Theory of art Books

Book SynopsisWhy do we need art? What Art Does is an invitation to explore this vital question. It is a chance to understand how art is made by all of us. How it creates communities, opens our worlds, and can transform us.Curious and playful, richly illustrated, full of ideas and life, it is an inspiring call to imagine a different future.

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Book SynopsisThe only color guide a designer will ever need; The Complete Color Harmony, Pantone Edition has been completely updated with Pantone colors and new text.The Complete Color Harmony: Pantone Edition is the latest in Rockport Publishers' best-selling Color series. This edition has been completely revised from start to finish, and now features new text by Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. And the color "moods" that she writes about in each chapter are based and matched with Pantone colors. The book expands on previous editions for the most comprehensive color reference to date. This edition includes information on creating special effects, as well as an entirely new section devoted to the psychology of color. Eiseman helps readers determine their best color choices and suggests why some colors may inspire their creativity while others don't. The book includes new color palette sections along with expanded and updated color trends.Table of ContentsForeword Introduction The Phenomenon of Color: Where does it come from? A Color Conversation: Defining the Basic Terminology The Color Wheel: What’s the Temp? Whirling the Wheel: Color Compatibility Complex Colors: Special Effects Discord and Dissonance Color Clues and Cues How to define major messaging Proper proportions: dominant, subordinate and accent The Psychology of Color Red/Pink/Wine Orange Yellow Green Blue-Green Blue Purple/Lavender/Fuchsia Black White Brown Neutrals/Naturals Color and Mood Active Botanical Casual Delectable Delicate Earthy Extraterrestrial Glamorous Maquille Natural Nostalgic Nurturing Piquant Playful Powerful Provocative Reliable Rich Robust Romantic Soothing Sophisticated Subtle Timeless Transcendent Tribal Tropical Waters Urban Venerable Personal Colors: What do they say about you? Color Trends and Forecasting Guidelines for spotting trends Where to look for clues: ten important categories Naming the Colors History/culture Sources of inspiration Importance in marketing

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Book SynopsisThis book is an accessible introduction to the critical theories used in analysing art. It covers a broad range of approaches, presenting individual arguments, controversies and divergent perspectives. This edition has been updated to reflect recent scholarship in contemporary art and has been broken down into smaller sections for greater accessibility. The book begins with a revised discussion of the difference between method and theory. The following chapters apply the varying approaches to works of art, some of them new to this edition. The book ends with a new conclusion that focuses on the way the study of art is informed by theory.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"In The Ego and the Id Freud argued that a cogent thought process, to say nothing of conscious intellectual work, could not exist amidst the unruliness of visual experience. Over the last half century in a sequence of landmark books, Rudolf Arnheim has not only shown us how wrong that is, he has parsed the grammar of form with uncanny acuity and taught us how to read it." - Jonathan Fineburg, author of Art since 1940: Strategies of Being"

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Book Synopsis''How rare and nourishing this sort of roaming thought is and what a joy to read'' MEGAN NOLAN, Sunday Times''An exhilarating, shape-shifting exploration of the perilous boundaries between art and life'' JENNY OFFILLPablo Picasso beat his partners. Richard Wagner was deeply antisemitic. David Bowie slept with an underage fan. But many of us still love Guernica and the Ring cycle and Ziggy Stardust.And what are we to do with that love? How are we, as fans, to reckon with the biographical choices of the artists whose work sustains us?Wildly smart and insightful, Monsters is an exhilarating attempt to understand our relationship with art and the artist in the twenty-first century.''An incredible book, the best work of criticism I have read in a very long time'' NICK HORNBY''Part memoir, part treatise, and all treat'' New York Times''Clever and p

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Book SynopsisIn this one-of-a-kind volume, indispensable for students of art, architecture and film,Alex Danchev presents 100 Artists'' Manifestos, each reproduced with an introduction on the author and the associated movement, in Penguin Modern Classics.This remarkable collection of 100 manifestos from the last 100 years is cacophony of voices from such diverse movements as Futurism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Feminism, Communism, Destructivism, Vorticism, Stridentism, Cannibalism and Stuckism, taking in along the way film, architecture, fashion, and cookery.Artists'' manifestos are nothing if not revolutionary. They are outlandish, outrageous, and frequently offensive. They combine wit, wisdom, and world-shaking demands. This collection gathers together an international array of artists of every stripe, including Kandinsky, Mayakovsky, Rodchenko, Le Corbusier, Picabia, Dalí, Oldenburg, Vertov, Baselitz, Kitaj, Murakami, Gilbert and George, together with their allies and collaborators - such figures as Marinetti, Apollinaire, Breton, Trotsky, Guy Debord and Rem Koolhaas.Editor Alex Danchev is the author of an acclaimed biography of artist Georges Braque and is Professor of International Relations at the University of Nottingham. His other works include Alanbrooke War Diaries: Field Marshall Lord Alanbrooke, The Iraq War and Democratic Politics and On Art and War and Terror.If you enjoyed 100 Artists'' Manifestos, you might like John Berger''s Ways of Seeing, also available in Penguin Modern Classics.''The Manifesto is remarkable for its imaginative power ... it is the first great modernist work of art'' Marshall BermanTrade ReviewThe Manifesto is remarkable for its imaginative power ... it is the first great modernist work of art * Marshall Berman *This collection is a must ... because the passion that erupted in the early 20th century is in such counterpoint to our own more apathetic era -- Lesley McDowell * Independent *This ingenious anthology...is an inspiring book * Scotland on Sunday *100 Artists' Manifestos [is] deftly selected and stylishly introduced by Alex Danchev -- Terry Eagleton * Times Literary Supplement *An absorbing capsule history of culture over the past century -- John Gray * Literary Review *

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Book SynopsisDrawing upon insights in fields such as anthropology and linguistics, this book deals with the concept of historical sequence and continuous change across time.Trade ReviewThe Shape of Time is as relevant now as it was in 1962. This book, a sober, deeply introspective and quietly thrilling meditation on the flow of time and space and the place of objects within a larger continuum, adumbrates so many of the critical and theoretical concerns of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. It is both appropriate and necessary that it re-appear in our consciousness at this time."—Edward J. Sullivan, New York University "Kubler's telling of the history of things remains a key text, his vision a compelling mixture of the habitual and the poetic in human behavior. For him, human creativity is a constantly repeated attempt to refine answers to a set of questions that change only slowly. But this universal habit is punctuated by the great works of art, ways of doing and seeing that he compares to stars, influencing, shaping and illuminating even after they have been destroyed."—Neil MacGregor, The British Museum

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Book SynopsisIn this theoretical tour-de-force, renowned scholar Ariella Aïsha Azoulay calls on us to recognize the imperial foundations of knowledge and to refuse its strictures and its many violences.Azoulay argues that the institutions that make our world, from archives and museums to ideas of sovereignty and human rights to history itself, are all dependent on imperial modes of thinking. Imperialism has segmented populations into differentially governed groups, continually emphasised the possibility of progress while trying to destroy what came before, and voraciously sought out the new by sealing the past away in dusty archival boxes and the glass vitrines of museums.By practising what she calls potential history, Azoulay argues that we can still refuse the imperial violence that shattered communities, lives, and worlds, from native peoples in the Americas to the Congo ruled by Belgium's brutal King Léopold II, from dispossessed Palestinians in 1948 to displaced refugees in our own day. In Potential History, Azoulay travels alongside historical companions - an old Palestinian man who refused to leave his village in 1948, an anonymous woman in war-ravaged Berlin, looted objects and documents torn from their worlds and now housed in archives and museums - to chart the ways imperialism has sought to order time, space, and politics.Rather than looking for a new future, Azoulay calls upon us to rewind history and unlearn our imperial rights, to continue to refuse imperial violence by making present what was invented as "past" and making the repair of torn worlds the substance of politics.Trade ReviewAriella Azoulay takes on the seemingly impossible task of teaching us how to unlearn: unlearning imperialism, unlearning the archive, unlearning our complicity with regimes of violence, domination and exploitation, and most importantly for this ambitious volume, unlearning photography and its capacity to foreclose 'potential histories' that must urgently be realized and reclaimed. The monumental implications of unlearning are revealed with dizzying effect through her rigorous analysis, lucid writing, and vivid examples. In Potential History, she once again delivers a work of breathtaking scope that challenges us to reconfigure both what constitutes history, as well as what it means to learn from and unlearn toward its radical potential for living otherwise. -- Tina Campt, author of Listening to ImagesA magisterial call to reorient our relations to objects, archives, art, and plunder. * Protocols *A remarkably rich and evocative history on the problem of violence and the importance of engaging aesthetics. -- Brad Evans * Los Angeles Review of Books *Azoulay has produced a unique handbook for the 2020s that details how, why, when and where to say no in the affirmative. Her greatest achievement is that, against the foreshortened horizons of a despoiling barbarism, she makes all our tomorrows thinkable. -- Guy Mannes-Abbott * Third Text *Offers revitalising approaches to imperialism and to photography as a cultural phenomenon, grounded in the re-cognition of the figures 'leaning against the edge' of photographs. -- Louis Rogers * review31 *Azoulay has produced a unique handbook for the 2020s that details how, why, when and where to say no in the affirmative. Her greatest achievement is that, against the foreshortened horizons of a despoiling barbarism, she makes all our tomorrows thinkable. -- Guy Mannes-Abbott * Notes From a Fruitstore *Across some six-hundred pages, Azoulay accomplishes that rare thing wherein her call becomes more urgent and acutely resonant even as the contours and magnitude become less perceivable and more outsized.3 By the book's end, she has thoroughly denaturalized the terms of political classification and made the claim for a worldly sovereignty beyond the nation-state. -- Luke Urbain, University of Wisconsin-Madison * InVisible Culture: An Electronic Journal for Visual Culture *By creating a "potential history," Azoulay questions the imperialist construction of time, space, and politics through objects and experiences of struggles around the world, from the original peoples in the Americas, to the Congo under King Leopold II. * The Architect's Newspaper *A political call to arms that argues the need for critical examination of archive material...provocative and stimulating. -- Sean Sheehan * The Prisma *Much of Potential History's 500 pages bear particular relevance to this moment of racial reckoning and faltering of neoliberal capitalism. As mass movements mobilize in the streets against anti-Black police brutality, white supremacy, and systemic, structural racism, her call for reconceptualizing "the strike" to include historians, artists, photographers, museum workers, and "the governed" seems poignant. -- Stephen Sheehi * Hyperallergic *To acknowledge the violence inherently embedded in archives-particularly in cultural archives that the neutral we understand as our cultural commons-and to then envision new ways of being with these cultural objects so as to allow them to speak their own futures are essential components of [Azoulay's] urgent project of unlearning imperialism. -- Rachel Stevens * World Records Journal *Building from Azoulay's argument that our actually existing commons-whether they are water systems or cultural archives-are constituted by imperial violence, we should ask how to transform imperial public spheres and institutions into worldly spaces of care and interdependence. -- Kareem Estefan * World Records *To acknowledge the violence inherently embedded in archives-particularly in cultural archives that the neutral we understand as our cultural commons-and to then envision new ways of being with these cultural objects so as to allow them to speak their own futures are essential components of [Azoulay's] urgent project of unlearning imperialism. -- Rachel Stevens * World Records *A codependent politics of appearance.manifests as superficial investment in others' problems, often to satisfy the emotional needs of the voyeur. This mode of despotic empathy has displaced the sharing of a world-in-common-precisely what, in Ariella Aïsha Azoulay's wording 'was destroyed and should be restored'-with ubiquitous spectacles of privation and racialized violence. -- Irmgard Emmelhainz * World Records *According to Azoulay, an initial problem with unlearning imperialism is that for most of us, our thinking and acting-indeed, our very being-in-theworld-is conditioned by imperialism. Unlearning imperialism is a paradoxical task because we must first learn how imperialism works by rendering its working explicit so that we might unlearn it. -- Corey McCall * Contemporary Political Theory *The book reads as though it were composed by Walter Benjamin's "Angel of History," who backs, horrified into the future while in front of him the ruins pile up. The angel, in this case, is the citizen, forced into the position of a perpetrator and trying to unwind history, to undo it not to return to a "golden age," but to do away with traditional chronological thinking altogether. -- Margaret Olin * Political Theology *

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Book SynopsisThe essential handbook for students, arts professionals and other aspiring writers on contemporary art.Trade Review'An illuminating, engaging and urgent guide to contemporary art-writing. Essential reading for arts students … invaluable for anyone involved in the art world' - Hans Ulrich Obrist, co-Director, Serpentine Gallery'Williams’s methodology is flawless ... gives insight to the inner workings of very different industries: academia, auction houses and mainstream and professional press' - frieze'Will become a standard text for anyone studying or interested in critical writing and the very vexed subject of “writing about art”' - Michael Bracewell, critic and novelist'Fantastic … a must-read for every writer, reader, artist and designer' - Fullscream.com'Thrillingly clear … beautifully formed ... an incisive manual for clarity of thought. This guide could as easily apply to writing (and indeed thinking on any creative endeavour … Essential!' - Dressing the Air.com'A thoroughly sensible and accessible guide to writing that could almost be applied to any subject' - ArtBookReview.netTable of ContentsIntroduction • Section 1. The Job – Why Write about Contemporary Art? • Section 2. The Practice – How to Write about Contemporary Art • Section 3. The Ropes – How to Write Contemporary Art Formats

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Book SynopsisThe author combines a lifetime of anthropological research with the most recent neurological insights in this text. Illuminating glimpses into the ancient mind are interwoven with the self-evolving story of modern-day cave discoveries and research.Trade Review'It is hard to praise this book too highly. I have read nothing more fascinating all year' - John Carey, Sunday Times'The most comprehensive and convincing explanation for the cave art in Europe so far' - Chris Stringer, Evening Standard'A genuine masterpiece' - Jean Clottes'A masterly piece of detective work' - Sunday Telegraph'A thorough, accessible and beautifully illustrated history of the origins of art based on anthropological and neurological research' - Observer'A fascinating and closely argued analysis' - Colin Renfrew, University of CambridgeTable of ContentsPreface; Three Time-Bytes; 1. Discovering Human Antiquity; 2 Seeking Answers; 3. Creative Illusion; 4. The Matter of the Mind; 5. Case Study 1: Southern African San Rock Art; 6. Case Study 2: North American Rock Art; 7. An Origin of Image-Making; 8. The Cave in the Mind; 9. Cave and Community; 10. Cave and Conflict

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Book SynopsisThrough 140 drawings, thought experiments, recipes, activist instructions, gardening ideas, insurgences and personal revolutions, artists who spend their lives thinking outside the box guide you to a new worldview; where you and the planet are one.Everything here is new. We invite you to rip out pages, to hang them up at home, to draw and scribble, to cook, to meditate, to take the book to your nearest green space.Featuring Olafur Eliasson, Etel Adnan, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Jane Fonda & Swoon, Judy Chicago, Black Quantum Futurism Collective, Vivienne Westwood, Cauleen Smith, Marina Abramovic, Karrabing Film Collective, and many more.

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Book Synopsis'Incisive and provocative ... a sensitive and probing critique' The New York Times'Essential reading ... gripping, inspirational, beautifully written and highly thought-provoking' Dr Helen Gørrill, author of Women Can't PaintA bold reconsideration of women in art - from the 'Old Masters' to the posts of Instagram influencersA perfect pin-up, a damsel in distress, a saintly mother, a femme fatale ...Women's identity has long been stifled by a limited set of archetypes, found everywhere in pictures from art history's classics to advertising, while women artists have been overlooked and held back from shaping more empowering roles.In this impassioned book, art historian Catherine McCormack asks us to look again at what these images have told us to value, opening up our most loved images - from those of Titian and Botticelli to Picasso and the Pre-Raphaelites. She also shows us how women artists - from Berthe Morisot to Beyoncé, Judy Chicago to Kara Walker - have offered us new ways of thinking about women's identity, sexuality, race and power.Women in the Picture gives us new ways of seeing the art of the past and the familiar images of today so that we might free women from these restrictive roles and embrace the breadth of women's vision.'A call to arms in a world where the misogyny that taints much of the western art canon is still largely ignored' Financial Times'It felt like the scales were falling from my eyes as I read it.' The HeraldTrade Review'Women in the Picture mounts a sensitive and probing critique of the motifs, the preordained poses and affectations of the female figure in art.' * The New York Times *'A call to arms in a world where the misogyny that taints much of the western art canon is still largely ignored' * Financial Times *'I'm glad this book was written because it felt like the scales were falling from my eyes as I read it. Women will continue to be objectified in art and in popular culture, but the book sheds a generous amount of angry light on how we got here.' * The Herald *'Essential reading . gripping, inspirational, beautifully written and highly thought-provoking.' * Dr Helen Gørrill, author of Women Can't Paint *'Illuminating ... [McCormack] lucidly explains the ways in which women's bodies have become symbols of male desire, sex, and violence, their subjugation culturally treated as "the unquestionable natural order of things" ... This eye-opening work will leave readers with plenty to ponder.' * Publishers Weekly starred review *'A timely, succinct, aesthetic inquiry into debates about sexuality, objectification, and representation.' * Kirkus Reviews *'McCormack succeeds in the nearly impossible task of discussing both the representation of women throughout the history of art as well as how women artists have challenged these male-centric images. She writes beautifully and with an accessible voice, moving effortlessly from the Rokeby Venus to contemporary culture's narcissistic obsession with social media selfies.' * Kathy Battista, author of New York New Wave: The Legacy of Feminist Art in Emerging Practices *'Terrifically smart ... On this grand tour of western visual culture, you couldn't ask for a better guide than McCormack, an art historian with attitude who offers a rousing new lens for looking "beyond the exchange of seeing and being seen".' * Bridget Quinn, author of Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History (in That Order) *'A well written and important art history book - one of those rare art history books where an art novice won't feel out of their depth' * FAD magazine *'Whip smart and probing' * Los Angeles Review of Books *A passionate, serious, yet often entertaining introduction to issues that will be with us for the foreseeable future, their historic context and their implications for women. * Washington Post *

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Book SynopsisColours of Art takes the reader on a journey through history by pairing 80 carefully curated artworks with infographic palettes. For these pieces, colour is not only a tool (like a paintbrush or a canvas) but the fundamental secret to their success. Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. First impressions Stone Age, Egypt, Ancient Greece and Rome Feature: The nature of colour – how artists created natural colours. Horses, from the Chauvet cave near the Pont d’Arc Bison, from Altamira Nebamun Hunting Birds, from the tomb of Nebamun Tomb of the Diver 2. Ordering the world The RenaissanceFeature: A roaring trade – on the colour trade and the cost/availability of colours Lamentation, Giotto Saint Ansanus Altarpiece, Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi The Wilton Diptych Saints Jerome and John the Baptist, Masaccio Portrait of a Man with a Turban, Jan van Eyck The Magdalen Reading, Rogier Van der Weyden The Birth of Venus, Sandro Botticelli The Rape of Europa, Titian Philip II, Sofonisba Anguissola Portrait of Bianca Degli Utili Maselli surrounded by six of her children, Lavinia Fontana 3. Cutting loose Baroque to RococoFeature: The colour wheel – on Isaac Newton’s discovery of the colour spectrum, and his error – trusting maths over the sensations of the eye Rest on the Flight into Egypt, Caravaggio Judith and her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes, Artemisia Gentileschi The Toilet of Venus (The Rokeby Venus), Diego Velázquez Rising and Setting of the Sun, François Boucher Colour, Angelica Kauffman Self-Portrait with Straw Hat, Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun 4. Keeping it real RealismFeature: Risky business – on poisonous colours and artists risking their lives for their work. Still Life with Cheeses, Artichoke and Cherries, Clara Peeters A Woman Bathing in a Stream, Rembrandt van Rijn The Goldfinch, Carel Fabritius The Milkmaid, Johannes Vermeer Flowers in a Vase, Rachel Ruysch 5. Two sides of a coin Neoclassicism to RomanticismFeature: How we see colour – on Goethe’s new symmetrical colour wheel and physiological theories. Albion Rose, William Blake Portrait of a Negress, Marie-Guillemine Benoist Orphan Girl at the Cemetery, Eugène Delacroix The Burning of the Houses of Parliament , Joseph Mallord William Turner Comtesse d’Haussonville, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres 6. Let there be light The Impressionist RevolutionFeature: Colour chemistry – on the industrialisation of colour and the making of synthetic pigments. Two Women Chatting by the Sea, Camille Pissarro Young Woman with Peonies, Frédéric Bazille Symphony in Flesh Color and Pink: Portrait of Mrs Frances Leyland, by James Abbott McNeill Whistler Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets, Édouard Manet In the Country (After Lunch), Berthe Morisot Combing the Hair, Edgar Degas The Child’s Bath, Mary Cassatt Waterloo Bridge, Blurred Sun, Claude Monet 7. On the edge of the spectrum Post-Impressionists, Pre-Raphaelites, Les Nabis, SurrealistsFeature: Colour decorum – on the relativity of colour and its use and reception in different cultural contexts. (An opportunity to touch on non-Western art.) Night and Sleep, Evelyn de Morgan The Suitor, Édouard Vuillard The Visit, Félix Vallotton Interior. Strandgade 30, Vilhelm Hammershoi Barbarian Tales, Paul Gauguin The Life, Pablo Picasso The Green Blouse, Pierre Bonnard The Two Fridas, Frida Kahlo The Old Maids, Leonora Carrington 8. Express yourself Expressionism and FauvismFeature: The psychology of colour – on colour communicating and sparking emotion. Two Crabs, Vincent van Gogh The Scream, Edvard Munch Self-portrait on Sixth Wedding Anniversary, Paula Modersohn-Becker Group X, No.1, Altarpiece, Hilma af Klint The Yellow Scale, František Kupka The Dessert: Harmony in Red, Henri Matisse Seated Woman with Legs Drawn Up (Adele Herms), Egon Schiele Still Life with Blackening Apples, by Helene Schjerfbeck 9. Seeing it feelingly Abstract Expressionism and Colour Field PaintingFeature: Properties of colour – on hue, intensity and tone, and the changing precedence of each throughout art history Electric Prisms, Sonia Delaunay Mountains and Sea, Helen Frankenthaler Bird Talk, Lee Krasner No. 11 (Untitled), Mark Rothko Ocean Park #79, Richard Diebenkorn 10. Show some restraint Monochrome and MinimalismFeature: The Pantone palette – on attempts to create a universal colour language. Plus Pantone’s predecessors, eg Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours (1814). Homage to the Square: Apparition, Joseph Albers The Marriage of Reason and Squalor, II, Frank Stella IKB 79, Yves Klein White Stone, Agnes Martin 11. By popular demand Pop Art to The Pictures GenerationFeature: Anything is possible – on new materials and colour experimentation outside of the medium of painting. Colour Her Gone, Pauline Boty Ice Cream, Evelyne Axell Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground), Barbara Kruger A Bigger Splash, David Hockney Ladies and Gentlemen (Iris), Andy Warhol 12. Here and Now Contemporary art from the 1970sFeature: The colour of art history – on artists painting black figures into the mostly white canon. Self-Portrait, Alice Neel Self-Portrait, Basquiat Untitled, Etel Adnan To Tell Them There It’s Got To, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye Spinners (Moths and Spiders Webs), Kiki Smith Slaughter of the Innocents (They Might be Guilty of Something), Kara Walker Shantavia Beal II, Kehinde Wiley Boucher’s Flesh, Flora Yukhnovich The Ruling Class (Eshu), Toyin Ojih Odutola Sabine, Alison Watt Untitled, Lisa Brice Index Further reading Picture credits Acknowledgements

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Book Synopsis''Extraordinary. An intellectual feast as well as a visual one''Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber EyesThe world comes to us in colour. But colour lives as much in our imaginations as it does in our surroundings, as this scintillating book reveals. Each chapter immerses the reader in a single colour, drawing together stories from the histories of art and humanity to illuminate the meanings it has been given over the eras and around the globe. Showing how artists, scientists, writers, philosophers, explorers and inventors have both shaped and been shaped by these wonderfully myriad meanings, James Fox reveals how, through colour, we can better understand their cultures, as well as our own. Each colour offers a fresh perspective on a different epoch, and together they form a vivid, exhilarating history of the world. ''We have projected our hopes, anxieties and obsessions onto colour for thousands of years,'' Fox writes. ''The history of colour, therefore, is also a history of humanity.''Trade ReviewA book to brighten the dullest days -- Rachel Campbell-Johnston * The Times (Books of the Year) *A brilliantly fluent and readable history of colour -- Honor Clerk * Spectator (Books of the Year) *Fairly shimmers with Fox's eye for arresting facts and anecdotes -- Kassia St Clair * Times Literary Supplement *Intelligent, vividly written ... I'm going to buy three copies -- Laura Freeman * The Times *Flits with enthusiasm and lightly worn learning from Bronze Age gold-workers to Turner, Titian to Yves Klein -- Simon Ings * Daily Telegraph (Books of the Year) *Colour becomes a philosophical feast - astrophysics, the origins of civilisation, a palette of moral associations -- Ed Smith * New Statesman (Books of the Year) *A manual to navigate and enjoy the extraordinary design of the world around us -- Anna Galbraith * Mail on Sunday *Leads down some wonderful rabbit holes -- Chris Allnutt * Financial Times *A book that makes you want to paint -- Joad Raymond * BBC History Magazine *

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Book SynopsisThe 50th anniversary edition of the first major work of feminist art history, published together with the author's reflections three decades on.Trade Review'Brilliant ... Nochlin, when you agree with her and when you don’t, is unputdownable' - Jackie Wullschlager, Financial Times'Linda Nochlin’s brilliant essay burst upon us in 1971, illuminating the half-empty landscape of art history and opening the way for new feminist thinking about women, art and society. Even as we now know that there have been many great women artists past and present, we still need Linda’s sharp analysis of social institutions, prejudice and systemic failure to foster the creativity of all women and learn from their unique and diverse perspectives' - Professor Griselda Pollock (University of Leeds), Laureate of the Holberg Prize for Arts and Humanities 2020'Passionate and provocative … helped to shatter the illusion that art history is universal and, in doing so, changed the field forever … We need to question conventional ways of thinking, writing, seeing, and challenge contradictions. These bold and candid essays provide readers with the tools to do so' - The Art Newspaper'Ground-breaking, written with wit and in a conversational style rarely seen in academic studies' - ArtReview'As relevant as ever on the burning issues of gender, class and exclusion' - ElephantTable of ContentsIntroduction by Catherine Grant • 1.Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? • 2.“Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” Thirty Years After • Notes • Further Reading

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Book SynopsisEmbodying the entire system of Robert Henri''s teaching, The Art Spirit contains much valuable advice, critical comment, and inspiration to every student of the arts.

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Book Synopsis''I have never read such a stimulating short guide to art'' Lynn Barber, Sunday Times Now Grayson Perry is a fully paid-up member of the art establishment, he wants to show that any of us can appreciate art (after all, there is a reason he''s called this book Playing to the Gallery and not ''Sucking up to an Academic Elite''). Based on his hugely popular BBC Radio 4 Reith Lectures and full of pictures, this funny, personal journey through the art world answers the basic questions that might occur to us in an art gallery but seem too embarrassing to ask.Trade ReviewThis book is full of good jokes, full of cartoons, full of memorable epigrams, but above all full of thought-provoking ideas that make you want to pause on every page and say: "Discuss." I have never read such a stimulating short guide to art. It should be issued as a set text in every school -- Lynn Barber * Sunday Times *A visual and intellectual delight * Time Out *Punchy, mischievous ... Hugely entertaining. You could, genuinely, take an aphorism or a quote from every second page ... This is splendid, transgressive stuff ... a love letter to art ... a thing of pleasure: petite, luxuriously printed, a mischievous little hymn to 21st-century inclusivity -- Melanie Reid * The Times *It reveals Perry to be not just an artist but a wordsmith, too... It is acute and funny at the same time. This, I think, is why people love Perry so much. * Daily Telegraph *A joy to read * New Statesman *A polemic for inclusivity... The great thing about Perry's statement of it here is that you are always convinced that he believes it and lives by it * Observer *It's unputdownable! It's really relevant to anyone who does anything ... A great book ... Grayson is brilliant -- Stewart Lee

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Book SynopsisConcerned with the complex and sophisticated relationship between economics, social context, and aesthetics as represented in the contested space of the art gallery, the author raises the question of how artists must construe their work in relation to the gallery space and system.Trade Review"Not only in the context of art institutions and gallery spaces, but also in broader territorial and political senses, the dichotomy between inside and outside has become a cornerstone of what we would now call installation art. Thus, we should not only read Inside the White Cube as the vital document of the 1970s post-studio art scene that it undoubtedly is, but also as a nodal point that connects in two directions: backwards to the modern history of art, and forwards to contemporary spatial practices." * e-flux *"Brian O’Doherty’s precise scrutiny of this near-omnipresent mode of display—the result of a worldview in which the apparatus of exhibition was newly understood as itself the carrier of meaning—still retains disruptive power." * Art Journal *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction by Thomas McEvilley I. Notes on the Gallery Space A Fable of Horizontal and Vertical ... Modernism ... The Properties of the Ideal Gallery ... The Salon ... The Easel Picture ... The Frame as Editor ... Photography . .. Impressionism . .. The Myth of the Picture Plane .. . Matisse .. . Hanging .. . The Picture Plane as Simile ... The Wall As Battleground and "Art" ... The Installation Shot ... II. The Eye and the Spectator Another Fable ... Five Blank Canvasses .. . Paint, Picture Plane, Objects ... Cubism and Collage ... Space ... The Spectator ... The Eye ... Schwitters's Merzbau . .. Schwitters's Performances .. . Happenings And Environments . .. Kienholz, Segal, Kaprow . .. Hanson, de Andrea ... Eye, Spectator, and Minimalism ... Paradoxes of Experience ... Conceptual and Body Art ... III. Context as Content The Knock at the Door ... Duchamp's Knock ... Ceilings ... 1.200 Bags of Coal . .. Gestures and Projects ... The Mile of String . . . Duchamp's "Body" .. . Hostility to the Audience ... The Artist and the Audience ... The Exclusive Space . . . The Seventies .. . The White Wall . . . The White Cube ... Modernist Man .. . The Utopian Artist ... Mondrian's Room ... Mondrian, Duchamp, Lissitzky ... IV. The Gallery as a Gesture Yves Klein's Le Vide ... Arman's Le Plein ... Warhol's Airborne Pillows ... Buren's Sealed Gallery ... Barry's Closed Gallery ... Les Levine's White Light ... The Christos' Wrapped Museum ... Afterword

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Book SynopsisHow might we see ourselves more clearly? Consult Rembrandt.Who can encourage us to see more intimately? Tracey Emin is the expert.What about helping us see through pain? Look no further than Frida Kahlo.Too often we move through life on autopilot, blind to the life-affirming beauty of our strangeworld. But it doesn't have to be this way.In this masterclass on how an appreciation of art can help us lead fuller lives, Will Gompertz takes us into the minds and work of thirty-one astounding artists. Each has their own unique way of seeing: with their help, we learn how to expand our own vision of life and its endless possibilities how to look, feel and think more clearly.Offers a tide lesson in not just getting more from art, but more from life itself' The TimesArt can amaze us into changing our minds. This remarkable book teaches us how' Es DevlinHighly engaging and thought-provoking' Philip Hook, author of Breakfast at Sotheby'sWill Gompertz is the best teacher you never had' Guardian

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Book SynopsisThe Elements of Art deconstructs great works of art into manageable components so that you can better understand and appreciate them.Knowing how to interpret art is one of the biggest issues facing casual gallery-goers. They may ask themselves questions like: Why is the Mona Lisa so small? Why are some frames gilded in gold while others are non-existent? What can the use of material say about a work, whether it’s an oil painting, collage or made of found objects? And does the life of the artist matter?This book answers all of these questions and more and introduces the key elements with which you can analyze and better understand artwork. From color, medium and size to where the piece is situated, and the artist who made it, you’ll learn what’s important and what’s not so important.The book includes two parts: Part One introduces the elements using examples from throughout art histo

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Book SynopsisThis invaluable guide enables students to get the most from their art history course. Written in an accessible style, the book introduces two basic art historical methods - formal analysis and contextual analysis. In this new edition revising author Michael Cothren has extended the discussion on iconography and iconology, as well as adding discussions on the effects of the market and museums on art. Greater emphasis is placed on the global and multicultural aspects of art creation and analysis with new images and more case studies. There is more step-by-step guidance on how to use these methods to prepare for exams and write papers.

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Book SynopsisThe follow-up to the seminal Ways of Seeing, one of the most influential books on artTrade Review'Polemical, meditative, radical, always original, Berger's essays are extremely wide-ranging' Geoff Dyer 'One of the most influential intellectuals of our time' Sean O'Hagan, Observer 'A wonderful artist and thinker' Susan Sontag 'Berger is a writer one demands to know more about ... an intriguing and powerful mind and talent' New York Times

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Book SynopsisArt, William Kentridge says, is its own form of knowledge. It does not simply supplement the real world, and cannot be purely understood in the rational terms of academic disciplines. The studio is where linear thinking is abandoned and the material processes of the eye, the hand, the charcoal and paper become themselves the guides of creativity.Trade Review[This] is an enlightening, circuitous, and self-reflexive performance that delves into [Kentridge’s] greatest obsessions in the realms of art, politics, history, and image-making… Kentridge discusses topics including Plato’s cave allegory (a subject that looms over much, if not all, of the book), Africa’s colonies, and the violence of the Enlightenment. He delivers sharp insights into the history and character of Johannesburg; his memories from growing up under apartheid provide some of the book’s most lucid moments. He also elaborates upon life in the art studio (a ‘safe space for stupidity’)… Time—including how it affects work in the studio—and memory are also major themes. The argument here is really an anti-argument; Kentridge emphasizes the need to occupy the gap between certainty and uncertainty, and stresses ‘being aware of the limits of seeing,’ and ‘our own limits of understanding, the limits of our memory, but prodding the memory nonetheless.’… This is an essential book for anybody seeking a better understanding of Kentridge’s work. * Publishers Weekly *Anyone who has seen the film animations of the great South African artist will be fascinated by the account he gives of his thinking and studio practice. -- Kenneth Baker * San Francisco Chronicle *This is a beautiful and necessary book in all respects… It looks at the work of an artist from his own perspective, which in some instances may be a risky strategy, but Kentridge is such a good writer that the book is as brisk as it is insightful… He is also a wonderful draftsman, and his drawings, often executed in pen and ink or cut paper, are carefully reproduced here. The production of this book was handled as a work of art too. The size, proportion, binding, and attention to detail are superb. The design by Dean Bornstein harmonizes perfectly with the tone of the book. Enthusiastically recommended. -- S. Skaggs * Choice *

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Book SynopsisThe central argument of "Chromophobia" is that a chromophobic impulse - a fear of corruption or contamination through colour - lurks within much Western cultural and intellectual thought. This is apparent in the many and varied attempts to purge colour, either by making it the property of some 'foreign body' - the oriental, the feminine, the infantile, the vulgar, or the pathological - or by relegating it to the realm of the superficial, the supplementary, the inessential, or the cosmetic. Chromophobia has been a cultural phenomenon since ancient Greek times; this book is concerned with forms of resistance to it. Writers have tended to look no further than the end of the nineteenth century. David Batchelor seeks to go beyond the limits of earlier studies, analysing the motivations behind chromophobia and considering the work of writers and artists who have been prepared to look at colour as a positive value. Exploring a wide range of imagery including Melville's "Great White Whale", Huxley's "Reflections on Mescaline", and Le Corbusier's "Journey to the East", Batchelor also discusses the use of colour in Pop, Minimal, and more recent art.Trade ReviewFull of good writing, good anecdotes, devastating quotes, deft arguments, and just the sort of mysterious anomalies one would expect from an artist writing about the enemies of his practice -- Dave Hickey Bookforum A hugely entertaining guide to our ongoing obsession with white' Time Out A provocative contribution to the discourse of color theory -- James Meyer Artforum This beautifully produced book is an intelligent and provocative essay on why Western culture hates and fears colour. The prose is cumulative and passionate in its effect and widely referential - from Barthes to Melville, Wim Wenders to Huysmans ... you cannot fail to be stimulated by his thoughts RA (Royal Academy Magazine) Switching from novels and movies to art and architecture, Batchelor clearly and cleverly traces the cultural implications of the 100 year-plus Colour War between Chromophobes like Le Corbusier, with their hosannas to whiteness, and Chromophiliacs like Warhol, the great artist of cosmetics. A succinct book of art theory which goes down smoothly i-D Magazine Batchelor has found an irresistible selection of anecdotes and quotes relating to the experience of color ... thoughtful and entertaining -- Tema Celeste a theoretical and cultural banquet ... The book's narrative quality goes beyond the telling of color theory's history and other approaches to color, coming to read like a psychological thriller: how the West crushed color - or at least thought it did so New Art Examiner, Chicago

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Book Synopsis* 'Great art has dreadful manners...' Simon Schama observes at the start of his epic exploration of the power, and whole point, of art. 'The hushed reverence of the gallery can fool you into believing masterpieces are polite things, visions that soothe, charm and beguile, but actually they are thugs. Merciless and wily, the greatest paintings grab you in a headlock, rough up your composure and then proceed in short order to re-arrange your sense of reality...' * With the same disarming force, Power of Art jolts us far from the comfort zone of the hushed art gallery, as Schama closes in on intense make-or-break turning points in the lives of eight great artists who, under extreme stress, created something unprecedented, altering the course of art for ever. * The embattled heroes - Caravaggio, Bernini, Rembrandt, David, Turner, Van Gogh, Picasso and Rothko - faced crisis with steadfast defiance. The masterpieces they created challenged convention, shattered complacency, shifted awareness and changed the way we look at the world. With powerfully vivid story-telling, Schama explores the dynamic personalities of the artists and the spirit of the times they lived through, capturing the flamboyant theatre of bourgeois life in Amsterdam, the passion and paranoia of Revolutionary Paris, and the carnage and pathos of civil-war Spain.* Most compelling of all, Power of Art traces the extraordinary evolution of eight world-class works of art. Created in a bolt of illumination, such works 'tell us something about how the world is, how it is to be inside our skins, that no more prosaic source of wisdom can deliver. And when they do that they answer, irrefutably and majestically, the nagging question of every reluctant art-conscript... "OK, OK, but what's art really for?"'Trade ReviewPacked with noisy enthusiasm, punchy arguments and verbal agility... An excessively gifted communicator, [Schama] knows how to sweep facts and argument into a powerful, fluent narrative * The Independent *Power of Art feels as if it has been written in one breathless burst of enthusiasm, in a prose style that crackles like electricity * Sydney Morning Herald *A stunning work, resounding with profound insights which rivet the attention... A beautifully conceived and presented book from the professor of art history at Columbia University, New York. There must be few others in the world who could equal it * Western Daily Press *Powerfully vivid story-telling... Schama is a powerful communicator, and it is a joy to witness him explore the extraordinary evolution of eight world-class works of art * Good Book Guide *Politics, religion, war, sex and love are the inspirations behind the paintings chosen, and each takes on a new life under Schama's gaze * First magazine *

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Book SynopsisIncludes 90 documents, short essays, letters, statements and lectures, written by Rothko. This book includes annotation and a chronology of the artist's life and work. It presents a compilation of both published and unpublished writings from 1934-69, telling the importance of writing for an artist who many believed had renounced the written word.Trade Review"Gathering all of the artist's writings held in public collections as well as texts in Rothko's descendants' hands, this book brings to light many of his theoretical stances, practical considerations and personal revelations. . . . This book will change the way Rothko is understood and should be required reading for scholars of his era."—Publishers Weekly"Thanks to this rewarding book, it becomes possible to appreciate more fully than ever before, what [Rothko] thought his work as a painter and art educator were about. . . . A highly insightful look in to the ideas and beliefs that guided his professional painting career."—Burt Wasserman, Primetime A&E

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Book SynopsisAn illustrated 100-year history of modern art, from cubism to pop and avant-guard. .Trade Review'Robert Hughes is the best of guides, enthusiastic, astringent … neither smug nor condescending' - Observer'Teeming with ideas … an enormously enjoyable account of the state of play between art and society' - The Times'Takes the stuffing out of the subject where and when it can' - The Spectator'A genuine landmark, presenting the story of 20th-century art with unparalleled immediacy' - Elle Decoration

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Book SynopsisThe 50th anniversary edition of a classic text, featuring an expanded selection of color studiesTrade Review“Interaction of Color, the landmark 1963 book by Josef Albers, . . . isn’t just for aspiring artists. Its mesmerizing illustrations are a revelation for anyone interested in color theory and human perception.”—Pilar Viladas, New York Times“One of the most beautiful books in the world. . . . Interaction of Color is not solely for artists, though generations of them certainly owe Albers a debt. It is for anyone who wants to get under the hood and understand why and how we see the world the way we do. . . . A visionary work.”—Malcolm Jones, Newsweek“Anyone who is teaching himself any aspect of design will be cheating himself and his students if he fails to come to grips with this book. . . . This volume, with its sequence of lessons learned, perceptions achieved, and (therefore) powers mastered, is more than a landmark in design education: it is the geological trace of a man who is himself a landmark in design education.”—Industrial Design“The publication of this famous book in paperback is an event. . . . It is clearly written and easy to understand. . . . This book ought to be owned by any serious student or teacher, regardless of the kind of painting he does.”—The Artist“The book that influenced me the most is Interaction of Color by Josef Albers. It helped me to learn about colour.”—Orla Kiely, Elle Decoration“I think this is possibly the most important book ever written about colour.”—Robin Foley, Image Interiors & Living“By the end of the book you will better understand the effects of colour intensity, temperature and more.”—Artists & Illustrators, “21 Must-Read Art Books”Selected as a 2007 AAUP University Press Book for Public and Secondary School Libraries“The text of Interaction of Color provides the careful reader with the content of Josef Albers’s famous color course. His teaching is based on learning by direct perception, not by theories or color systems. There are many books on color on the market, but no one combines eyesight with such profound insight as Josef Albers does in Interaction of Color.”—Hannes Beckmann

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Book Synopsis'WHAT TO READ IN 2025' FINANCIAL TIMES Many artists are unaware of the mathematics that bubble beneath their craft, while some consciously use it for inspiration. Our instincts might tell us that these two subjects are incompatible forces with nothing in common, but what if we're wrong?

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Book SynopsisAn examination of the major optically oriented examples of artistic theory and practice, from Brunelleschi's invention of perspective and its exploitation by Leonardo and Duerer to the beginnings of photography. It discusses colour theory and shows the interaction between art and science.Table of ContentsPart 1 Lines of sight: perspective 1 - from Brunelleschi to Leonardo; perspective 2 - from Durer to Galileo; perspective 3 - from Rubens to Turner. Part 2 Machine and mind: machines and marvels; seeing, knowing, and reating. Part 3 The colour of light: the Aristotelian legacy; Newton and after.

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Book SynopsisOne of the most important works of cultural theory ever written, Walter Benjamin''s groundbreaking essay explores how the age of mass media means audiences can listen to or see a work of art repeatedly and what the troubling social and political implications of this are.Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

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Book SynopsisReveals the ways in which the work of bio artists offers new meanings for our lives in the wake of scientific discovery, as well as new frameworks for describing them. This book covers key areas in which biotechnology has had an impact on world, including ecology, biomedicine, designer genomes and evolutionary theory.Trade Review'A compelling contribution to the biotechnology conversation' - Science'Myers shows how the work of bio artists offers a new framework for our lives in the wake of scientific discovery' - Vanity FairTable of ContentsForeword by Suzanne Anker • Introduction: Bio Art and the Gnawing Invisible • I Altering Nature, Naturally • II Redefining Life • III Visualizing Scale and Scope • IV Experimental Identities and Media

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Book SynopsisBlack is Beautiful identifies and explores the most significant philosophical issues that emerge from the aesthetic dimensions of black life, providing a long-overdue synthesis and the first extended philosophical treatment of this crucial subject. The first extended philosophical treatment of an important subject that has been almost entirely neglected by philosophical aesthetics and philosophy of art Takes an important step in assembling black aesthetics as an object of philosophical study Unites two areas of scholarship for the first time philosophical aesthetics and black cultural theory, dissolving the dilemma of either studying philosophy, or studying black expressive culture Brings a wide range of fields into conversation with one another from visual culture studies and art history to analytic philosophy to musicology producing mutually illuminating approaches that challenge some of the basic suppositions of each Well-bTrade Review"The greatest contribution of the book to analytic aesthetics is that by examining the black aesthetic tradition, Taylor invites us to rethink how aestheticians and philosophers of art have approached the aesthetic tradition in general." - Adriana Clavel-Vazquez, University of Hull - The British Journal of Aesthetics, Volume 59, Issue 2, April 2019 Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments vii 1 Assembly, Not Birth 1 1 Introduction 1 2 Inquiry and Assembly 3 3 On Blackness 6 4 On the Black Aesthetic Tradition 12 5 Black Aesthetics as/and Philosophy 19 6 Conclusion 26 2 No Negroes in Connecticut: Seers, Seen 32 1 Introduction 33 2 Setting the Stage: Blacking Up Zoe 35 3 Theorizing the (In)visible 36 4 Theorizing Visuality 43 5 Two Varieties of Black Invisibility: Presence and Personhood 48 6 From Persons to Characters: A Detour 51 7 Two More Varieties of Black Invisibility: Perspectives and Plurality 58 8 Unseeing Nina Simone 63 9 Conclusion: Phronesis and Power 69 3 Beauty to Set the World Right: The Politics of Black Aesthetics 77 1 Introduction 77 2 Blackness and the Political 80 3 Politics and Aesthetics 83 4 The Politics–Aesthetics Nexus in Black; or, “The Black Nation: A Garvey Production” 85 5 Autonomy and Separatism 87 6 Propaganda, Truth, and Art 88 7 What is Life but Life? Reading Du Bois 91 8 Apostles of Truth and Right 94 9 On “Propaganda” 98 10 Conclusion 99 4 Dark Lovely Yet And; Or, How To Love Black Bodies While Hating Black People 104 1 Introduction 105 2 Circumscribing the Topic: Definitions and Distinctions 107 3 Circumscribing the Topic, cont’d: Context and Scope 109 4 The Cases 110 5 Reading the Cases 115 6 Conclusion 129 5 Roots and Routes: Disarming Authenticity 132 1 Introduction 132 2 An Easy Case: The Germans in Yorubaland 134 3 A Harder Case: Kente Capers 136 4 Varieties of Authenticity 138 5 From Exegesis to Ethics 144 6 The Kente Case, Revisited 151 6 Make It Funky; Or, Music’s Cognitive Travels and the Despotism of Rhythm 155 1 Introduction 156 2 Beyond the How‐Possible: Kivy’s Questions 157 3 Stimulus, Culture, Race 159 4 Preliminaries: Rhythm, Brains, and Race Music 162 5 The Flaw in the Funk 168 6 (Soul) Power to the People 172 7 Funky White Boys and Honorary Soul Sisters 174 8 Conclusion 177 7 Conclusion: “It Sucks That I Robbed You”; Or, Ambivalence, Appropriation, Joy, Pain 182 Index 186

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Book SynopsisJanetta Rebold Benton is the Distinguished Professor of Art History at Pace University, New York, and the author of several books and articles on art.Trade Review'Janetta Rebold Benton’s joyous, authoritative and sometimes startling book is your new deep dive into visual art' - Bob and Roberta SmithTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. How to Look at Art 2. Experiencing, Analysing and Appreciating Art 3. Materials and Techniques 4. But What Does It Mean? 5. Six Special Artists: Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt van Rijn, Vincent van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol

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Book SynopsisThe essential roadmap to the ideas and debates that have formed the history of art, told through 16 key books published over the course of the 20th century.Trade Review'A thrilling account of the history of art in the 20th century … an expertly guided tour along a rather marvellous scenic route' - Guardian'A pageant of influential art historians of the twentieth century … if you are keen on art history and like parades, you will love this book … the essays are models of intelligent compression and lively instruction … this fascinating collection is worth reading for many reasons' - RA Magazine'A wonderful book that will be enjoyed by all who have a deep interest in the practice of art history' - CassoneTable of ContentsPreface • Introduction • ‘Émile Mâle, L’art religieux du XIIIe siècle en France, 1898’ by Alexandra Gajewski • ‘Bernard Berenson, The Drawings of the Florentine Painters, 1903’ by Carmen C. Bambach • ‘Heinrich Wölfflin, Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe, 1915’ by David Summers • ‘Roger Fry, Cézanne: A Study of His Development, 1927’ by Richard Verdi • ‘Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of the Modern Movement, 1936’ by Colin Amery • ‘Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Matisse: His Art and His Public, 1951’ by John Elderfield • ‘Erwin Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting: Its Origins and Character, 1953’ by Susie Nash • ‘Kenneth Clark, The Nude: A Study of Ideal Art, 1956’ by John-Paul Stonard • ‘E. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion, 1960’ by Christopher S. Wood • ‘Clement Greenberg, Art and Culture, 1961’ by Boris Groys • ‘Francis Haskell, A Study in the Relations between Italian Art and Society in the Age of the Baroque, 1963’ by Louise Rice • ‘Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy, 1972’ by Paul Hills • ‘T. J. Clark, Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution, 1973’ by Alastair Wright • ‘Svetlana Alpers, The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century, 1983’ by Mariët Westermann • ‘Rosalind Krauss, The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths, 1985’ by Anna Lovatt • ‘Hans Belting, Bild und Kult, 1990’ by Jeffrey Hamburger • Notes • Bibliographical essays • Author Biographies

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Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE SALTIRE SOCIETY NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARDLooking can be an act of empathy or aggression. It can provoke desire or express it. And from the blurry, edgeless world we inhabit as infants to the landscape of screens we grow into, looking can define us.In The Story of Looking, filmmaker and writer Mark Cousins takes us on a lightning-bright tour - in words and images - through how our looking selves develop over the course of a lifetime, and the ways that looking has changed through the centuries. From great works of art to tourist photographs, from cityscapes to cinema, through science and protest, propaganda and refusals to look, the false mirrors and great visionaries of looking, this book illuminates how we construct as well as receive the things we see.Brilliant and eclectic, The Story of Looking is a photo album and an art gallery, a road movie and a visual grammar: once you've read it, you'll never see things the same way again.Trade ReviewA wide-ranging history of looking, you will gaze at it in wonder -- Ian Sansom * * Guardian * *A history of the human gaze . . . Illuminating . . . Roams freely across history, art, film, photography, science and technology . . . Indispensable as a reference book * * Observer * *Bloody genius -- CHRISTOPHER DOYLEIntriguing and beautiful . . . [A] gloriously haphazard intellectual scrapbook . . . Wide-ranging, deep-seeing and clever * * Scotland on Sunday * *An attempt to catalogue how and why we look, what we look at and how our social and cultural surroundings shape what we see . . . the result is, by turns, learned, often surprising . . . Fascinating * * Glasgow Sunday Herald, Arts Books of the Year * *Brilliant . . . His taste is eclectic and his judgments precise and persuasive * * New York Times * *Extraordinary . . . Visually ensnaring and intellectually lithe * * Telegraph on The Story of Film * *Dazzling in its breadth and intelligence . . . A hugely impressive work by a uniquely talented storyteller * * Guardian on A Story of Children and Film * *

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Book SynopsisWhat was the golden secret known to Leonardo da Vinci, Kepler, Plato and the ancient magicians? Can there really be a key to nature and life itself? In this small but compact volume, internationally renowned divine proportion supersleuth Dr. Olsen unravels perhaps the greatest mystery of all time, a code that seems to underly life, the universe and everything, a pattern we instinctively recognise as beautiful, and which nature herself uses at every scale. Designed for artists and scientists alike, this is the smallest, densest and most beautiful book on the golden section ever produced. WOODEN BOOKS are small but packed with information. "Fascinating" FINANCIAL TIMES. "Beautiful" LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS. "Rich and Artful" THE LANCET. "Genuinely mind-expanding" FORTEAN TIMES. "Excellent" NEW SCIENTIST. "Stunning" NEW YORK TIMES. Small books, big ideas.

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Book SynopsisKathryn R. Barush is Thomas E. Bertelsen Jr. Chair and Associate Professor of Art History and Religion at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley and the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University, USA.

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Book Synopsis

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