Thinking with Things: Toward a New Vision of Art

What is "art"? Why have human societies through all time and around the globe created those objects we call works of art? Is there any way of defining art that can encompass everything from Paleolithic objects to the virtual images created by the latest computer technology? Questions such as these have preoccupied Esther Pasztory since the beginning of her scholarly career. In this authoritative volume, she distills four decades of research and reflection to propose a pathbreaking new way of understanding what art is and why human beings create it that can be applied to all cultures throughout time.
At its heart, Pasztory's thesis is simple and yet profound. She asserts that humans create things (some of which modern Western society chooses to call "art") in order to work out our ideas—that is, we literally think with things. Pasztory draws on examples from many societies to argue that the art-making impulse is primarily cognitive and only secondarily aesthetic. She demonstrates that "art" always reflects the specific social context in which it is created, and that as societies become more complex, their art becomes more rarefied.
Pasztory presents her thesis in a two-part approach. The first section of the book is an original essay entitled "Thinking with Things" that develops Pasztory's unified theory of what art is and why we create it. The second section is a collection of eight previously published essays that explore the art-making process in both Pre-Columbian and Western societies. Pasztory's work combines the insights of art history and anthropology in the light of poststructuralist ideas. Her book will be indispensable reading for everyone who creates or thinks about works of art.

Arts & Photography

Pasztory, Esther

History & Criticism

University of Texas Press

What is "art"? Why have human societies through all time and around the globe created those objects we call works of art? Is there any way of defining art that can encompass everything from Paleolithic objects to the virtual images created by the latest computer technology? Questions such as these have preoccupied Esther Pasztory since the beginning of her scholarly career. In this authoritative volume, she distills four decades of research and reflection to propose a pathbreaking new way of understanding what art is and why human beings create it that can be applied to all cultures throughout time.At its heart, Pasztory's thesis is simple and yet profound. She asserts that humans create things (some of which modern Western society chooses to call "art") in order to work out our ideas—that is, we literally think with things. Pasztory draws on examples from many societies to argue that the art-making impulse is primarily cognitive and only secondarily aesthetic. She demonstrates that "art" always reflects the specific social context in which it is created, and that as societies become more complex, their art becomes more rarefied.Pasztory presents her thesis in a two-part approach. The first section of the book is an original essay entitled "Thinking with Things" that develops Pasztory's unified theory of what art is and why we create it. The second section is a collection of eight previously published essays that explore the art-making process in both Pre-Columbian and Western societies. Pasztory's work combines the insights of art history and anthropology in the light of poststructuralist ideas. Her book will be indispensable reading for everyone who creates or thinks about works of art.

Fifteen hundred years ago, Teotihuacan was one of the world's greatest cities. Some 200,000 people lived in this Mexican metropolis, with its massive public buildings, grid plan of streets and imposing murals and sculpture. Its trading empire dominated much of ancient Mexico. Then, in the 8th century, came a mysterious collapse. Even knowledge of the original name was lost: Teotihuacan, "City of the Gods", was a title bestowed by the Aztecs six hundred years later. Published in conjunction with an exhibition organized by The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, this volume brings together for the first time the fruits of researches that are at last unveiling Teotihuacan. Over a dozen distinguished scholars examine every aspect of the city's culture, from its role as an urban centre, its religion and writing system, to its imposing pyramid-temples and superlative art. A splendid array of rarely seen masterpieces, from jewellery, greenstone masks and elegant blackware to figurines and ela

Teotihuacan: Art from the city of the gods

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

When, in the sixteenth century, the Spanish conquistadors defeated the Aztec empire in Mexico and the Inca empire in Peru, their dreams of finding treasure in the New World were amply fulfilled. What they also found was that the Aztecs and the Incas were the latest in a long line of highly civilized peoples to have occupied Mesoamerica and the Andes. In this engaging book, Esther Pasztory describes the very different cultural traditions of these two areas, placing them within their historical and social contexts. Pasztory draws on a vast range of material finds, including monumental sculpture, woven textiles, pottery portrait heads, gold masks, and illustrated codices. She reveals the effects of colonialism on the art, as well as the curious power that Pre-Columbian art has in turn exerted upon Western art, both in the development of art theory and the creation of art works.

Pre-Columbian Art

Cambridge University Press

Aztec Art

Harry N.Abrams, Inc.

One of the first artists to visit the Mayan ruins at Palenque after Mexican independence, Jean-Frederic Waldeck has long been dismissed as unreliable, his drawings of pre-Columbian art marred by his excessive interest in European styles of beauty. With this fresh look at Waldeck's entire output, including his desire to exhibit at Paris salons, his reconstructions of Mayan and Aztec subjects can be understood as art rather than illustration. Pasztory sees him as a unique Neoclassicist who has never been fully appreciated.
In addition to illustrating Maya antiquities in the days before photography, Waldeck painted imaginary reconstructions of pre-Columbian life and rituals and scenes of everyday life in nineteenth-century Mexico. Most of his contemporaries looking for exotic subject matter went east and are now referred to as Orientalists. Waldeck went west and found the exotic in the New World, but as Esther Pasztory suggests, he is an Orientalist in spirit.
Waldeck's work was not considered interesting or important in its day, but twenty-first century viewers can appreciate his sensibility, which combines the modern domestic with the ancient mythic and features a theatrical version of Neoclassicism that looks forward to a Hollywood that would not exist until decades after the artist's death in 1875 at the age of 109.
Publication of Jean-Frederic Waldeck is sponsored by InterAmericas®/Society of Arts and Letters of the Americas, a program of The Reed Foundation

Jean-Frederic Waldeck: Artist of Exotic Mexico

University of New Mexico Press

Depicts art objects from Teotihuacan and discusses research into the culture of the ancient city

Teotihuacan

Berinn K.

M H De Young Memorial Museum

Daughter of the Pyramids

"Daughter of the Pyramids" Naomi is writing a novel set in ancient Mexico and accidentally turns into her heroine, Marigold. Marigold is on a journey from her home in the city of the pyramids, Teotihuacan, to the Maya city of Tikal. While Naomi experiences Marigold's adventures, including a passion for a mysterious Maya lord, she is also desperate to get back to her own world in Morristown, New Jersey. She discovers the secret of time travel but no longer knows whether she wants to live in the present or the past. And, which man will she choose, the young archaeologist or the ruler of Tikal? "Colonial Tales" are eight short stories set in Colonial Mexico and deal with love, friendship, and betrayal in the New World.

Daughter of the Pyramids - a romance: Colonial Tales- 8 short stories

Literature & Fiction

Literary

Xlibris, Corp.

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Books by Pasztory, Esther

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Pasztory, Esther. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Thinking with Things: Toward a New Vision of Art

Thinking with Things: Toward a New Vision of Art

Teotihuacan: Art from the city of the gods

Pre-Columbian Art

Aztec Art

Jean-Frederic Waldeck: Artist of Exotic Mexico

Teotihuacan

Daughter of the Pyramids - a romance: Colonial Tales- 8 short stories

Daughter of the Pyramids