The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Lost in Learning: Celebrating the Art and Spirit of Discovery

For four years, Bulgarian-born, Boston-based photographer Eva Koleva Timothy traveled the world, from Oxford’s libraries to Florence’s cathedrals, to pin down the ghosts of the intellectual restlessness that made humanity turn its gaze into the heavens, point its lens across the seas, and channel its fervor onto the canvas. The result is Lost in Learning: The Art of Discovery — a beautiful project-turned-book that breathes new life into historical photographs, manuscripts, and other archival materials to reveal timeless insights on curiosity, creativity, and intellectual inquiry based on the work and legacy of iconic thinkers from the Age of Discover, including Sir Isaac Newton, Leonardo da Vinci, Christopher Columbus, and Galileo Galilei.

Alongside each striking black-and-white image, playing with light and refraction to an incredibly dimensional effect, are Timothy’s poetic meditations on the minds and mindsets responsible for some of our civilization’s most significant feats of discovery, and what they reveal about the nature and future of contemporary creative thought.

Far from a mere lens on nostalgia and the romantic past, at the project makes a passionate case for resuscitating the cult of discovery as a driving force of culture’s future. British poet Ralph Windle writes in the foreword:

For all its rich evocation of history, however, this monograph looks forward more than back… Something much more important is happening here, and it connects in an exciting, novel way with one of the mainstream developments in contemporary literature and art.”

At its heart, Lost in Learning, which Timothy calls “an art book for the Dreamers,” is a beautiful crusade to rediscover discovery and reinstate curiosity as the great purpose of art and the great gift of the artist.


Published February 2, 2012

https://www.themarginalian.org/2012/02/02/lost-in-learning-celebrating-the-art-and-spirit-of-discovery/

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