Art 100

Art: A Visual History is the complete visual guide to Western art, now updated and repackaged in a themed slipcase. How to tell Impressionism from Expressionism, a Degas from a Monet, early Medieval art from early Christian? Art: A Visual History explains it all -- painting, sculpture, great artists, styles, and schools -- and will help you answer the question, "What makes great art?" Art: A Visual History includes:    * More than 650 artists and all the major schools and movements, all arranged chronologically.    * Close-up focus on 22 masterpieces, from Ancient Greek sculpture to 1960s Pop Art.    * Well-known icons along with lesser-known gems -- carefully chosen to illuminate the points made in the text.    * Features on major schools and movements to explore and explain their stylistic trademarks, characteristics, and favored subjects. Art: A Visual History is a knowledgeable, thought-provoking, and accessible tour of the creators of Western art.

This classic book uses an exceptional art program, featuring impeccable accurate five-color illustrations, to introduce readers to the vast world of painting, sculpture, architecture, photography, and the minor arts. With its effectively written, balanced, and interesting narrative, this book presents art as a succession of styles--from Prehistory through the 20th century--and enlarges the readers' capacity to appreciate works of art individually. Written more than 40 years ago, this text has been constantly reworked to respond to the needs of this ever-changing field. A reference work suitable for those employed in all art media, including painters, sculptors, photographers, and architects.

Whether attending an art appreciation class, visiting a museum, or checking out a gallery exhibit, Teach Yourself Art History introduces neophytes to the fine art of interpreting paintings. Accessible text is accompanied by a 16-page color section and black-and-white images and illustrations. Together these words and visuals provide a framework for understanding the work of great artists in terms of form, social and historical contexts, representation of gender, psychology, and more. Additionally, the book provides a reference for key terms and definitions currently used by art connoisseurs.

In Art: A New History, Paul Johnson turns his great gifts as a world historian to a subject that has enthralled him all his life: the history of art. This narrative account, from the earliest cave paintings up to the present day, has new things to say about almost every period of art. Taking account of changing scholarship and shifting opinions, he draws our attention to a number of neglected artists and styles, especially in Scandinavia, Germany, Russia and the Americas. Paul Johnson puts the creative originality of the individual at the heart of his story. He pays particular attention to key periods: the emergence of the artistic personality in the Renaissance, the new realism of the early seventeenth century, the discovery of landscape painting as a separate art form, and the rise of ideological art. He notes the division of 'fashion art' and fine art at the beginning of the twentieth century, and how it has now widened. Though challenging and controversial, Paul Johnson is not primarily a revisionist. He is a passionate lover of beauty who finds creativity in many places. With 300 colour illustrations, this book is vivid, evocative and immensely readable, whether the author is describing the beauty of Egyptian low-relief carving or the medieval cathedrals of Europe, the watercolours of Thomas Girtin or the utility of Roman bridges ('the best bridges in history'), the genius of Andrew Wyeth or the tranquility of the Great Mosque at Damascus, the paintings of Ilya Repin or a carpet-page from the Lindisfarne Gospels. The warmth and enthusiasm of Paul Johnson's descriptions will send readers hurrying off to see these wonders for themselves.

Exceptional in scholarship and pedagogically in tune with today's students - rich but never effete - this is the art history text of choice for a new generation of teachers and students. Presenting a broad view of art through the centuries, it sympathetically and positively introduces beginning students to the works of all artists. This includes women, artists of color, and the arts of other continents and regions, as well as those of Western Europe and the United States.

A layman's guide to art history provides the reader with a basic working knowledge of art and its influence on society.

In this book, Bernard Rudofsky steps outside the narrowly defined discipline that has governed our sense of architectural history and discusses the art of building as a universal phenomenon. He introduces the reader to communal architecture--architecture produced not by specialists but by the spontaneous and continuing activity of a whole people with a common heritage, acting within a community experience. A prehistoric theater district for a hundred thousand spectators on the American continent and underground towns and villages (complete with schools, offices, and factories) inhabited by millions of people are among the unexpected phenomena he brings to light. The beauty of "primitive" architecture has often been dismissed as accidental, but today we recognize in it an art form that has resulted from human intelligence applied to uniquely human modes of life. Indeed, Rudofsky sees the philosophy and practical knowledge of the untutored builders as untapped sources of inspiration for industrial man trapped in his chaotic cities.