Forms of Enchantment

Writings on Art & Artists

£25.00
£25.00

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A series of enlightening perspectives on the art and visual culture of today’s world from one of our pre-eminent writers.

Marina Warner compellingly explores thelayers of allusion symbols and stories underlying art from the 16th to the 21st centuries In making the case for a uniquely writerly way of thinking with and about art and artists she sets out to share the dynamism fluidity and passions of the objectsof her enquirybrbrApproaching art and artists primarily through the fields of anthropology mythology and fairy tale Warner argues for arts place in society as a site of enchantment a realm in which imagination holds the key to knowledge and understanding Metamorphosis features vividly across the imagery media and subject matter of the artworks selected which include pieces by Paula Rego Damien Hirst Louise Bourgeois Tacita Dean and HieronymusBosch This collection engages with artists particularly women artists noted for reaching beyond the visible and transforming a rich inner life into uncanny sometimes disturbing matterbrbrInspiring and highly engaging iForms of Enchantmenti unites the imaginations of artist writer and reader forging a reading experience that parallels the intrinsic pleasureof looking at artbr
Extent: 288 pp
Format: Hardback
Illustrations: 51
Publication date: 2018-09-13
Size: 22.9 x 15.2 cm
ISBN: 9780500021460
Foreword • I. Playing in the Dark • Paula Rego: Giving Fear a Face • Henry Fuseli: In the Passionate Playground • Janine Antoni: Hide & Seek • Richard Wentworth: Things That Talk • Kiki Smith: Wolf-Girl, Soul-Bird • II. Bodies of Sense • Hans Baldung Grien: A Fatal Bite • Louise Bourgeois: Cut and Stitch • Zarina Bhimji: Customs of the Country • Helen Chadwick: The Wound of Difference • Tacita Dean: Footage • III. Spectral Technologies • Joan Jonas: Future Ghosts • Sigmar Polke: Stone Alchemy • Al & Al: Visions of the Honeycomb • Jumana Emil Abboud: Dreaming the Territory • Christian Thompson: Magical Aesthetics • IV. Iconoclashes • Hieronymus Bosch: Trumpery, or The Followers of the Haywain • Damien Hirst: Once a Catholic… • Felicity Powell: Marks of Shame, Signs of Grace • Frans Masereel: Naked in the City • Cristina Iglesias: Where Three Waters Meet • Julie Mehretu: The Third Space

Press Reviews

Heady, thought-provoking stuff here: the author has a knack of taking initially complex subjects and making them accessible and reachable
Actual Size

What stands out in this work is the depth of [Warner’s] engagement: she does not simply look hard at each artist’s work but interrogates hard too. Her approach is more philosophical and psychological than art historical, and what draws her to her subjects is their storytelling
RA Magazine

These essays] offer a trove of insight and erudition, lightly worn as ever, and provide a vision of a new aesthetics that is refreshingly optimistic
The Times Literary Supplement


About the Author

Marina Warner’s study of the Arabian Nights, Stranger Magic (2011) won the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism and the Sheikh Zayed Book Award in 2013; in 2015 she was awarded the Holberg Prize in the Arts and Humanities and was made DBE. She is a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Birkbeck College, a Fellow of the British Academy and President of the Royal Society of Literature.

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