Art and Representation

Rating:
Summary: A multidisciplinary masterpiece on visual representation
Review: Good multidisciplinary studies are rare, but this one is a masterpiece. Willats presents a systematic study of images, which allows to describe in a unified framework not only artworks from all periods and locations, but also technical drawings, children drawings, etc. This solid framework then allows very coherent and relevant description, comparisons and studies of evolution.

His main thesis is the separation between drawing systems (exact perspective, naive perspective, orthographics projection, etc.) and the denotation system (line drawing, silhouette, optical representation, etc.) He includes recent advances in computer vision, art history, children psychology and human vision to ground this classification.

This book is of high interest for all those who are interested in images and representation: art historian, critics, artists, illustrators, psychologists, computer scientists, etc. I had loved Art and Illusion (Gombrich) and Art and Visual Perception (Arnheim), Willats' book is their natural complement.

Rating:
Summary: A multidisciplinary masterpiece on visual representation
Review: Good multidisciplinary studies are rare, but this one is a masterpiece. Willats presents a systematic study of images, which allows to describe in a unified framework not only artworks from all periods and locations, but also technical drawings, children drawings, etc. This solid framework then allows very coherent and relevant description, comparisons and studies of evolution.

His main thesis is the separation between drawing systems (exact perspective, naive perspective, orthographics projection, etc.) and the denotation system (line drawing, silhouette, optical representation, etc.) He includes recent advances in computer vision, art history, children psychology and human vision to ground this classification.

This book is of high interest for all those who are interested in images and representation: art historian, critics, artists, illustrators, psychologists, computer scientists, etc. I had loved Art and Illusion (Gombrich) and Art and Visual Perception (Arnheim), Willats' book is their natural complement.