Language of Vision

Jamake Highwater, one of the most important, original and popular writers of our time, here continues a voyage into the realms of myth, art, and contemporary culture that began with his best-seller The Primal Mind and continued with Myth and Sexuality. Highwater, who has often been described as a modern myth-maker and visionary himself, has once again written a book bound to provoke, inspire, inform, and entertain as he explores and illuminates the links between the way society views its art and artists and the way our art and artists gaze back at us. Organized around the twenty-two cards of the Tarot Major Arcana, The Language of Vision presents a dazzling range of challenging and controversial subjects, including the transformation of art from an act of revelation in the service of the sacred to a purely secular activity; the puritan division of art into high and low and the direct influence of "popular" forms on contemporary artists; cultural piracy in a time of multiculturalism: the image of the homosexual as outlaw and the literature of transgression; iconography as destiny; the body as metaphor; imagination as political power and art and censorship; the reinvention of the past; and the triumph of the dream life. Daringly inventive and brilliantly executed, The Language of Vision reflects ideas and issues central to our creative and cultural lives today in the context of what Joseph Campbell called "the myths we live by". It is sure to be a rich source of debate, discussion and instruction for years to come.Highwater, Jamake is the author of 'Language of Vision' with ISBN 9780802133465 and ISBN 0802133460.