The Secret Lives of Art Works : Exploring the Boundaries between Art and Life (Paperback)

Over the centuries viewers have attributed life, personhood and agency to works of art; they kiss them, beat them, or claim that portraits look at viewers, and that statues move, breathe and speak. In the past decades such attributions of life to images have become a central topic in art history, anthropology and psychology. The Secret Lives of Art Works is the first collection of essays to present case studies from the visual arts, architecture, sculpture and numismatics, and to engage critically with theoretical perspectives from art history, psychology, aesthetics and anthropology. It thus not only offers a state of the art overview of approaches to this wide spread phenomenon, but also identifies new avenues of inquiry.