Image. Lecture course. 2nd edition. Yampolsky M.B.

The book of Mikhail Yampolsky is a record of a course of lectures on the University of New York, and then in a slightly abbreviated form repeated in Moscow in Manege. The course offers a wide view of the problem of image in nature and culture, understood as a fundamental anthropological phenomenon. The role of vision in the evolution of life is investigated, and then in the formation of human culture. The emergence of the visual space, the differentiation of the background and the figure, the meaning of the line (including in labyrinth images), is considered, the question of the emergence of the form as a stabilizing meaning of totalness is raised. Particular attention is paid to the physiology of vision in connection with the formation of fine art, the differentiation of the genres of Western painting (landscape, still life, portrait).

The book has few analogues on the scale of the material coverage and is intended not only for students and graduate students, but also to all those interested in anthropology of vision.