Origins, Imitation, Conventions: Representation in the Visual Arts

28x20cm, xi,328 pp. Contents : On origins of art history and criticism -- The origins of architectural drawing in the Middle Ages and Renaissance -- Leonardo da Vinci’s church designs -- On the origins of architectural photography -- Imitation -- Art and science in the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci -- The aesthetics of architecture in the Renaissance -- The influence of antiquity on Italian Renaissance villas -- Daniele Barbaro and Vitruvius --Palladio: classical in what sense? -- Thomas Jefferson and Italy -- The conventions and rhetoric of architectural drawing. ["This collection contains studies written by art historian James Ackerman during the 1990s. Whereas Ackerman's earlier work assumed a development of the arts as they responded to social, economic, political, and cultural change, his recent work reflects the poststructural critique of the presumption of progress that characterized Renaissance and modernist history and criticism. In this book he explores the tension between the authority of the past-which may act not only as a restraint but as a challenge and stimulus-and the potentially liberating gift of invention. He examines the ways in which artists and writers on art have related to ancestors and to established modes of representation, as well as to contemporary experiences.." - Publisher's description]. Minor rubbing. VG., Dustwrapper.…