Eye of the Beholder
Written by Laura J. Snyder
Narrated by Tamara Marston
4/5
()
About this audiobook
Laura J. Snyder
Fulbright scholar Laura J. Snyder is the author of The Philosophical Breakfast Club, a Scientific American Notable Book, winner of the 2011 Royal Institution of Australia poll for Favorite Science Book, and an official selection of the TED Book Club. She is also the author of Reforming Philosophy. Snyder writes about science and ideas for the Wall Street Journal. She is a professor at St. John's University and lives in New York City.
Related to Eye of the Beholder
Related audiobooks
The Collector of Lives: Giorgio Vasari and the Invention of Art Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Da Vinci's Ghost: Genius, Obsession, and How Leonardo Created the World in His Own Image Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master of the Prado Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Magicians: Great Minds and the Central Miracle of Science Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Round About the Earth: Circumnavigation from Magellan to Orbit Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Vanishing Velázquez: A 19th Century Bookseller's Obsession with a Lost Masterpiece Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil in the Gallery: How Scandal, Shock, and Rivalry Shaped the Art World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Man in the Red Coat Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Plunder: Napoleon's Theft of Veronese's Feast Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBreaking van Gogh: Saint-Rémy, Forgery, and the $95 Million Fake at the Met Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Antiquities: What Everyone Needs to Know Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Upside-Down World: Meetings with the Dutch Masters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Stones of Venice, Volume 3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Feud That Sparked the Renaissance: How Brunelleschi and Ghiberti Changed the Art World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Young Rembrandt: A Biography Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Raphael, Painter in Rome: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stealing the Mystic Lamb: The True Story of the World's Most Coveted Masterpiece Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Louvre: The Many Lives of the World's Most Famous Museum Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Portrait of a Conspiracy: Da Vinci's Disciples Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBrunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Lives of the Artists Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Do We Look: The Body, the Divine, and the Question of Civilization Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Crossroads of Civilization: A History of Vienna Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Polymath: A Cultural History from Leonardo da Vinci to Susan Sontag Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House of Pride Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Science & Mathematics For You
Quantum Physics: What Everyone Needs to Know Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cosmos: A Personal Voyage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thinking in Systems: A Primer Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Change Your World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Free Will Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brain Rules (Updated and Expanded): 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Midnight in Chernobyl: The Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Salt: A World History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When It Matters Most Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Eye of the Beholder
20 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vermeer and Leewenhoek were neighbors and Leewenhoek was Vermeer’s executor, though there’s no definitive evidence they knew each other. Snyder examines their careers as representative of a time in which art and science flowed in similar paths; the lenses Leewenhoek used to examine the microscopic world could also be used in the camera obscura, which allowed painters like Vermeer to see the visible world differently and change their painting styles in response. Scientists and artists had to learn to see in these new ways; it wasn’t “natural” but nor was it an “unnatural” way of seeing. Snyder analogizes Vermeer’s repeated choice of similar subjects to a natural philosopher’s replication of an experiment under different conditions: Vermeer, she suggests, was experimenting to see the effects of different kinds of light on the emotion of a scene, and the effects of different painting strategies on perceived color.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Having spent much of my life contemplating Vermeer's extraordinary paintings, I approached Laura J. Snyder's new volume on Vermeer and his milieu - "Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing" with an open but discerning mind. I must say that I was impressed by Snyder's scholarship and her deft storytelling. What Snyder's book does most of all is allow us to lift the veil of our own conceptual blinders and peer into the world of Vermeer and van Leeuwenhoek. Highly recommended.