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Title: The Century of the Body: 100 Photoworks 1900-2000 by William A. Ewing, Switzerland) Musee De L'Elysee (Lausanne, Christophe Blazer, Nassim Daghighian, Daniel Girardin, Nathalie Herschdorfer ISBN: 0-500-51012-1 Publisher: Thames & Hudson Pub. Date: 30 November, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $50.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (3 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Artistic, Commercial, Political and Scientific Body Views
Comment: Review Summary: This book and the exhibition it documents convey a stunning awareness of how photographing the body has evolved in the last 100 years. The essays and commentaries on the 100 works are excellent for describing the movements involved as well as the photographers. For most people, this will be a better book to borrow and read from the library rather than to purchase for permanent use. Many of the book's images involve pornography, horrible suffering, disfigurement, and other unsettling subjects that you will want to be moved by but probably not linger over.
Reader Caution: The images in this book would exceed an R rating if the book's content were in a motion picture.
Review: Photography and views of the human body have shifted enormously in the last 100 years. This extremely interesting book does a great job of exploring those shifts. It also conjectures forward into the world in which the combination of mastering genetics and body reshaping methods (like plastic surgery) will provide even more choice. The book will be of most interest to those who are not very familiar with the history of photography since the images and essays cover little new ground.
The essay is extremely thorough and interesting in explaining the book's themes which are:
Flesh -- the naked body to appeal to the prurient rather than the artistic
Microcosm -- microscopic images of the body's interior
Gaze -- the public part of the body, especially the face and eyes
Memory -- the aid to the mind's recollection
Icon -- the idealized body
Form -- the artistic nude
Pain -- the suffering body
Politics -- meanings and values are contested
Enquiry -- scientific investigation
Fiction -- images, dreams, and fantasies
Macrocosm -- a single human body in relation to the universe.
My favorite images in the book were mostly old favorites:
Man Ray, 1924, Violin d'Ingres;
Imogen Cunningham, 1932, Nude;
Sasha Stone, 1933, Study of the Human Body;
Leni Riefenstahl, 1936, Jesse Owens;
Edward Weston, 1936, Nude;
Louise Dahl-Wolfe, 1948, Nude in the Desert;
Gerhard Kiesling, 1952, Miners;
Don McCullen, 1969, Albino Boy in a Camp of 900 Dying Children, Biafra;
Nick Ut, 1972, Napalm Bomb Attack, Vietnam;
Lennart Nilsson, 1973, A Human Foetus at Three Months;
Hermut Newton, 1981, Sie kommen (naked and dressed), Paris;
Robert Mapplethorpe, 1982, Lisa Lyon.
I suspect that the book would have worked better if it had narrowed its focus to a single theme. Perhaps such works will follow.
Those who see their favorite photographs in this book will often be a little disappointed that their size and reproduction are a little on the smallish side and below top grade.
After you use these images and essays to capture a better sense of what the body has been all about, perhaps you could take a moment to think about what your body means to you. How can you create a more positive connection with your body? How can you draw more strength from it? How can you enjoy being at one with your body?
Draw upon images of what is . . . to create plans to build what is better for all!
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent, diverse compilation of body images
Comment: Editor William A. Ewing has put together a well-structured presentation of photoworks taken from exhibitions in Lisbon (1999) and Lausanne (2000). I was as impressed with the organization of this book as I was with the photographic artwork itself.
The foreword gives a nice explantion of the how the book tries to capture the essense of the European exhibition, and is followed by a dozen or so pages chronicling the evolution of photographic science and human body photography through the 1900's. Mr. Ewing, who is Director of the Musée de l'Elysée in Lausanne, definitely knows his stuff; this is interesting reading.
The one hundred photos (all b/w except for a handful) are displayed in chronological order, and in much the same way as a museum would: photograph on the right-hand page; title and credit on the left. A major plus is the insightful commentary about the artists and their photographic styles which accompanies each photo credit. In keeping with the gallery presentation, thirteen themes are evidenced in this collection, the most prominent being "Expression," "Form," "Politics," "Fiction," and "Flesh."
"The Century of the Body" portrays many photographic genres: Pictorialism, Modernism, Surrealism, body art, fashion and even endoscopic photography. Noteworthy contributors include Stieglitz, Imogen Cunningham, Man Ray, Weston, Avedon and Mapplethorpe. Every image made me look a long time; none were lewd or offensive. I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in photographic style, or simply . . . art.
Rating: 5
Summary: REVIEW
Comment: I really liked this book. My wife also liked this book. Thank you Mr. William A. Ewing!
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Title: The Body: Photographs of the Human Form by William A. Ewing ISBN: 0811807622 Publisher: Chronicle Books Pub. Date: November, 1994 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Digital Nude Photography by Roderick Macdonald ISBN: 159200105X Publisher: Premier Press Pub. Date: October, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.99 |
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Title: The Mammoth Book of Illustrated Erotica by Marilyn Jaye Lewis, Maxim Jakubowski ISBN: 0786709219 Publisher: Carroll & Graf Pub. Date: 09 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Patrick Demarchelier by Patrick Demarchelier, Patrick Demarchalier ISBN: 3570192407 Publisher: te Neues Publishing Company Pub. Date: June, 2000 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: Venus: Masterpieces of Modern Erotic Photography by Michelle Olley ISBN: 1560252723 Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Press Pub. Date: 30 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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