Book dossier

Lives of Paintings

by Elsje van Kessel

"As this book shows, paintings in 16th-century Venice were often treated as living beings. On the basis of case studies, its author offers a detailed examination of the agency paintings and other two-dimensional images could exert. Grounded in the theoretical literature on the agency of material things, the book contributes to Venetian studies as well as engaging with wider debates on the attribution of life and presence to images and objects"--