John Onians

A bold revision of the history of European art, told through the lens of neuroscience Ambitious and much anticipated, this book celebrates the value of recent neuroscientific discoveries as tools for art-historical analysis. Case studies ranging across the whole history of European art demonstrate the relationships between forms of visual expression and the objects of visual attention, emotional connection, and intellectual interest in daily life, thus illuminating the previously hidden meanings of many artistic styles and conventions. Art historians have until now concentrated on the conscious intentions of artists and patrons, but neuroscience provides insights into the role of non-conscious mental processes in the production and consumption of works of art. As John Onians powerfully argues, these insights have the potential to revolutionize cultural history. For the first time, an authority renowned for a more traditional approach has applied new neuroscientific knowledge to a wide range of art-historical problems, both familiar and fresh. The result is a provocative, original, and persuasive case for neuroscience as an aid to research in the humanities.

A Neuroarthistory

European Art

With essays by Cao Yiqiang, Rita Eder, James Elkins, Arlene K. Fleming, Derek Gillman, Jyotindra Jain, Cecelia F. Klein, Yves Le Fur, Dominic Marner, Anitra Nettleton, John Onians, Edmund P. Pillsbury, Michael Rinehart, David Summers, Wilfried van Damme, and Georges S. Zouain _____________________________________________ How do we do justice to art when we treat it not as a discrete European or other regional tradition, but as a worldwide phenomenon with a long history? In this groundbreaking book, leading academics, curators, bibliographers, and representatives of international organizations from every continent explain the ways they deal with the conflict between the need to compress and the desire to express. Anyone who faces this challenge, whether in developing a course at university or school, writing a textbook, installing a museum collection, mounting an exhibition, or otherwise presenting the world’s cultural heritage will want to read it.

Containing and Explaining the World's Art

Compression Vs. Expression

Professor of Visual Arts School of World Art Studies and Museology John Onians

An inquiry into the foundations of European culture. The account ranges from the Greek Dark Ages to the Christianisation of Rome, revealing how the experience of a constantly changing physical environment influenced the inhabitants of Ancient Greece and Rome.

Classical Art and the Cultures of Greece and Rome

John Onians offers a fascinating account of one of the newest and most exciting fields in the human sciences: neuroarthistory.

From Aristotle and Pliny to Baxandall and Zeki

Neuroarthistory

Pablo Picasso

Paul Greenhalgh

Michael Cary

Lluis Bosch

The Legacy of Youth

Essays On Art and Culture in Honour of E.H. Gombrich At 85

Sight and Insight

For all those interested in the relationship between ideas and the built environment, John Onians provides a lively illustrated account of the range of meanings that Western culture has assigned to the Classical orders. Onians shows that during the 2,000 years from their first appearance in ancient Greece through their codification in Renaissance Italy, the orders--the columns and capitals known as Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Tuscan, and Composite--were made to serve expressive purposes, engaging the viewer in a continuing visual dialogue.

The Classical Orders in Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance

Bearers of Meaning

Combines a survey of world art with maps showing the associations and dissemination of culture across the globe.

John Onians

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