The theme of the book is sight and seeing. Of all five senses, sight is usually considered the most important for survival and awareness of the surrounding world. In the form of visions and images, it also dominates our subconscious and dreams. The author explores the fascinating relationship between the observer and the observed, the perceiving and the perceived, the depicting and the depicted... The author discusses the taboo surrounding the view of female genitalia, but in addition to the myth of Actaeon, he presents several apt and striking (and suitably spicy) examples from the history of modern art. He further develops this line into reflections on the fascination of viewing the human body from both the inside and the outside, on scenes of birth and death (which is the theme of the author's next, extraordinarily successful book), and continues to analyze the function of mirrors and the modern inventions of the microscope and photography, which subtly yet fundamentally changed our perception of ourselves.
