Body Criticism: imaging the unseen in Enlightenment Art and Medicine

Cambridge, Massachusetts: The M.I.T. Press, 1993. Second Printing. Hardcover. Very Good. 4to 11" - 13" tall. Sterling condition hardcover copy, with unbruised tips, tight binding, and clean internals, showing only very slight shelf- and edge-wear; not ex-library, with neither underlining nor highlighting anywhere. Bright and shiny dust jacket, illustrated, showing only very minor wear, protected by a plastic coat, dust jacket not being price-clipped. According to the publisher's blurb, "Body Criticism is a celebration of visual culture as well as a major contribution to our understanding of the history of the human body. At its core is a profound exploration of the innovative strategies developed in the eighteenth century for making visible the unseeable aspects of the world. In the process it uncovers and analyzes the persistence of a remarkable set of body metaphors deriving from both aesthetic and medical practices. For Barbara Stafford, all forms of representation are metaphors for cognitive processes in a society, and the historian's job is to reconstruct the metaphors in order to shed light on the society. Here she looks at the changing nature of images of the human body as a key to understanding the changing status of the body as western society was establishing the outlines of modernity. The six central chapters examine a remarkable range of images and representational practices under the headings Dissecting, Abstracting, Conceiving, Marking, Magnifying, and Sensing. The importance of 'Body Criticism lies in its own visibilizing of previously unexplored interrelationships between art and medicine not only during the Enlightenment but now. Stafford also presents a strong argument for society's need to recognize the occurrence of a profound revolution - a radical shift from a text-based to a visually-centered culture. Volume contains scholarly apparatus in the form of, e.g., notes, index, and bibliography. xiv + 587 pp.Member, I.O.B.A., C.B.A., and adherent to the highest ethical standards. Additional postage may be required for oversize or especially heavy volumes, and for sets.