"The first section of the book focuses on 'critical' accounts. It charts the history of critical theories and critical analyses of visual art from the propositions of antiquity to the present day. The author shows that photography, critical post-modernism and, above all, feminism have each played a part in blurring the distinction between art and non-art visual representations and in questioning the assumption that the verbal does the analysing while the visual merely constitutes the object of analysis. Chaplin argues that critical analyses of society are powerful when both verbal and visual dimensions are consciously activated and coordinated. The second section charts the history of empirical social analyses of visual art, scientific and other depictions. Again, it highlights those works that make use of the visual dimension, especially in the field of anthropology; and it includes an account of Elizabeth Chaplin's own photographic project. The section ends by examining social science accounts which take new literary forms, for these indicate that attention to the visual dimension of textual presentation reaches to the heart of current methodological issues.".