Main entry:

Pasztory, Esther, author.

Title & Author:

Thinking with things : toward a new vision of art / Esther Pasztory.

Edition:

First edition

Publication:

Austin : University of Texas Press, 2005
©2005

Description:

252 pages : illustrations ; 29 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 107-114, 241-242) and index.
Part one. Introduction to part one -- 1. Things -- 2. Thinking with things -- 3. Levels of social integration -- 4. Insistence -- 5. Superpositions -- 6. Impersonation -- 7. Enhancement -- 8. Apotheosis -- 9. Iconoclasm/aestheticism -- 10. Media/marginalization -- 11. Transition -- Bibliography to part one -- Part two. Introduction to part two : confessions of a formalist -- 12. Still invisible : the problems of the aesthetics of abstraction for pre-Columbian art and its implications for other cultures -- 13. Identity and difference : the uses and meanings of ethnic styles -- 14. The portrait and the mask : invention and translation -- 15. Aesthetics and pre-Columbian art -- 16. Andean aesthetics -- 17. Three Aztec masks of the God Xipe -- 18. Shamanism and North American Indian art -- Index.
Also issued online.

Summary:

"In this authoritative volume, Esther Pasztory distills four decades of research and reflection to propose a pathbreaking new way of understanding what art is and why human beings create it that can be applied to all cultures throughout time."
"At its heart, Pasztory's thesis is simple and yet profound. She asserts that humans create things (some of which modern Western society chooses to call "art") in order to work out our ideas - that is, we literally think with things. Pasztory draws on examples from many societies to argue that the art-making impulse is primarily cognitive and only secondarily aesthetic. She demonstrates that "art" always reflects the specific social context in which it is created, and that as societies become more complex, their art becomes more rarefied."--Jacket.

Resources:
Table of contents
Table of contents
Table of contents
Table of contents
Contributor biographical information
Publisher description

ISBN:

0292765975 (hardcover ; alk. paper)
9780292765979 (hardcover ; alk. paper)
029270691X (pbk. ; alk. paper)
9780292706910 (pbk. ; alk. paper)

Subject:

Art Philosophy.
Art and society.
Art and anthropology.
Cognition Social aspects.
Indian art.
Art Philosophie.
Art et société.
Art et anthropologie.
Cognition Aspect social.
Art des Peuples autochtones.
Kunst
Kunstgeografie
Kunstproduktion
Kunstwerk
Kunstwissenschaft
Künstler
Methode
Ästhetik
Altamerika

Holdings:

Location: Library main 327572
Call No.: 327572
Copy: 1
Status: Available