The Smithsonian American Art Museum, along with the National Portrait Gallery, occupies the historic Patent Office Building, re-opening in 2006. One of the finest neoclassical structures in the world,
In September 1878, Thomas Alva Edison brashly -- and prematurely -- proclaimed his breakthrough invention of a workable electric light. That announcement was followed by many months of intense experi
According to Paley (inventor, entrepreneur, and teacher) a great invention must solve a universal problem in a manner that is simple, elegant, and robust. He uses the paper clip as a primary example o
When, in 1735, Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten added a new discipline to the philosophical system, he not only founded modern aesthetics but also contributed to shaping the modern concept of art or 'fine art'. In The Founding of Aesthetics in the German Enlightenment, Stefanie Buchenau offers a rich analysis and reconstruction of the origins of this new discipline in its wider context of German Enlightenment philosophy. Present-day scholars commonly regard Baumgarten's views as an imperfect prefiguration of Kantian and post-Kantian aesthetics, but Buchenau argues that Baumgarten defended a consistent and original project which must be viewed in the context of the modern debate on the art of invention. Her book offers new perspectives on Kantian aesthetics and beauty in art and science.
Although John Ruskin is widely considered to have produced some of the greatest prose in English, there has been no extended study of how he learned to write or of the language with which he represents his learning. This book begins with the prodigiously inventive child who looks ahead to what he will achieve, and ends with the adult who looks to his past for proof that he has never been inventive. Far from a simple about-face, Ruskin's self-denial is a culmination and extension of the art that he mastered in youth, and it is one of the most remarkable acts of self-representation in all of Victorian prose. Drawing on Ruskin's own sources as well as on more recent directions in critical theory, Professor Emerson reveals the effects of early literary, familial, sexual and social experiences on the shaping of a major writer's identity.
One of Modern Library's 100 Best Nonfiction Books of the Twentieth CenturyIn this classic study of how people learned to retain vast stores of knowledge before the invention of the printed page, Franc
The world's most trusted nonfiction series is now available with a CD of clip art and wall chart included with the hardcover edition which compliments these fact-filled titles that are loaded with spe
