to provide a comprehensive view of art, moving from the analytic study of specific works to a consideration of broad principles and technical matters. Forty-four carefully selected illustrations afford an excellent sampling of the wide range of experience awaiting the explorer.

The second edition of Learning to Look includes a new chapter on twentieth-century art. Taylor's thoughtful discussion of pure forms and our responses to them gives the reader a few useful starting points for looking at art that does not reproduce nature and for understanding the distance between contemporary figurative art and reality.

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Joshua C. Taylor is director of the National Museum of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 165 pages
  • Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 2 edition (June 15, 1981)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0226791548
  • ISBN-13: 978-0226791548
  • Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #37,724 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Regularly chosen by instructor, September 7, 2006
This review is from: Learning to Look: A Handbook for the Visual Arts (Phoenix Books) (Paperback)
I have used this textbook a number of times in teaching Art Appreciation classes. The choice of chapter topics works fairly well with beginning students: one chapter discusses the structure, composition and style of two specific paintings in contrast with one another; another chapter makes a study of the work of one artist. There is even a chapter devoted to modern art (a tough sell with some first-time students). I only fault the highly specific and somewhat tedious chapter discussing all aspects of color. I tend to skip over this one and leave it for the independent reading of anyone interested. Otherwise good, and I will use it again until something comes along with a better overview. Mostly black and white illustrations -- only two in color.
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A worthy course., June 17, 2005
This review is from: Learning to Look: A Handbook for the Visual Arts (Phoenix Books) (Paperback)
Interesting, accesible and ultimately enlightening but inclined also to be dry in an "Idiot's guide" kind of way, this renders the topic a little lack lustre which for me detracts from the point of veiwing art and getting any kind of personal, emotional experience from it. Excellent for making art accesible nonetheless and demystifying the nonsense that art glitterarty types surround the topic in so needlessly and prentiontiously.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars difficult to read, June 30, 2011
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This review is from: Learning to Look: A Handbook for the Visual Arts (Phoenix Books) (Paperback)
Very condensed, dry, technical and not well organized. It didn't help me much to broaden my horizons. However, the comparison of the two crucifictions was interesting and I wish there was more of that.
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