The Erotics of Looking

<p><i>The Erotics of Looking: Early Modern Netherlandish Art</i> presents a collection of provocative essays that explore the material qualities of early Dutch art to reveal ways new forms of visual imagery solicit a beholder’s involvement.</p> <ul> <li>Explores how descriptive pictures during the early modern Dutch art period operated as social things and were designed to pleasurably engage the eye and prompt discussion and debate</li> <li>Shows how these works potentially raised ethical and political questions about the interconnectedness of engaging with pictures and the material world</li> <li>Represents a major contribution to the field of early modern Netherlandish art and to general debates about the status and functions of descriptive art</li> <li>Features essays addressing a variety of aspects of the field, from the historiography of Dutch art to closely attentive readings of particular works</li> <li>Crafts an original theoretical framework by applying recent insights about the making of early modern publics and the study of material things to the analysis of Netherlandish art</li> </ul>