With bracing clarity, James Elkins explores why images are taken to be more intricate and hard to describe in the twentieth century than they had been in any previous century. Why Are Our Pictures Puzzles? uses three models to understand the kinds of complex meaning that pictures are thought to possess: the affinity between the meanings of paintings and jigsaw-puzzles; the contemporary interest in ambiguity and 'levels of meaning'; and the penchant many have to interpret pictures by finding images hidden within them. Elkins explores a wide variety of examples, from the figures hidden in Renaissance paintings to Salvador Dali's paranoiac meditations on Millet's Angelus, from Persian miniature paintings to jigsaw-puzzles. He also examines some of the most vexed works in history, including Watteau's "meaningless" paintings, Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling, and Leonardo's Last Supper.
Author(s): Elkins
Edition: 1
Year: 1999
Language: English
Pages: 320
Book Cover......Page 1
Half-Title......Page 3
Title......Page 4
Copyright......Page 5
Dedication......Page 6
Contents......Page 7
Preface......Page 9
List of Plates......Page 11
Introduction......Page 20
Part 1 Considering Things......Page 34
1 The Evidence of Excess......Page 35
2 What Counts as Complexity?......Page 49
Part 2 Staying Calm......Page 63
3 How to Solve Picture Puzzles......Page 64
4 An Ambilogy of Painted Meanings......Page 88
5 On Monstrously Ambigous Paintings......Page 117
6 Calming the Delirium of Interpretation......Page 142
Part 3 Losing Control......Page 160
7 Hidden Images: Cryptomorphs, Anamorphs, and Aleamorphs......Page 161
8 The Best Work of Twentieth-Century Art History......Page 210
9 Envoi: On Meaninglessness......Page 222
Notes......Page 233
Index......Page 263
