Audiobook2 hours
How Do We Look: The Body, the Divine, and the Question of Civilization
Written by Mary Beard
Narrated by Mary Beard
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
From prehistoric Mexico to modern Istanbul, Mary Beard looks beyond the familiar canon of Western imagery to explore the history of art, religion, and humanity. Conceived as a gorgeously illustrated accompaniment to "How Do We Look" and "The Eye of Faith," the famed Civilisations shows on PBS, renowned classicist Mary Beard has created this elegant volume on how we have looked at art. Focusing in Part I on the Olmec heads of early Mesoamerica, the colossal statues of the pharaoh Amenhotep III, and the nudes of classical Greece, Beard explores the power, hierarchy, and gender politics of the art of the ancient world, and explains how it came to define the so-called civilized world. In Part II, Beard chronicles some of the most breathtaking religious imagery ever made?whether at Angkor Wat, Ravenna, Venice, or in the art of Jewish and Islamic calligraphers? to show how all religions, ancient and modern, have faced irreconcilable problems in trying to picture the divine. With this classic volume, Beard redefines the Western-and male-centric legacies of Ernst Gombrich and Kenneth Clark
Author
Mary Beard
Mary Beard is Professor of Classics at Cambridge University. Her many books include The Roman Triumph and The Fires of Vesuvius.
More audiobooks from Mary Beard
SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Classics: A Very Short Introduction Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from the Ancient World to the Modern Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Parthenon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Colosseum Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Invention of Jane Harrison Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Roman Triumph Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to How Do We Look
Related audiobooks
The Invention of Jane Harrison Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws: And Other Classical Myths, Historical Oddities, and Scientific Curiosities Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cleopatra: The Queen who Challenged Rome and Conquered Eternity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tutan Hamen And The Discovery Of His Tomb Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Story of Greece and Rome Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cleopatra's Daughter: Egyptian Princess, Roman Prisoner, African Queen Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLives in Ruins: Archaeologists and the Seductive Lure of Human Rubble Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues That Made History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Florentines: From Dante to Galileo: The Transformation of Western Civilization Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prehistory: The Making of the Human Mind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gods and Mortals: Ancient Greek Myths for Modern Readers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStoryland: A New Mythology of Britain Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Pagans: The End of Traditional Religion and the Rise of Christianity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What the Greeks Did for Us Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHebrews, Greeks and Romans: Foundations of Western Civilization Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Alexander of Macedonia: The World Conquered Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Antiquities: What Everyone Needs to Know Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Light Ages: The Surprising Story of Medieval Science Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Roman Triumph Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Parthenon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Colosseum Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Measure of Man: Liberty, Virtue, and Beauty in the Florentine Renaissance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Domina: The Women Who Made Imperial Rome Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Catullus' Bedspread: The Life of Rome's Most Erotic Poet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Wars & Military For You
The Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Kill Anything That Moves Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book of Five Rings Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Watchmaker's Daughter: The True Story of World War II Heroine Corrie ten Boom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Making of the Atomic Bomb: 25th Anniversary Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Last Kingdom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Diary of Anne Frank Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dirty Tricks Department: Stanley Lovell, the OSS, and the Masterminds of World War II Secret Warfare Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Strategy Masters: The Prince, The Art of War, and The Gallic Wars Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rape of Nanking: The History and Legacy of the Notorious Massacre during the Second Sino-Japanese War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Korean War: A History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On Palestine Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Unbroken Bonds of Battle: A Modern Warriors Book of Heroism, Patriotism, and Friendship Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Operator: Firing the Shots that Killed Osama bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Saved: A War Reporter's Mission to Make It Home Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, An American Legend Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Shortest History of Israel and Palestine: From Zionism to Intifadas and the Struggle for Peace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin - Book Summary: How U.S. Navy SEALS Lead And Win Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Countdown 1945: The Extraordinary Story of the Atomic Bomb and the 116 Days That Changed the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for How Do We Look
Rating: 3.707547056603774 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
53 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Inteligent essay about what is art and how we, our look, makes the art. Beard offers a travel a long side the world and history. From Ancient Mexico to the Acropolis, from the Colossus of Memnon in the II sicle to the first temples in Ankor wat. What is art if not the way we look the objects.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5As a physical object, this book is a triumph: the cover shimmers, the paper is heavy and smooth, the art is well chosen and beautifully rendered. As a text, though, it has little to offer. Although the title (and to some extent, the layout) positions it as a revisit of John Berger's influential Ways of Seeing, the chapters are short, shallow, and overly simple. Interesting pieces of art—some well known, some not—are touched upon, Beard's main point about each is briefly stated, and then we move on. Other reviewers indicate that these chapters are actually transcriptions of the script for a television show I haven't seen, which would help explain this. But it left me disappointed in Beard, whom I had admired, especially when she seems to honestly believe that an ancient Greek man (almost certainly fictional, too) who masturbated onto a statue was guilty of rape—of the statue. This bizarre opinion is not just tossed off, but actually returned to later. It's one of those things that can leave a reader wondering about the author's sanity.So I'd recommend this book as a tiny coffee table book and as an introduction to works of art and architecture, many non-Western, that merit further investigation. As a work by a distinguished classicist and public intellectual, it's an embarrassment.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I was drawn to this book by Mary Beard, whose reputation proceeds her. I don't typically read a lot of art history or analysis, but this short volume was both interesting and highly readable. Looking at the role of the viewer in art and traveling around the world, this book manages to make a complex topic approachable. If you're interesting in art and the ancient world, this book is likely for you.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Some new insights into how Art reflects what was going on in society at the time. In depth look at faith and how the artist expresses one’s religious and political context at the time.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I picked How Do We Look off the New Arrivals shelf at my library without having seen the new Civilizations series (or, honestly, being much aware of it, except for a tweet from Tim Spalding asking about a cut-short episode), but I was aware of Mary Beard being popular amongst my friends who like to read about history and Classics. I mention all of this because I'm definitely reading the book from a different perspective than someone who is already very familiar with Beard's work or who found it because of the tv series.The book is glossy with comfortably-large type and lots of pictures - every artwork discussed in the pages has at least one photo (often multiple angles or close-ups!), and there are other photos to add a bit of contrast or comparison of similar themes. They all have explanatory captions. It's fairly short at 240 pages because of the size of the text and the numerous pictures, many of which are fully one or two pages, but these pages are used to put a lot of detail about the works represented, rather than cramming a new object for discussion on every page.From the title and a brief skimming, I had hoped for more philosophical/sociological discussion of the act of looking at art and how the viewer imbues artwork with meaning and context as much as the artwork has on its own. I don't mean to say this isn't the theme of the book - it certainly is! - but I wanted more. Several times, Beard backs away from an artwork without fully exploring what this means, or else leaves it unspoken for the reader to determine. Perhaps in a few examples it's because we can't know the original contexts to really have a deep conversation about the artwork, but most of the time the pages skitter away to the next work, it reminded me that the book is based on the tv show, and of scenes skipping ahead for time.But on the whole, I did find the book interesting. Its emphasis is that artwork is made for the viewer and for specific societal purposes as much as it is made for the artist's skill or identity. Modern viewers of ancient art bring their own contexts and interpretations, which may skew the understanding of the past, as much as only seeing bleached-white marble or giant wall murals cut into vignettes for books might do. Or even as much as artwork in sterile museum displays, far from the point of origin.I am likely to seek out more of Mary Beard's work now, probably even her Civilizations series, but what I really want is more detailed discussion of the context of ancient art and a broader view towards societies that are not touched on here (particularly Indigenous American and Pacific work).