On Seeing: Things Seen, Unseen, and Obscene"What Oliver Sacks does for the mind, Gonzalez-Crussi (On Being Born and Other Difficulties) does for the eye in this captivating set of philosophical meditations on the relationship between the viewer and the viewed. The author, amused and amazed by our desire to see what is forbidden, draws on historical and cultural examples, from Actaeon spying on the goddess Diana to a pair of voyeurs in revolutionary France who unwittingly incite a massacre. Mixed in with such accounts are personal reflections drawn from medicine. He is astounded, for example, at how many people have pestered him for access to an autopsy, just to say they'd seen one. The ornate sentences are filled with stunning images, like his description of an infant just emerged from the womb, bloody, "weakly flailing his arms" and crying, appearing to the author not as a symbol of life but as resembling "a foot-soldier in a defeated army, a pitiful survivor in a catastrophic retreat," and his prose never loses its elegance, even when the stories he tells veer into the bawdy. Not every anecdote resonates perfectly, but here is a charming raconteur who will who will win over readers with his thoughts on our visual connection to the world around us." c2. |
Contents
Mens Foremost Visual Taboo | 9 |
Eyes on Privities | 29 |
Corollary | 47 |
Copyright | |
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Alessio amidst anatomy ancient animal appears artist beauty became Bernardo Strozzi Bian Que bodily body Bonaventure des Périers cadaver Cajal Capgras syndrome celebrated century Cesare Ripa Charcot clinical color Conrad Gesner contemplation death depicted disease divine Doppelgänger double enhancing existence extispicy eyes eyesight face famous fear feel female fetal fetus Figure film fire French Frenhofer girl hand human husband idea idols imagination impression Jean-Martin Charcot king lady Laïs Langey lives look lover Madame Campan male master medical gaze mental microscopic mind mirror morgue naked narrative nature objects observation ocular painter painting paparazzi Paris patient person personage photograph physician Poussin queen reflected Renaissance royal Salpêtrière seems sense sexual sight Sima Qian sitting solenoid Somerset Maugham spectacle stain story symbol things thought tion turn unicorn viewer vision visual visual perception watch wife witnesses woman women words young