"The twentieth century seemed destined, according to one art historian, to become not an age of reason, but a visual age in which images would afford more enlightenment and intellectual pleasure than the written or spoken word. Writing in 1948, Fritz Saxl was referring not only to the rise of cinematic art, but also to a major transformation in the way his predecessors had begun to view culture in general - as a process of image-making.

In The Survival of Images, Louis Rose offers an engaging exploration of these changes as they occurred in three key areas of inquiry at the turn of the century: art history, classics, and the emerging field of psychoanalysis." "Discussing each one's endeavors within a historically rich context, The Survival of Images offers insights into the concepts and methods that would animate the study of culture for much of the twentieth century."--BOOK JACKET.