Learning To See: Historical Perspectives on Modern Popular/Commercial Arts

Learning to See starts on the assumption that popular/commercial arts are a different kind of activity from avant-garde arts today; but that they represent the same kind of activity that we identify as "arts" historically. It proceeds then to investigate how popular/commercial arts carry out the social functions of historic arts. And it claims that, once we can thereby understand how historic arts worked in and for society, art history becomes a significant new tool for objective historical research as never before.