The mysterious world beneath the ocean’s surface and its inhabitants have captivated humanity for centuries—the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and ancient Chinese all kept fish in their homes to observe and admire. But it was not until the nineteenth-century invention of the aquarium that the deep was truly domesticated, offering the curious a chance to create an indoor exotic sea world, in miniature.
In The Ocean at Home, Bernd Brunner traces the development of the aquarium from the Victorian era to the present day. Along the way, in this fascinating history, Brunner provides insight into the cultural and social circumstances that accompanied the aquarium’s swift rise in popularity. Brunner tells a compelling story of obsession, discovery, and delight—from the aquarium’s origin as a tool for scientific observation to the Victorian era’s elaborately decorated containers of curiosity, to the great public aquariums that are popular in cities around the world today.
Featuring more than 100 illustrations, this updated edition of The Ocean at Home offers a colorful and captivating look at how a Victorian obsession still enchants many today. Both the owner of a humble goldfish bowl and the dazzled spectator at major public aquariums will find The Ocean at Home an appealing and knowledgable guide to the aquatic worlds we create.
African American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos protesting racial segregation in the United States in 1968. Hitler watching the Berlin Olympics in 1936. Michael Phelps’ photo finish in the 100-meter butterfly to win his seventh of a record eight medals in 2008. Since its creation in 1896, the Olympic Games have produced iconic images such as these, from the second the Olympic flame is lit at the lavish opening ceremony to the moment that same flame is extinguished at its close. As billions across the globe watch this showcase of fitness, strength, and skill, few understand how the pictorial legacy of the Games continues to shape the way the events are viewed today.
The term outsider art has been used to describe work produced exterior to the mainstream of modern art by certain self-taught visionaries, spiritualists, eccentrics, recluses, psychiatric patients, criminals, and others beyond the perceived margins of society. Yet the idea of such a raw, untaught creativity remains a contentious and much-debated issue in the art world. Is this creative instinct a natural, innate phenomenon, requiring only the right circumstances—such as isolation or alienation—in order for it to be cultivated? Or is it an idealistic notion projected onto the art and artists by critics and buyers?
David Maclagan argues that behind the critical and commercial hype lies a cluster of assumptions about creative drives, the expression of inner worlds, originality, and artistic eccentricity. Although outsider art is often presented as a recent discovery, these ideas, Maclagan reveals, belong to a tradition that goes back to the Renaissance, when the modern image of the artist began to take shape. In Outsider Art, Maclagan challenges many of the current opinions about this increasingly popular field of art and explores what happens to outsider artists and their work when they are brought within the very world from which they have excluded themselves.
From Edward Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussycat”to David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, owls have been woven into the fabric of popular culture. At times they are depicted as dignified, wise old scholars and at other times as foreboding voyeurs who see all and interrogate with an accusatory, “Who? Who?” In Owl best-selling author Desmond Morris explores the natural and cultural history of these predators of the night who embody both good and evil in turn.
In this fascinating book, Morris describes the evolution, the many species, and the wide spread of owls across the globe. Owls are found on every land mass around the world, with the exception of Antarctica; and as a result of their wide distribution, owls appear in the folktales, myths, and legends of many native peoples—in addition to popular art, film, and literature worldwide. Featuring over 100 telling illustrations from nature and culture, Owl will appeal to the numerous fans of this enigmatic bird, from the friendly Mr. Owls to silent, sinister, hunters of the dark.
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