1st Edition
Subject as Aporia in Early Modern Art
Biography
Alexander Nagel is Professor of Fine Arts, New York University Institute of Fine Arts, USA.
Lorenzo Pericolo is Associate Professor, Department of the History of Art, University of Warwick, UK.
'A remarkable theoretical introduction by Pericolo and Nagel introduces this anthology of exciting new approaches to understanding the art of the early modern period. The concept of aporia, or the blockage of meaning, allows these authors to destabilize conventional methods of interpretation by paying careful attention to the structure of the work of art and our phenomenological response to it. If iconography once offered art history the promise of ascribing explicit meaning to works of art, it also served to fix their significance and to render them static entities within a historical framework. Aporia proves to be a concept by which works can be freed from the assumed necessity of affording the viewer univocal meaning, thus enabling scholars to pay greater attention to the "work" of the work of art in the present.' Keith Moxey, Barnard College and Columbia University, USA
’...this book throws out many intriguing ideas for the receptive reader...Recommended.’ Choice
