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The commerce of vision : optical culture and perception in antebellum America / Peter John Brownlee

Catalog Data

Author:
Brownlee, Peter John  Search this
Physical description:
249 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 27 cm
Type:
Books
History
Place:
United States
Date:
2019
19th century
To 1865
Notes:
"PENN."
Summary:
"When Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in 1837 that "Our Age is Ocular," he offered a succinct assessment of antebellum America's cultural, commercial, and physiological preoccupation with sight. In the early nineteenth century, the American city's visual culture was manifest in pamphlets, newspapers, painting exhibitions, and spectacular entertainments; businesses promoted their wares to consumers on the move with broadsides, posters, and signboards; and advances in ophthalmological sciences linked the mechanics of vision to the physiological functions of the human body. Within this crowded visual field, sight circulated as a metaphor, as a physiological process, and as a commercial commodity. Out of the intersection of these various discourses and practices emerged an entirely new understanding of vision. The Commerce of Vision integrates cultural history, art history, and material culture studies to explore how vision was understood and experienced in the first half of the nineteenth century"-- Provided by publisher.
Topic:
Visual communication--History  Search this
Visual perception--Economic aspects--History  Search this
Vision  Search this
Commerce  Search this
History  Search this
Economic conditions  Search this
Data Source:
Smithsonian Libraries
EDAN-URL:
edanmdm:siris_sil_1101825