wall charts
how to use your eyes
p ... visually stunning and mentally stimulating . scientific american p the author of what painting is 1998 has written a fascinating new book filled with gorgeous illustrations that would inspire us to learn to see anything . its a tall order to be sure but one that the author pulls off admirably . how to use your eyes is a wondrous visual tour that elkins hopes will help us learn to use our eyes more concertedly until the details of the world slowly reveal themselves . readers will be inspired to stop and smell nay see the roses . p booklist p elkins invites his readers to extend perception beyond narrow specialties to see meaning in the mundane . he is ever curious his mind seemingly in overdrive . p chicago tribune magazine p br in that fascinating zone where creative imagination and scientific observation meet elkins shines a conceptual flashlight aiming to illuminate in 32 short chapters a fraction of what we are missing daily . he asks us to use our eyes and our minds differently to see the world as few of us bother to see it because we rarely make the effort . library journal p grass the night sky a postage stamp a crack in the sidewalk a shoulder . ordinary objects of everyday life . br but when we look at them really look at them what do we see p in the tradition of john berger s bestselling ways of seeing james elkins s how to use your eyes invites us to look at and maybe see for the first time the world around us with breathtaking results . here are the common artifacts of life often misunderstood and largely ignored brought into striking focus . a butterflys wing pattern encodes its identity . a cloudless sky yields a precise sequence of colors at sunset . a bridge reveals the relationship of a population with its landscape . with the discerning eye of a painter and the zeal of a detective elkins also explores complicated things like mandalas the periodic table or a hieroglyph remaking the world into a treasure box of observations eccentric ordinary marvelous . how to use your eyes will transform your view of nature and the mind .