Re-Creations - Visualizing Our Past - Softcover

Redknap, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0720005191 ISBN 13: 9780720005196

Publisher: Llyfrau Amgueddfa Cymru/ National Museum Wales Books, 2003

Synopsis

'The archaeologist and historian are both scientists and artists. Their first aim is to seek objective truth and to debunk anything false, but they seek, as does the artist, to illumine the truth with imagination' - Rt Hon. Lord Harlech, 1949 (President of the National Museum of Wales 1937-42). Many techniques have been used to provide a window into the past; this attractive book looks at the ways we illustrate our past through the eyes of artists, craftspeople, historians and scientists. With engaging text and images, "Re-Creations" presents the development of archaeological reconstructions, from medieval pictures of King Arthur to computer generated models.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Re-creation is about what might have been - a visual best guess of how our ancestors lived and died based on the evidence they left behind. But this is not a simple process; part research, part imagination, the art of reconstructing the past is influenced by the mind of the artist, craftsman and scientist.

In this book, Mark Redknap sets out to explore the art of reconstruction. Ranging from manuscript illustrations, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century paintings through to the fantastic recreations of William Burges and more recently, film and television, he demonstrates how artists in each generation have been influenced by prevailing social and political attitudes. Since the 1950s, as analytical
techniques have become more sophisticated, reconstruction drawing has become an increasingly complex process. And as archaeological discovery has advanced, the variety of reconstruction media has developed to help us understand not only how the past looked, but also how it worked.

Depicting our past is now a collaborative process between artist, craftsman, historian, archaeologist, anthropologist, forensic scientist and ecologist. These pioneering techniques have been employed to great effect in Wales by the National Museums & Galleries of Wales and Cadw: Welsh Historic Monuments and it is the result of this work, including dramatic and detailed paintings, models and facial reconstructions, that complete the book.

Edition details

• Publisher: Llyfrau Amgueddfa Cymru/ National Museum Wales Books
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0720005191
• ISBN 13: 9780720005196
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 48