Book Description
The aim of this book is to make accessible the two important but rare works of Brook Taylor and to describe his role in the history of linear perspective. Taylor's works, Linear Perspective and New Principles on Linear Perspective, are among the most important sources in the history of the theory of perspective. This text focuses on two aspects of this history. The first is the development, starting in the beginning of the 17th century, of a mathematical theory of perspective where gifted mathematicians used their creativity to solve basic problems of perspective and simultaneously were inspired to consider more general problems in the projective geometry. Taylor was one of the key figures in this development. The second aspect concerns the problem of transmitting the knowledge gained by mathematicians to the practitioners. Although Taylor's books were mathematical rather than challenging, he was the first mathematician to succeed in making the practitioners interested in teaching the theoretical foundation of perspective. He became so important in the development that he was named "the father of modern perspective" in England. The English school of Taylor followers contained among others the painter John Kirby and Joseph Highmore and the scientist Joseph Priestley. After its translation to Italian and French in the 1750s, Taylor's work became popular on the continent. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Forgotten theory and practice of perspective
This is a solid treatise on how to construct perspective images of given objects, and there is also some discussion of inverse problems of perspective, notably to determine for a given painting where the artist would have wanted you to put your eye to best enjoy his perspective virtuosity. The modern mathematical reader may not be very interested in perfecting his skill in perspective drawing, but neglect of theory of perspective is unhealthy if only for the narrow reason that it creates a blind spot in our understanding of projective geometry (itself sadly neglected, but that's a different matter). For example, Desargues's theorem emerges from the construction of the perspective of a triangle (fig. 20 of the 1715 ed.) by means of one of Taylor's most elegant techniques, the "visual ray construction", where both the triangle and the eye-point are rotated into the picture plane (the triangle plane is rotated down about its intersection with the picture plane and the eye is rotated up about the horizon of the triangle plane). Taylor even manages to hint at the cross-ratio in the context of finding the perspective image of a line segment divided in a given ratio (p. 183; Andersen's commentary pp. 27-29). ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, published by Western Michigan University, School of Social Work on December 1, 2002. The length of the article is 779 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Jewelle Taylor Gibbs and Teiahsha Bankhead, Preserving Privilege: California Politics, Propositions, and People of Color.(Book Review)
Author: Devon Brooks
Publication: Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 2002
Publisher: Western Michigan University, School of Social Work
Volume: 29Issue: 4Page: 162(3)

Article Type: Book Review

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Book Description
Between 1911 and 1917, in the last age of unassisted sail, Frederick William Wallace made seven voyages aboard fishing schooners, and with his simple box camera, he photographed the men, the vessels and the work itself, knowing that he was capturing a century-old way of life at the moment of its passing. Wallace had great respect for the men and their work, and thoroughly embraced the seafaring life. He shared the shipboard labour, and kept detailed records of his trips. Many of his subjects are named, and some appear over and over again as they all worked together on different vessels.A Camera on the Banks: Frederick William Wallace and the Fishermen of Nova Scotia tells this story in more than a hundred of Wallace’s breathtaking and arrestingly clear photographs, some of his drawings and M. Brook Taylor’s absorbing account of the fishery and the man who documented it in such loving detail. A one-of-a-kind collection of photographs of fishermen at work on the water before the 1920s, Wallace also shared his camera with the men so he could also appear in the photos. The warmth of pictures taken amongst friends is counterbalanced by thrilling shots of men in shiny rain slickers hanging off bowsprits, waves crashing over the stern, and fishermen hauling in the catch of the day. Accompanied by Wallace’s gripping first-hand account and stories by Taylor, A Camera on the Banks is the first book of historic sailing photographs published with such unity and vision. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Camera on the Banks is recommended as a smoothly narrated, superbly preserved fragment of Nova Scotia nautical history
Written by history professor M. Brook Taylor, A Camera on the Banks: Frederick William Wallace and the Fisherman of Nova Scotia presents the rare black-and-white photographs of Nova Scotia's fishing schooners, as taken by photojournalist Frederick William Wallace between 1911 and 1916, during the close of the age of unassisted sail. Taylor chronicles the true story of fishery, the individuals who dedicated themselves to it, and the photojournalist who exquisitely captures it just as it was on the cusp of a radical transformation. A Camera on the Banks is recommended as a smoothly narrated, superbly preserved fragment of Nova Scotia nautical history captured through the medium of photography.. ... Read more

Book Description
A tale of one boy's life in the world of deep-sea fishing on an ocean that is both tender and cruel

First published in 1914, Blue Water is set in the early 1900s and traces the adventures of "Shorty" Westhaver from boyhood to young manhood in the dangerous and, often, tragic world of the Grand Banks fishery. ... Read more