
Mixed Forms of Visual Culture
From the Cabinet of Curiosities to Digital Diversity
Mary Anne Francis(Author)
Bloomsbury Visual Arts (Publisher)
Published on 29. June 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
248 pages
978-1-350-21141-4 (ISBN)
Description
This book celebrates and seeks to understand the overlooked appearances of hybrid forms in visual culture; artefacts and practices that meld or interweave incongruous elements in innovative ways. And with an emphasis on the material aspects of such entities, the book adopts the term 'mixed form' for them.
Focusing on key phenomena in the last half millennium, such as the cabinet of curiosities, the broadside ballad and the chapbook as early forms of image-text, the scrapbook, assemblage, and, in digital times, so-called 'mixed reality,' the book argues that while the quality of inconsistency is traditionally dismissed, its expression nevertheless plays a vital role in social life.
Crucially, Mixed Forms of Visual Culture relates its phenomena to the emergence of the division of labour under capitalism and addresses the shifting relationships between art and life, when singularity and uniformity are variously valued and dismissed in the two arenas, and at different points in history.
Two of the book's chapters take the form of visual essays, with one comprising an anthology of found scrapbook pages and the other offering an analysis of artists' scrapbooks. The book is richly illustrated throughout.
Focusing on key phenomena in the last half millennium, such as the cabinet of curiosities, the broadside ballad and the chapbook as early forms of image-text, the scrapbook, assemblage, and, in digital times, so-called 'mixed reality,' the book argues that while the quality of inconsistency is traditionally dismissed, its expression nevertheless plays a vital role in social life.
Crucially, Mixed Forms of Visual Culture relates its phenomena to the emergence of the division of labour under capitalism and addresses the shifting relationships between art and life, when singularity and uniformity are variously valued and dismissed in the two arenas, and at different points in history.
Two of the book's chapters take the form of visual essays, with one comprising an anthology of found scrapbook pages and the other offering an analysis of artists' scrapbooks. The book is richly illustrated throughout.
Reviews / Votes
it is a pleasure to follow the author on her historical and taxonomic crossing of the world of mixed form, from the Renaissance and post-Renaissance cabinet of curiosities till today's digital creations, over popular genres such as the broadsheet, the chapbook and the scrapbook - all well documented and cleverly illustrated. The visual material of the book is refreshing and often very original, while the comments are always helpful as well as consistently structured in function of the underlying general question of the link with division of labor. * Jan Baetens, Leonardo *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
80 colour illus
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 16 mm
Weight
560 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-350-21141-4 (9781350211414)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
12/2021
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Visual Arts
€37.49
Available for download

E-Book
12/2021
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Visual Arts
€37.49
Available for download
Person
Mary Anne Francis is Principal Lecturer in the School of Art at the University of Brighton, UK.
Content
List of Illustrations
Preface
Introduction: Mixtures of all sorts
1. The cabinet of curiosities as mixed form: depictions and desire
2. Mixed form in working life: the rise of manufacture
3. Popular mixed forms in a long eighteenth century: from the broadside ballad to the chapbook
4. Visual essay
5. Mixed-form and modernism in the visual arts: assemblage and assembly lines
6. Visual essay
7. Digital culture as Wunderkammer
Conclusion: A synthesis of sorts
Bibliography
Index
Preface
Introduction: Mixtures of all sorts
1. The cabinet of curiosities as mixed form: depictions and desire
2. Mixed form in working life: the rise of manufacture
3. Popular mixed forms in a long eighteenth century: from the broadside ballad to the chapbook
4. Visual essay
5. Mixed-form and modernism in the visual arts: assemblage and assembly lines
6. Visual essay
7. Digital culture as Wunderkammer
Conclusion: A synthesis of sorts
Bibliography
Index