Exploring the world of portraiture from a number of vantage points and asking key questions about its nature this book considers issues of identity, modernity and gender within a cultural and historical context. West uncovers much detail about a gen…
This refreshing new look at Medieval art conveys a very real sense of the impact of art on everyday life in Europe from 1000 to 1500. It examines the importance of art in the expression and spread of knowledge and ideas, including notions of the her…
The period 1851 to 1929 witnessed the rise of the major European avant-garde groups: the Realists, Impressionists, Post-Impressionists, Symbolists, Cubists, and Surrealists. It was also a time of rapid social, economic, and political change, encompa…
China boasts a history of art lasting over 5,000 years and embracing a huge diversity of forms - objects of jade, lacquer and porcelain, painted scrolls and fans, sculptures in stone, bronze and wood, and murals.But this rich tradition has not, unti…
This comprehensive examination of eighteenth and nineteenth-century architecture explores its extreme diversity within the context of tremendous social, economic and political upheaval. Bergdolls offers a penetrating analysis of the very ways issues…
What is landscape? How does it differ from 'land'? Does landscape always imply something to be pictured, a scene? When and why did we begin to cherish images of nature? What is 'nature'? Is it everything that isn't art, or artefact? This book explor…
From the first misty `heliograph' taken by Joseph Nicephore Niepce in 1826 to the classic compositions of Cartier-Bresson and Alfred Steiglitz, to the striking postmodern strategies of Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman and Victor Burgin, the histor…
The most famous designs of the twentieth century are not those in museums, but in the marketplace. The Coca-Cola bottle and the McDonald's logo are known all over the world, and designs like the modernistic `Frankfurt Kitchen' of 1926, or the 1954 s…
The stunning masterpieces of Ancient Greece and Rome are fundamental to the story of art in Western culture and to the origins of art history. The expanding Greek world of Alexander the Great had an enormous impact on the Mediterranean superpower of…
Contemporary art can be baffling and beautiful, provocative and disturbing. This pioneering book presents a new look at the controversial period between 1945 and 2015, when art and its traditional forms were called into question. It focuses on the r…
The amazing discovery of the 'first European civilization' in Crete, Greece and the Aegean islands during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was beyond what anyone had imagined. Beginning with the Neolithic period, before 3000 BCE, an…
What is art history? Why, how, and where did it originate, and how have its methods changed over time? The history of art has been written and rewritten since classical antiquity. Since the foundation of the modern discipline of art history in Germa…
This new account of international modernism explores the complex motivations behind this revolutionary movement and assesses its triumphs and failures. The work of the main architects of the movement such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Adolf Loos, Le Corbus…
Presents a picture of the Italian Renaissance. Giving equal weight to the Italian regions outside Florence, the author discusses works, from painting to sculptures to tapestries, and examines the issues of materials, workshop practises, and artist-p…
This fascinating new account of what happened in Greece from c.800 to 323 bc shows how sculptors and painters responded to the challenges they faced in the extremely formidable and ambitious world of the Greek city-state. The numerous symbols and im…
The opulence of Byzantine art, with its extravagant use of gold and silver, is well known. Highly skilled artists created powerful representations reflecting and promoting this society and its values in icons, illuminated manuscripts, and mosaics an…
This new history of over 5000 years of African art reveals its true diversity for the first time. Challenging centuries of misconceptions that have obscured the sophisticated nature of African art, Peter Garlake uses the latest research and archaeol…
The first millennium saw a rich and distinctive artistic tradition form in Europe. While books had long been central to the Christian religious tradition, education, and culture, they now became an important artistic medium, sometimes decorated with…
This book offers a wide-ranging introduction to the way that art was made, valued, and viewed in northern Europe in the age of the Renaissance, from the late fourteenth to the early years of the sixteenth century. Drawing on a rich range of sources,…
This concise yet lively new survey guides the reader through 5000 years of Indian art and architecture. A rich artistic tradition is fully explored through the Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, Colonial, and contemporary periods, incorporating discussion of…
What do we mean when we call a work of art `beautiful`? How have artists responded to changing notions of the beautiful? Which works of art have been called beautiful, and why? Fundamental and intriguing questions to artists and art lovers, but ones…
African-American art has made an increasingly vital contribution to the art of the United States from the time of its origins in early-eighteenth-century slave communities. Folk and decorative arts such as ceramics, furniture, and quilts are discuss…
The early middle ages were an exciting period in the history of European architecture, culminating in the development of the Romanesque style. Major architectural innovations were made during this time including the medieval castle, the church spire…
The early Middle Ages were an exciting period in the history of European architecture, culminating in the development of the Romanesque style. Major architectural innovations were made during this time including the medieval castle, the church spire…
This lively survey of 150 years of fashion covers everything from Haute Couture to the High Street, and developing fabric technology from silk to fleece. From Coco Chanel to Armani and Alexander McQueen, Breward explores fashion as a cultural phenom…
Medieval architecture comprises more than the traditional image of Gothic cathedrals and the castles of chivalry. A great variety of buildings - synagogues, halls, and barns - testifies to the diverse communities and interests in western Europe in t…
From the Cadillac to the Apple Mac, the skyscraper to the Tiffany lampshade, the world in which we live has been profoundly influenced for over a century by the work of American designers. But the product is only the end of a story that is full of f…
Contemporary art can be baffling and beautiful, provocative and disturbing. This pioneering book presents a new look at the controversial period between 1945 and 2000, when art and its traditional forms were called into question. It focuses on the r…
The coverage of this book focuses on the art of Constantinople from 330 to 1453 and the stages this went through in reaction to historical circumstances as the city progressed from the Christian centre of the Eastern Roman Empire, to the crisis of a…
The passage from Imperial Rome to the era of late antiquity, when the Roman Empire underwent a religious conversion to Christianity, saw some of the most significant and innovative developments in Western culture. This stimulating book investigates…
The Renaissance was a diverse phenomenon, marked by innovation and economic expansion, the rise of powerful rulers, religious reforms, and social change. Encompassing the entire continent, Renaissance Architecture examines the rich variety of buildi…
Jackson Pollock, Georgia O'Keeffe, Andy Warhol, Julian Schnabel, and Laurie Anderson are just some of the major American artists of the twentieth century. From the 1893 Chicago World's Fair to the 2000 Whitney Biennial, a rapid succession of art mov…
The arts that flourished between the Arctic Ocean and the Black Sea and between Austria and Russian Alaska from the seventeenth to the twentieth century are some of the most potent in history. Yet they, and their cultural context, remain little know…
American Architecture is astonishingly varied. From Indian sites in New Mexico and Arizona, and the ancient earthworks of the Mississippi Valley, to the most fashionable contemporary buildings of Chicago and New York, the United States boasts three…
The Pacific Ocean covers one-third of the earth's surface. Comprising thousands of islands and hundreds of cultural groups, Polynesia and Micronesia cover a large part of this vast ocean, from the dramatic mountains of Hawaii to the small, flat cora…
This lively new survey offers fresh insights into 150 years of American photography, placing it in its cultural context for the first time. Orvell examinines this fascinating subject through portraiture and landscape photography, eamily albums and m…
Since 1945 the modern revolution in sculpture has gathered pace, and sculpture has now ceased to be the fixed category it once was. In recent decades the modernist idea of sculpture across the UK, America, and Europe, has been challenged, and issues…
An innovative survey of Native North American art history which fully incorporates substantive new research and scholarship, and examines such issues as gender, representation, the colonial encounter, and contemporary arts. By encompassing both the…
