Full Description
In Light as Experience and Imagination from Medieval to Modern Times, David S. Herrstrom synthesizes and interprets the experience of light as revealed in a wide range of art and literature from medieval to modern times. The true subject of the book is making sense of the individual's relationship with light, rather than the investigation of light's essential nature, while telling the story of light "seducing" individuals from the Middle Ages to our modern times. Consequently, it is not concerned with the "progress" of scientific inquiries into the physical properties and behavior of light (optical science), but rather with subjective reactions as reflected in art, architecture, and literature. Instead of its evolution, this book celebrates the complexity of our relation to light's character. No individual experience of light being "truer" than any other.
Contents
1. Houses of Light: The Middle Ages
2. Instrumental Light: The Renaissance
3. Untwisting the Shining Robe of Day: The Enlightenment
4. Sublime Light: The Age of Revolution
5. Fields of Light: The Age of Technology
6. Eloquences of Light: The Age of Uncertainty
7. The "Thingness" of Light: The Age of Suspicion
