Ryedale | Archive | 2003 | August | 06
From the Gazette & Herald, first published Wednesday 6th Aug 2003.
TODAY, we take for granted the American images that span the globe through advertisements, the cinema, billboards, magazines, etc yet it is only a little over 150 years since the first photograph was produced.
In America, it coincided with an opening-up of the land by railroads and the invention of electricity. Photography was a breathtaking media through which to bring the wider world into the home. In this book, we read of - and see - images of the great American photographers from Matthew Brady and Ansel Adams to Andy Warhol and Cindy Sherman. We read how it became a political tool, a social voice and a widely used art form. Miles Orvell analyses the way that American photographers have viewed the world around them, pushing the realms of theory and technique and touching the hearts and minds of the observer, sometimes making us confront things we would rather not see, so shaking us out of our comfort. This is a highly readable account of how the most immediate art form has helped to push America into becoming the world's number one power and how, in its turn, it has affected us all.
Updated: 09:47 Wednesday, August 06, 2003
© Newsquest Media Group 2008