Three hundred years ago; an unprecedented explosion in inexpensive; disposable print--newspapers; pamphlets; informational publications; artistic prints--ushered in a media revolution that forever changed our relationship to information. One unusually perceptive man; an obscure Dutch/British still life painter named Edward Collier; understood the full significance of these momentous changes and embedded in his work secret warnings about the inescapable slippages between author and print; meaning and text; viewer and canvas; perception and reality.Working around 1700; Collier has been neglected; even forgotten; precisely because his secret messages have never been noticed; let alone understood. Until now. In Mr. Colliers Letter Racks; Dror Wahrman recovers the tale of an extraordinary illusionist artist who engaged in a wholly original way with a major transformation of his generation. Wahrman shows how Collier developed a hidden language within his illusionist paintings--replete with minutely coded messages; witty games; intricate allusions; and private jokes--to draw attention to the potential and the pitfalls of this new information age. A remarkably shrewd and prescient commentator on the changes unfolding around him; not least the advent of a new kind of politics following the Glorious Revolution; Collier performed a post-modernist critique of modernity long before the modern age. His trompe loeil paintings are filled with seemingly disconnected; enigmatic objects--letters; seals; texts of speeches; magnifying glasses; title pages--and with teasingly significant details that require the viewer to lean in and peer closely. Wahrman does just that; taking on the role of detective/cultural historian to unravel the layers of deceptions contained within Colliers extraordinary paintings.Written with passionate enthusiasm and including more than 70 color illustrations; Mr. Colliers Letter Racks is a spell-binding feat of cultural history; illuminating not only the work of an eccentric genius but the media revolution of his period; the birth of modern politics; and the nature of art itself.
#895683 in eBooks 2012-06-06 2012-06-06File Name: B008A31T2C
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