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Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni Van Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing Audiobook
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"See for yourself!" was the clarion call of the 1600's. Natural philosophers threw off the yoke of ancient authority, peered at nature with microscopes and telescopes, and ignited the Scientific Revolution. Artists investigated nature with lenses and created paintings filled with realistic effects of light and shadow. The hub of this optical innovation was the small Dutch city of Delft. Here Johannes Vermeer's experiments with lenses and a camera obscura taught him how we see under different conditions of light and helped him create the most luminous works of art ever beheld. Meanwhile, his neighbor Antoni van Leeuwenhoek's work with microscopes revealed a previously unimagined realm of minuscule creatures. The results was a transformation in both art and science the revolutionized how we see the world today.
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“Laura Snyder is both a masterly scholar and a powerful storyteller. In Eye of the Beholder, she transports us to the wonder-age of seventeenth-century Holland, as new discoveries in optics were shaping the two great geniuses of Delft—Vermeer and van Leeuwenhoek—and changing the course of art and science forever. A fabulous book.”
— Oliver Sacks, New York Times bestselling author
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“[An] ingenious, lucid, and revealing look at the lives of two brilliant men who changed our way of seeing the world.”
— Kirkus Reviews -
“Eye of the Beholder is a thoughtful elaboration of the modern notion of seeing. Laura J. Snyder delves into the seventeenth century fascination with the tools of art and science, and shows how they came together to help us make sense of what is right in front of our eyes.”
— Russell Shorto, author of Amsterdam: A History of the World’s Most Liberal City
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Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
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About Laura J. Snyder
Laura J. Snyder is a Fulbright scholar and the author of The Philosophical Breakfast Club, a Scientific American Notable Book, winner of the 2011 Royal Institution of Australia poll for Favorite Science Book, and an official selection of the TED Book Club. She is also the author of Reforming Philosophy. Snyder writes about science and ideas for the Wall Street Journal. She is a professor at St. John’s University and lives in New York City.
About Tamara Marston
Tamara Marston has been an actor, singer, and director for more than thirty years. A career performer and musician, she has toured nationally with several groups and appeared on The Arsenio Hall Show and A&E’s Goodtime Café. Dividing her time between acting and singing gigs, choral conducting, music and stage directing, jingle and voice-over work, private and public teaching, and family, Tami feels very fortunate to make her living working in the arts.