John Willats's Books

Art and Representation

New Principles in the Analysis of Pictures

By: John Willats

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Art and Representation

New Principles in the Analysis of Pictures

By: John Willats

In Art and Representation, John Willats presents a radically new theory of pictures. To do this, he has developed a precise vocabulary for describing the representational systems in pictures: the ways in which artists, engineers, photographers, mapmakers, and children represent objects. His approach is derived from recent research in visual perception and artificial intelligence, and Willats begins by clarifying the key distinction between the marks in a picture and the features of the scene that these marks represent. The methods he uses are thus closer to those of a modern structural linguist or psycholinguist than to those of an art historian. Using over 150 illustrations, Willats analyzes the representational systems in pictures by artists from a wide variety of periods and cultures. He then relates these systems to the mental processes of picture production, and, displaying an impressive grasp of more than one scholarly discipline, shows how the Greek vase painters, Chinese painters, Giotto, icon painters, Picasso, Paul Klee, and David Hockney have put these systems to work. But this book is not only about what systems artists use but also about why artists from different periods and cultures have used such different systems, and why drawings by young children look so different from those by adults. Willats argues that the representational systems can serve many different functions beyond that of merely providing a convincing illusion. These include the use of anomalous pictorial devices such as inverted perspective, which may be used for expressive reasons or to distance the viewer from the depicted scene by drawing attention to the picture as a painted surface. Willats concludes that art historical changes, and the developmental changes in children's drawings, are not merely arbitrary, nor are they driven by evolutionary forces. Rather, they are determined by the different functions that the representational systems in pictures can serve. Like readers of Ernst Gombrich's famous Art and Illusion (still available from Princeton University Press), on which Art and Representation makes important theoretical advances, or Rudolf Arnheim's Art and Visual Perception, Willats's readers will find that they will never again return to their old ways of looking at pictures.

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Page Count

428

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0691087377

ISBN 13

9780691087375

The Art of Childhood and Adolescence

The Construction of Meaning

By: John Matthews

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The Art of Childhood and Adolescence

The Construction of Meaning

By: John Matthews

The Art of Childhood and Adolescence is composed of completely new research on the development of representational thinking from infancy through to adolescence. It makes an important contribution to the theory of children's development and to practitioners' understanding, as well as suggesting new paths of inquiry. The book draws on highly detailed longitudinal studies, conducted over 24 years (20 in London and 4 in Singapore). Line drawings and photographs are used to illustrate important concepts. Matthews, highly respected internationally, also sheds light on current debates, such as the opposition of culturally specific and universal development in children the world over.

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Page Count

210

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1135710864

ISBN 13

9781135710866

Drawing and Painting

Children and Visual Representation

By: John Matthews

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Drawing and Painting

Children and Visual Representation

By: John Matthews

`This book is a tremendous resource for any early years setting. It enables us and encourages us to explore the process of artistic development through a fresh and inclusive lens′ - Nursery World `This book is a welcome update of an informative text describing the process of children′s mark making as a visual, physical and interactive process urging us to consider how we as adults perceive and support young children′s mark making activities both at home and school. John Matthews demonstrates the cognitive function of this early mark making in relation to general individual development′ - Early Years `A thought-provoking and informative book, this is essential reading for anyone involved in the education of young children′ - Times Educational Supplement - Teacher `Drawing and Painting is a fascinating and delightful read for tutors, practitioners and students and is highly recommended an essential text for early years courses at level 3 and above′- Under Five This book has been revised to reflect recent developments in early childhood education, in developmental psychology and in our understanding of children′s development in the arts. The author shows how this new model of children′s development in visual representation has important implications for education. The author examines children′s development in visual expression and suggests how this development might be supported. The book takes issue with the inherited wisdom about children′s development in visual representation. The traditional approach describes children′s development in terms of supposed deficits in which children progress from `primitive′ earlier stages to `superior′ ones, until the `defects′ in their representational thinking are overcome and they arrive at an endpoint of `visual realism′. This approach is the pervasive influence on curricular planning, in arts education and in early years education. The author explains recent different models of development in visual expression. Instead of measuring children′s efforts against an adult paradigm, the new models identify the modes of representation used by children as consequences of children′s own intentions, motivations and priorities. The writing is accessible and assumes no specialist knowledge of psychological theory, art, its history or interpretation. This book is essential reading for early childhood educators, at nursery and pre-school level, for other professionals who work with very young children and parents, as well as students and tutors on early years courses. This is a revised edition of Helping Children to Draw and Paint: Children and Visual Representation, originally published in 1994.

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Page Count

242

Publisher

SAGE

Published Date

ISBN 10

1412932866

ISBN 13

9781412932868

On Images

Their Structure and Content

By: John V. Kulvicki

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On Images

Their Structure and Content

By: John V. Kulvicki

Whether it was the demands of life, leisure, or a combination of both that forced our hands, we have developed a myriad of artefacts—-maps, notes, descriptions, diagrams, flow-charts, photographs, paintings, and prints—-that stand for other things. Most agree that images and their close relatives are special because, in some sense, they look like what they are about. This simple claim is the starting point for most philosophical investigations into the nature of depiction. On Images argues that this starting point is fundamentally misguided. Whether a representation is an image depends not on how it is perceived but on how it relates to others within a system. This kind of approach, first championed by Nelson Goodman in his Languages of Art, has not found many supporters, in part because of weaknesses with Goodman's account. On Images shows that a properly crafted structural account of pictures has many advantages over the perceptual accounts that dominate the literature on this topic. In particular, it explains the close relationship between pictures, diagrams, graphs and other kinds of non-linguistic representation. It undermines the claim that pictures are essentially visual by showing that audio recordings, tactile line drawings, and other non-visual representations are pictorial. Also, by avoiding explaining images in terms of how we perceive them, this account sheds new light on why pictures seem so perceptually special in the first place. This discussion of picture perception recasts some old debates on the topic, suggests further lines of philosophical and empirical research, and ultimately leads to a new perspective on pictorial realism.

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Page Count

274

Publisher

Clarendon Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0191537454

ISBN 13

9780191537455

Left Shift

Radical Art in 1970s Britain

By: John A. Walker

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Left Shift

Radical Art in 1970s Britain

By: John A. Walker

John Walker brings to vivid life a neglected period in twentieth-century art history. He re-creates a time when visual fine artists, under the impact of left-wing politics, women's liberation and the gay movement, were seeking to re-establish a social purpose. His story is one of a struggle for art by contending factions in the art world, in which artists, curators, critics and organisations - both establishment and alternative - key exhibitions, galleries and magazines, all play a part. He offers welcome insight into the work of the key players and the many forms they used to express radical engagement in the events of the decade.

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Page Count

305

Publisher

Bloomsbury Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

0857714317

ISBN 13

9780857714312

Starting from Scratch

The Origin and Development of Expression, Representation and Symbolism in Human and Non-Human Primates

By: John Matthews

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Starting from Scratch

The Origin and Development of Expression, Representation and Symbolism in Human and Non-Human Primates

By: John Matthews

This book compares the beginning of symbolic thought in human infancy with that of our close primate relatives, the chimpanzees. Drawing upon his years of detailed observations, Matthews offers an in-depth analysis and interpretation of chimp behaviour to present an unprecedented account of the beginnings of symbolic thought. The implications for our understanding of symbolism, language, art and education are enormous, as are those about our origins and our place within nature.

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Page Count

393

Publisher

Psychology Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1136894225

ISBN 13

9781136894220

Visual and Written Culture in Ancient Egypt

By: John Baines

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Visual and Written Culture in Ancient Egypt

By: John Baines

A generously illustrated selection of John Baines's influential writings on two core areas of ancient Egyptian civilization: the role of writing, which was very different in antiquity from what is familiar in the modern world, and the importance of visual culture. These questions are explored through a number of case studies. The volume assembles articles that were scattered in publications in a variety of disciplines, making available key contributions on core problems of theory, comparison, and analysis in the study of many civilizations and offering important points of departure for further research. Three wholly new essays are included, and the overall approach is an interdisciplinary one, synthesizing insights from archaeology, anthropology, and art history as well as Egyptology.

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Page Count

440

Publisher

OUP Oxford

Published Date

ISBN 10

0191518395

ISBN 13

9780191518393

Encyclopedia of nineteenth-century photography

A-I, index

By: John Hannavy

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Encyclopedia of nineteenth-century photography

A-I, index

By: John Hannavy

The first comprehensive encyclopedia of world photograph up to the beginning of the twentieth century. It sets out to be the standard, definitive reference work on the subject for years to come.

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Page Count

1630

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Published Date

ISBN 10

0415972353

ISBN 13

9780415972352

Impressed by Light

British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840-1860

By: Roger Taylor,Larry John Schaaf

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Impressed by Light

British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840-1860

By: Roger Taylor,Larry John Schaaf

Photography emerged in 1839 in two forms simultaneously. In France, Louis Daguerre produced photographs on silvered sheets of copper, while in Great Britain, William Henry Fox Talbot put forward a method of capturing an image on ordinary writing paper treated with chemicals. Talbot’s invention, a paper negative from which any number of positive prints could be made, became the progenitor of virtually all photography carried out before the digital age. Talbot named his perfected invention "calotype," a term based on the Greek word for beauty. Calotypes were characterized by a capacity for subtle tonal distinctions, massing of light and shadow, and softness of detail. In the 1840s, amateur photographers in Britain responded with enthusiasm to the challenges posed by the new medium. Their subjects were wide-ranging, including landscapes and nature studies, architecture, and portraits. Glass-negative photography, which appeared in 1851, was based on the same principles as the paper negative but yielded a sharper picture, and quickly gained popularity. Despite the rise of glass negatives in commercial photography, many gentlemen of leisure and learning continued to use paper negatives into the 1850s and 1860s. These amateurs did not seek the widespread distribution and international reputation pursued by their commercial counterparts, nearly all of whom favored glass negatives. As a result, many of these calotype works were produced in a small number of prints for friends and fellow photographers or for a family album. This richly illustrated, landmark publication tells the first full history of the calotype, embedding it in the context of Britain’s changing fortunes, intricate class structure, ever-growing industrialization, and the new spirit under Queen Victoria. Of the 118 early photographs presented here in meticulously printed plates, many have never before been published or exhibited.

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Page Count

456

Publisher

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Published Date

ISBN 10

1588392252

ISBN 13

9781588392251

Drawing & the Blind

Pictures to Touch

By: John Miller Kennedy

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Drawing & the Blind

Pictures to Touch

By: John Miller Kennedy

This groundbreaking work explores how children and adults who have been blind since birth can both perceive and draw pictures. John M. Kennedy, a perception psychologist, relates how pictures in raised form can be understood by the blind, and how untrained blind people can make recognizable sketches of objects, situations, and events using new methods for raised-line drawing. According to Kennedy, the ability to draw develops in blind people as it does in the sighted. His book gives detailed descriptions of his work with the blind, includes many pictures by blind children and adults, and provides a new theory of visual and tactile perception - applicable to both the blind and the sighted - to account for his startling findings. Kennedy argues that spatial perception is possible through touch as well as through sight, and that aspects of perspective are found in pictures by the blind. He shows that blind people recognize when pictures of objects are drawn incorrectly. According to Kennedy, the incorrect features are often deliberate attempts to represent properties of objects that cannot be shown in a picture. These metaphors, as Kennedy describes them, can be interpreted by the blind and the sighted in the same way. Kennedy's findings are vitally important for studies in perceptual and cognitive psychology, the philosophy of representation, and education. His conclusions have practical significance as well, offering inspiration and guidelines for those who seek to engineer ways to allow blind and visually impaired people to gain access to information only available in graphs, figures, and pictures.

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Page Count

354

Publisher

Yale University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0300054904

ISBN 13

9780300054903

The Evolution of Photography

By: John Werge

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The Evolution of Photography

By: John Werge

The Evolution of Photography" by active 1854-1890 John Werge. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

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Page Count

408

Publisher

Litres

Published Date

ISBN 10

504120697X

ISBN 13

9785041206970

The Cromwell Street Murders

The Detective's Story

By: John Bennett,Graham Gardner

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The Cromwell Street Murders

The Detective's Story

By: John Bennett,Graham Gardner

This book tells for the first time the story from a police perspective. For ten years, the officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Superintendent John Bennett QPM, has refused to tell his story. Now, together with BBC journalist Graham Gardner, he reveals the full story of how the Wests were caught, how the case was prepared and how it nearly failed to come to court. This book chronicles the roles of those who brought down two of Britain's most infamous killers, shedding light on the real heroes of one of the saddest chapters of criminal history. It explores the court processes, the complications of Rose West's trial, her unsuccessful appeal and the difficulty of dealing with witnesses in such a traumatic case. On one level, this is a story of the triumph of good over evil; on another it is a detailed documentation of how a murder investigation really works - the pressures, the commitment and the physical and emotional drain on those who carry out this work.

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Page Count

575

Publisher

The History Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0752471376

ISBN 13

9780752471372

An English Library Journey: With Detours to Wales and Northern Ireland

With Detours to Wales and Northern Ireland

By: John Bevis

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An English Library Journey: With Detours to Wales and Northern Ireland

With Detours to Wales and Northern Ireland

By: John Bevis

An eccentric homage and passionate clarion call' – TLS "A hymn of praise to the palaces of delight that should grace every street corner. Absolutely exquisite." Ian McMillan John Bevis is a writer and book-lover on an eccentric quest: to obtain a membership card from every library authority in England. In a ten-year mission criss-crossing the country – from Solihull to Slough, from Cleveland to Cornwall – he enrols at libraries of all shapes and sizes: monuments to Art Deco or Brutalism; a converted corset factory; one even shaped like a pork pie. With the architectural eye of Pevsner and the eavesdropping ear of Bill Bryson, he engages us at every step with anecdotes and aperçus about the role of the public library in our national life, while ruing its decline in the age of austerity. As interested in the people he finds as he is in the buildings and their history, he is a humane, witty and erudite guide. The result is a book to be treasured by anyone who has ever used a library.

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Page Count

222

Publisher

Eye & Lightning Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1785633090

ISBN 13

9781785633096

Book's by John Willats

Art and Representation

Art and Representation

The Art of Childhood and Adolescence

The Art of Childhood and Adolescence

Drawing and Painting

Drawing and Painting

On Images

On Images

Left Shift

Left Shift

Starting from Scratch

Starting from Scratch

Visual and Written Culture in Ancient Egypt

Visual and Written Culture in Ancient Egypt

Encyclopedia of nineteenth-century photography

Encyclopedia of nineteenth-century photography

Impressed by Light

Impressed by Light

Drawing & the Blind

Drawing & the Blind

The Evolution of Photography

The Evolution of Photography

The Cromwell Street Murders

The Cromwell Street Murders

An English Library Journey: With Detours to Wales and Northern Ireland

An English Library Journey: With Detours to Wales and Northern Ireland

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