Description

About the Author

Camille Paglia is University Professor of Humanities and Media Studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She is the author of four previous books: Break, Blow, Burn; Sexual Personae; Sex, Art, and American Culture; and Vamps & Tramps. She has also written The Birds, a study of Alfred Hitchcock.

Praise for Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art from Egypt to Star Wars…

“A magisterial, poetically composed, and masterly study. . . . Paglia writes rhapsodically of art’s power. . . . [She is] one of the most erudite public intellectuals in America.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Highlights Ms. Paglia’s impressive range and famously eclectic tastes. . . . [She is] a critic determined to teach the redemptive possibilities of patient, informed observation.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Riveting. . . . Revelatory. . . . Subtle, penetrating and sometimes funny.” —The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
 
“[Paglia is] an art-for-art’s-sake worshiper of art and literature whose close readings, influenced by Walter Pater and Sigmund Freud, are pyrotechnic and passionate.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“Dazzling. . . . Compulsively readable. . . . Paglia at her best. . . . The lean precision of the book is a marvel. . . . Her choices range from the classic and expected to the obscure and the startling. . . . Even her explorations of the more familiar works will have you marveling anew.” —Salon

“Paglia [is] an intellectual sensation. . . . Here we find Paglia’s bewitching eye, matched with her gift for language, at its best.” —City Journal

“Artists, questing outsiders, are still with us, still finding their way, making their way. Perhaps some of them will be inspired by the glittering images Camille Paglia offers here.” —Los Angeles Times

“An essential work by an essential public intellectual.” —Vice

“Paglia is a lively, bracingly outspoken writer able to draw on her knowledge of both fine arts and popular culture.” —National Post

“A fascinating, uncommonly accessible look at the history of images in Western art. . . . [Paglia is] an incisive cultural critic, a dedicated teacher and a nimble-minded writer.” —Cincinnati City Beat

“An intelligently detailed examination of 29 works of art, ranging from a tomb painting of Egyptian Queen Nefertari to George Lucas’ film Revenge of the Sith. . . . Paglia is a wonderful popularizer of art history and art appreciation.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Succinct, lively, and illuminating. . . . Paglia’s bold and rigorous, handsomely illustrated and welcoming art iconography will accomplish her mission to provoke, enlighten, and inspire..” —Booklist (starred)

“A valuable cultural critique and an elucidating history. . . . [A] highly reflective and imaginative history of images in Western art. . . . Paglia writes with energetic lucidity, and her entries on the Laocoön and Donatello’s Mary Magdalene are standouts in this absorbing volume.” —Publishers Weekly

“The ever-provocative Paglia returns. . . . She proclaims that the avant-garde is dead and that George Lucas is our greatest living artist. This will get the smart folks talking.” —Library Journal