Eyewitnessing evaluates the place of images among other kinds of historical evidence. By reviewing the many varieties of images by region, period and medium, and looking at the pragmatic uses of images (e.g. the Bayeux Tapestry, an engraving of a printing press, a reconstruction of a building), Peter Burke sheds light on our assumption that these practical uses are 'reflections' of specific historical meanings and influences. He also shows how this assumption can be problematic. Traditional art historians have depended on two types of analysis when dealing with visual imagery, iconography and iconology. Burke describes and evaluates these approaches, concluding that they are insufficient. Focusing instead on the medium as message and on the social contexts and uses of images, he discusses both religious images and political ones, also looking at images in advertising and as commodities. Ultimately, Burke's purpose is to show how iconographic and post-iconographic methods - psychoanalysis, semiotics, viewer response, deconstruction - are both useful and problematic to contemporary historians.

About the Author
Peter Burke is Professor of Cultural History at the University of Cambridge. His recent books include The European Renaissance: Centres and Peripheries (1998) and A Social History of Knowledge from Gutenberg to Diderot (2000).

Reviews
Provides us with a compendium ... which continues the long process of restoring the balance between written documentation and optical representation as carriers of historical information ... a thoroughly engrossing explication of how fine art, graphics, photographs, film and other media can be used to make sense of lives lived out in other times Tate Magazine Well-informed and fair-minded, and it prompts one to ponder -- Michael Baxandall English Historical Review



Book Information
ISBN 9781861892652
Author Peter Burke
Format Paperback
Page Count 240
Imprint Reaktion Books
Publisher Reaktion Books
Weight(grams) 490g