Moving Pictures

Library Journal

Art historian Hollander explores the premise that paintings, prints, and movies move us similarly by virtue of their narrative element, which evokes our memories and feelings and invites our psychological participation. We respond to the depiction of glimpses of human life, to the realization that we cannot see ``everything at once'' and to the ``dynamic relationship between the original visual ideas and how the rendering of light and spatial composition translates them'' and ``keeps them moving'' into our awareness. This is the appeal of cinema, the newest form of narrative; there is thus a continuum from the paintings and graphic arts of 15th-century northern Europe to the ``proto-cinematic arts'' of the present. A thoughtful offering for art and cinema collections.-- Robin Kaplan, The Information Group, Los Angeles