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Art Does art leave you cold? And is that what it's supposed to do? Or is a painting meant to move you to tears? Hemingway was reduced to tears in the midst of a drinking bout when a painting by James Thurber caught his eye. And what's bad about that? In Pictures and Tears, art historian James Elkins tells the story of paintings that have made people cry. Drawing upon anecdotes related to individual works of art, he provides a chronicle of how people have shown emotion before works of art in the past, and a meditation on the curious tearlessness with which most people approach art in the present. Deeply personal, Pictures and Tears is a history of emotion and vulnerability, and an inquiry into the nature of art. This book is a rare and invaluable treasure for people who love art. Also includes an 8-page color insert.
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A much different exploration of the meaning of painting is found in Elkins's Pictures and Tears. Elkins (Sch. of the Art Inst. of Chicago; What Painting Is) asks why some people cry in front of paintings. Using both historical sources and solicited examples, he spins out various generally unconvincing hypotheses. Admitting that he himself has never cried in front of a painting, Elkins fails to get to the heart of the matter. Noting that other forms of expression (theater, music, novels, film) are more likely to elicit tears, Elkins attempts to explain their absence in our own time as a peculiarity of the 20th century. The examples of contemporary tears that Elkins resents are largely self-selected (solicited through ads in various publications) and neither prove nor disprove his theories. A rambling and often obtuse style makes this already rather intangible topic even more slippery. Art Matters is recommended for academic and public libraries with a demand for art theory; Pictures and Tears is not recommended. Martin R. Kalfatovic, Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, DC Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Note: information on reaching me, on unpublished texts, etc., follows this bio.
* James Elkins grew up in Ithaca, New York, separated from Cornell University by a quarter-mile of woods once owned by the naturalist Laurence Palmer.
He stayed on in Ithaca long enough to get the BA degree (in English and Art History), with summer hitchhiking trips to Alaska, Mexico, Guatemala, the Caribbean, and Columbia. For the last twenty-five years he has lived in Chicago; he got a graduate degree in painting, and then switched to Art History, got another graduate degree, and went on to do the PhD in Art History, which he finished in 1989. (All from the University of Chicago.) Since then he has been teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is currently E.C. Chadbourne Chair in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism.
His writing focuses on the history and theory of images in art, science, and nature. Some of his books are exclusively on fine art (What Painting Is, Why Are Our Pictures Puzzles?). Others include scientific and non-art images, writing systems, and archaeology (The Domain of Images, On Pictures and the Words That Fail Them), and some are about natural history (How to Use Your Eyes).
Current projects include a series called the Stone Summer Theory Institutes, a book called The Project of Painting: 1900-2000, a series called Theories of Modernism and Postmodernism in the Visual Art, and a book written against Camera Lucida.
He married Margaret MacNamidhe in 1994 on Inishmore, one of the Aran Islands, off the West coast of Ireland. Margaret is also an art historian, with a specialty in Delacroix. Jim's interests include microscopy (with a Zeiss Nomarski differential interference microscope and Anoptral phase contrast), optics (he owns an ophthalmologist's slit-lamp microscope), stereo photography (with a Realist camera), playing piano, and (whenever possible) winter ocean diving.
* Contact information:
Hi, most everything about me, including unpublished texts, is here:
www.jameselkins.com
That site also has a contact form:
http://www.jameselkins.com/#page6
And that website also has my travel calendar, in case you live outside the US:
http://www.jameselkins.com/#page4
(Amazon won't let people link their Google calendars to their profile page: don't know why.)
I'm also very active on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/jamesprestonelkins
And I am active on Library Thing (posting reviews of contemporary fiction):
http://www.librarything.com/home/JimElkins
PS, I also have an Amazon "aStore," a special site for buying books:
Jame Elkins has written a book that should be in the librairies of schools, art historians, incipient and experienced art lovers. In a winning conversational style of writing Elkins makes the case for subjective response to paintings, both past and present. And in doing so he gives a brief course in at history (he is an art historian, actively teaching) that is less a chronological evaluation of politics and sociology and techniques of painting than it is a survey of how people have responded to paintings through time. His precis: we are in this century prevented from "experiencing" paintings, so immersed are we in swallowing the opinions of scholars and critics and our own spiritual aridity. He examines why certain people are able to cry in their encounter with paintings, others are moved to physiologic reactions, while others speedily walk past image after image in their need to huury past another obligatory check point in claiming cultural awareness. In many ways this is a sad treatise on the fact that we have arrived at a time when we don't embrace our vulnerability, don't admit that something so apparently inanimate as an old master painting - if given the quantity and quality of time to absorb it - can touch inner secret caves and cause us to light up our souls and our existence by responding with unfettered eyes and heart.
Elkins investigates the various responses (including his own) to the Rothko Chapel, to Giotto, to Renaissance paintings, to the Romantics, to Friedrich, and to Picasso's "Guernica". These are in the form of summation of letters written to him in response to his question "Have you ever cried at paintings?" sent to previous students, art historians, and friends.
... His findings show that art historians in general have encouraged us to examine paintings as examples of technique, of historical settings, of schools of thought in the past: such academic dissection has replaced the individual response to the visual image. And fortunately for us the author concludes that the visceral response to paintings is more important than the cell of academic cold shelter.
For those of us who have committed our lives to bridging the gap between the painter and the public, encouraging everyone to go to the museums, galleries, schools, and churches to experience the indefinable majesty of emotional response to art, this little book is a godsend. Buy it, read it slowly, break down your own barriers, open your mind, and you will find validation of your inner artist. This is a "beautiful presence" of an artistic expression and we are indebted to Elkins for his courage in writing it.
"Pictures and Tears" is a rare book, smart, knowledgeable and soulful, an eloquent homage to the mysteries of art. I bought it several times and gave it to friends, most of them painters. I also gave it to Oliver Sacks, who I interviewed for a German magazine, after he told me he was working on a book on tears.
This book is beautifully illustrated with paintings by Caravaggio, Greuze, Bellini (Giovanni), Bouts, and Friedrich along with a picture of a chapel designed by Mark Rothko.
As the blurb states, it is a "strange and wonderful investigation into paintings and the emotions they conjure."
The book is eloquently written by the author James Elkins who is a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has also authored "How To Use Your Eyes" and "What Painting Is".
This is a highly affecting book and will give hours of pleasure to those discerning readers who have the privilege to read the author's opus.
The topic is fascinating, and when Elkins talks about specific works of art he is great. Unfortunately, when he talks about emotions he doesn't say much and he repeats his few points insufferably; a good editor would have trimmed this book by a quarter. That said, Elkins' thesis that we've forgotten how to engage with paintings emotionally - and the role that museums and art historians play in this development - will stay with you and affect the way you look at art in the future.
Also note that the formatting for the Kindle is terrible. Particularly galling when the publisher is charging twice the usual rate for ebooks.
Help! Someone please refund my money on this book! Better yet...the time I wasted reading it.
Elkins is a fine educator and writer, but this book does not fall into either category. This is 250+words of over-intellectualizing on "why" certain paintings move people to tears.
As a professional painter for over two decades, a former Arts Ambassador for the USIA, as well as a world traveler with a love for art, allow me to save potential readers from wasting $19.95, and to give Prof. Elkins' brain a rest.
"I have seen fabulously created art that does not sell or hold its viewers, and poorly created art that does both. Whether a painting brings you to tears or to purchase, it is because the energy the artist held while creating that work stays in that work forever. If the artist was angry at the world, no matter how perfectly that work may be to the trained eye, its energy will be angry and repel its viewers. Joy, loss, and deep spirituality, when held in the heart during creation, is what will bring a viewer to tears." Uriel Dana
