Aberrations: An Essay on the Legend of Forms (English, French and French Edition)

What part do "depraved perspectives" play in the attainment of knowledge? What metaphysical truths are to be found in aberrations? Jurgis Baltrusaitis, one of Europe's most distinguished historians of art and culture, has consistently broken new ground by pursuing the other side of science, myth, and ideology and by examining its relevance to the formation and history of art. He exposes the byways through which the natural environment is turned into art. In the process he illuminates some of the central issues in current discussions of the theory of art.

In Aberrations, Baltrusaitis creates a remarkable panorama of modern culture. He interweaves the rational with the fabulous - the fable of the beast in man figurative images in stones, the forest in the Gothic edifice, and whole cultures in the garden - to reveal the ways in which natural phenomena have been read into cultural forms, and vice versa. Illustrated throughout the essays are "Animal Physiognomy," "Images in Stones," "The Romance of Gothic Architecture," and "Gardens and Lands of Illusion."

Jurgis Baltrusaitis is the author of eight books, among them Anamorphoses: Formations, Deformations, and The Quest for Isis. He has been awarded the Prix Bordin of the Academy of Fine Arts and the Prix Hercule Catenacci of the French Academy. An OCTOBER Book