Picture perfect: an insightful look at visuality

Non-fiction: How To See The World. By Nicholas Mirzoeff. Pelican Books, €12.

How To See The World by Nicholas Mirzoeff is an illuminating examination of modern visual culture.
How To See The World by Nicholas Mirzoeff is an illuminating examination of modern visual culture.

If you go to Google Images and type in “blue marble”, you won’t be confronted with any pictures of kids playing marbles with azure orbs. Nor will you see images of, say, large slabs of blue marble utilised in the construction of a rich person’s expensive bathroom(s). Instead, you get lots and lots of snaps of Planet Earth.

This ...