Theory of art Books

Book SynopsisGiovanni Aloi is an art historian and curator, specializing in the representation of nature, history and theory of photography, and everyday objects in art. He currently lectures on modern and contemporary art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA.

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Book SynopsisPenny Sparke is Professor of Design History and Director of the Modern Interiors Research Centre at Kingston University. She previously co-edited Interiors in the Era of Covid-19 (Bloomsbury 2022).

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Book Synopsis“Beguiling and informative”—Wall Street JournalLearn to see art as an artist does. Discover how a painting’s composition or a sculpture’s spatial structure influence the experience of what you’re seeing. With an artist as your guide, viewing art becomes a powerfully enriching experience that will stay in your mind long after you’ve left a museum.A visit to view art can be overwhelming, exhausting, and unrewarding. Lincoln Perry wants to change that. In fifteen essays—each framed around a specific theme—he provides new ways of seeing and appreciating art. Drawing heavily on examples from the European traditions of art, Perry aims to overturn assumptions and asks readers to re-think artistic prejudices while rebuilding new preferences. Included are essays on how artists “read” paintings, how scale and format influence viewers, how to engage with sculptures and murals, as well as guides to some of the great museums and churches of Europe.Seeing Like an Artist is for any artist, art-lover, or museumgoer who wants to grow their appreciation for the art of others.Trade ReviewPraise for Seeing Like an Artist “Go, look, love! A painter’s memoir of traveling to see great paintings with his own eyes becomes a passionate argument for the value of personal encounters with art....Beguiling and informative...Mr. Perry advises each of his readers to ‘create your own Grand Tour’ of the kingdom of art....this guidebook is obligatory.”—Wall Street Journal “Perry covers ‘how certain paintings and sculpture were made’ in his conversational debut, a convincing ‘plea to look closely.’ Across 16 essays, Perry combines memoir and art criticism...‘Reading Paintings’ is a masterclass in technical components including color, shape, and what Perry calls velocity, or the speed with which the viewer is ‘asked to read through the fictional space of the picture’....His guidance is well delivered: ‘I’ll try to evoke what I’ve come to love not because I believe it’s what you should love, but, rather, because I hope my enthusiasm might inspire you to find what you love.’ Budding art aficionados, take note.” —Publishers Weekly “Meticulously reveals the interplay of light, color, and spatial planes hidden beneath a wealth of important paintings. Perry’s lessons are revelatory.”—Kirkus Reviews“A dazzling tour . . . In easy-going language, Perry discusses just about every consideration that goes into completing a work of art . . . Read it before your next visit to a museum.”—Maine Sunday Telegram “Lincoln Perry has written an irresistibly readable, companionable, and quotable artist’s memoir in this Grand Tour of commentary on museums (primarily European) and artists as varied as Rodin, Picasso, Corot, Bruegal, Veronese (the ‘group figure narrative’), Bernini, Courbet, R.B. Kitaj, Masaccio and Masolino, Rubens, Pollock, and Rothko. There is no substitute for seeing art ‘in situ,’ as Perry tells us, but accompanying this ideal observer, a practicing artist with the sharp, sympathetic eye of a fellow craftsman, is an exhilarating experience.” —Joyce Carol Oates, author of Babysitter “So much writing about art seems like useless noise—abstract, pretentious, gassy. This is not that. Lincoln Perry takes us on a journey, showing us what he sees and how he sees, and it’s wonderful. There is revelation on every page.” —James Gleick, author of Time Travel: A History “Lincoln Perry writes so clearly and sees everything in a state of wonder. His visual experience embraces ancient Greece, the Renaissance, African and Asian art, Modernism. He finds the abstractionist in Michelangelo and the storyteller in Picasso. No one knows how to cite quotations better than he. He has looked into museums all over the world and literally lived in a camper next to the Louvre. He is a wonderful companion on the page and an unintimidating expert: this book will open your eyes.” —Edmund White, author of A Previous Life

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Book SynopsisAn essential resource for museum professionals, teachers, and students, the award-winning Teaching in the Art Museum (Getty Publications, 2011) set a new standard in the field of gallery education. This follow-up book blends theory and practice to help educators—from teachers and docents to curators and parents—create meaningful interpretive activities for children and adults. Written by a team of veteran museum educators, Activity-Based Teaching in the Art Museum offers diverse perspectives on embodiment, emotions, empathy, and mindfulness to inspire imaginative, spontaneous interactions that are firmly grounded in history and theory. The authors begin by surveying the emergence of activity-based teaching in the 1960s and 1970s and move on to articulate a theory of play as the cornerstone of their innovative methodology. The volume is replete with sidebars describing activities facilitated with museum visitors of all ages.

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Book SynopsisIn his engaging and penetrating observations of major modern and contemporary visual art, Shiff has written about an impressive range of artists, including Willem de Kooning, Marlene Dumas, Jasper Johns, Donald Judd, Barnett Newman, Pablo Picasso, Bridget Riley, and Peter Saul. A leading scholar and powerful voice, Shiff’s insight into prominent artistic practices spans generation, place, and approach, as seen in this considered selection of essays on twenty-seven artists. These writings first appeared in exhibition catalogues for institutions including the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, and Tate Modern. Shiff supplements his unquestionable fluency in art history with insights cultivated from his readings in philosophy, phenomenology, literary theory, and psychoanalysis, among other fields. Shiff’s writing—conceptually rich, meditative, and enjoyable to read—is attuned to the nuances of artistic style and technique, drawing out art’s social implications not merely from broad histories but also directly from artists’ mark making and technical gestures. Actively engaged as a viewer and a writer, Shiff has transformed the act of looking at art into contemplative and captivating writing. Writing After Art includes essays on Georg Baselitz, Mark Bradford, Georges Braque, Jim Campbell, Chuck Close, Willem de Kooning, Peter Doig, Marlene Dumas, Dan Flavin, Suzan Frecon, Lucian Freud, Ellen Gallagher, Jasper Johns, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Brice Marden, Julie Mehretu, Barnett Newman, Pablo Picasso, Bridget Riley, Peter Saul, Richard Serra, Joel Shapiro, Richard Tuttle, Cy Twombly, Jack Whitten, and Zeng Fanzhi.

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Book SynopsisAn intimate and unique collection of the work of John Ashbery—a prolific poet and art critic—pairing poetry and art writings with playlists of music from his personal library. This book places poetry by Ashbery (1927–2017), gathered from his later collections, in conversation with a selection of contemporaneous art writing. In addition, as Ashbery loved music and listened to it while writing, the “playlists” here offer representative samplings of music from these same years, culled from Ashbery’s own library of recordings. Ashbery’s poetry is frequently described as ekphrastic, though, rather than writing a poem “based on'' or “inspired” by the content of an artwork of or piece of music, he engages with how the experience of seeing it and the artistic strategies employed offer ways of thinking about it and through it. Many of the observations from Ashbery’s art writing also offer keys to how we might read his poetry. Many of the recordings he listened to feature contemporary classical works that emphasize complex textures, disparate sounds, and disjunct phrases. Ashbery’s poetry similarly plays with a diversity of poetic textures and sudden turns such that a reader might construct multiple narratives or pathways of meaning. He rarely offers linear stories or focuses on evocative descriptions of a scene or object. In exploring this ekphrastic book project, the reader is invited to discover how, for Ashbery, these three forms might illuminate and inform one another.

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Book SynopsisThe newest volume in the beloved ekphrasis series focuses on dance and poetry through the mind of one of the twentieth century’s greatest critics“I am interested at the moment in recalling to you how it looks when one sees dancing as non-professionals do, in the way you yourselves I suppose look at pictures, at buildings, at political history or at landscapes or at strangers you pass on the street. Or as you read poetry.” —Edwin Denby After starting his career as a dancer with companies and troupes in Germany and Switzerland, Edwin Denby moved to Manhattan, where he formed friendships with prominent members of the New York School, including Frank O’Hara and John Ashbery, and artists such as Rudy Burckhardt. In his critical writing, he brought his experience as a dancer to the page along with a poet’s sensibility, distinguishing himself as an authority through delicate observation and illustrative prose. This collection

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Book SynopsisWinner, Melva J. Dwyer AwardHonourable Mention, Canadian Museums Association Award for Outstanding Achievement (Research)Qummut Qukiria! celebrates art and culture within and beyond traditional Inuit and Sámi homelands in the Circumpolar Arctic — from the continuance of longstanding practices such as storytelling and skin sewing to the development of innovative new art forms such as throatboxing (a hybrid of traditional Inuit throat singing and beatboxing). In this illuminating book, curators, scholars, artists, and activists from Inuit Nunangat, Kalaallit Nunaat, Sápmi, Canada, and Scandinavia address topics as diverse as Sámi rematriation and the revival of the ládjogahpir (a Sámi woman’s headgear), the experience of bringing Inuit stone carving to a workshop for inner-city youth, and the decolonizing potential of Traditional Knowledge and its role in contemporary design and beyond.Qummut Qukiria! showcases the thriving art and culture of the Indigenous Circumpolar peoples in the present and demonstrates its importance for the revitalization of language, social wellbeing, and cultural identity.Trade Review“The diversity of the texts in Qummut Qukiria! ... This book may be specialized, but any reader can find much here to enjoy. This is a book that seems destined to be useful and relevant for a long time.” -- Ray Cronin * Billie *

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Book SynopsisThe rules of composition have changed. Discover the new ideas that shape the art we make today. Art has changed beyond recognition since the principles of harmonious composition were established in classical times. From the invention of photography to the digital revolution, technological and social advances have transformed the way we see the world. This new vision, influenced by changing attitudes not least towards gender roles and the West's colonial history, is reflected in the art we make.From the rejection of Western compositional orthodoxy by artists such as Édouard Manet, Vincent van Gogh and Mary Cassatt to the revolutionary practices of Jean- Michel Basquiat, Tania Bruguera, Meleko Mokgosi and many others, acclaimed art critic and writer Michael Archer reveals the ideas and intentions behind a thrillingly diverse selection of artworks, giving readers a new set of tools for understanding art today.

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Book SynopsisIf Greek tragedies are meant to be so tragic, why do they so often end so well? Here starts the story of a long and incredible misunderstanding. Out of the hundreds of tragedies that were performed, only 32 were preserved in full. Who chose them and why? Why are the lost ones never taken into account? This extremely unusual scholarly book tells us an Umberto Eco-like story about the lost tragedies. By arguing that they would have given a radically different picture, William Marx makes us think in completely new ways about one of the major achievements of Western culture. In this very readable, stimulating, lively, and even sometimes funny book, he explores parallels with Japanese theatre, resolves the enigma of catharsis, sheds a new light on psychoanalysis. In so doing, he tells also the story of the misreadings of our modernity, which disconnected art from the body, the place, and gods. Two centuries ago philosophers transformed Greek tragedies into an ideal archetype, now they want to read them as self-help handbooks, but all are equally wrong: Greek tragedy is definitely not what you think, and we may never understand it, but this makes it matter all the more to us.Trade ReviewWilliam Marx doesn't take anything for granted. Here, his thoughts take us to the most established concept in literature, "Greek tragedy", and then undermines it. His tools: the integration of in-depth historical analysis, detailed understanding of the antique plays, studying the traces of lost plays, and a rethinking of what always seemed obvious but is in fact anachronistic. He questions the very concept of the tragic, revises other basic concepts such as catharsis, and offers a fresh reading of those texts that re-become vital for the history of literature and our contemporary world. -- Mieke BalThis is an immensely enjoyable book on Athenian tragedy, written in lyrical prose and elegiac mode. -- Johanna Hanink * The Classical Review *Thus, from one book to the other, William Marx proposes a research path that will enjoy a bright future: "Catching literature by using what escapes literature." -- Jean-Louis Jeannelle * Le Monde *As a faraway, but irrevocable echo of Duras' "You saw nothing in Hiroshima", the reception of Greek tragedy makes with The Tomb of Oedipus its definite entrance into the postmodern era. -- Guillaume Navaud * Critique d’art *William Marx is one of the most original scholars of our time. The Tomb of Oedipus is a revolutionary rethinking of our relationship to the ancient world: its myths, its literature, its outlook. With this slim book, Oedipus's curse has been lifted at long last. -- Alberto Manguel, Director of Espaço Atlântida, The Centre for Research into the History of Reading, LisbonThis is an original and eye opening book. Its fundamental idea is quite simple. Only 32 Greek tragedies from the 5th century BCE have been preserved, which corresponds to less than 5% of the tragedies that had been put on stage. Can we consider this sample to be representative? The selection has been the product of a judgments about what constituted a good, a typical tragedy, a tragedy that should be read by children at school; but these were judgments from Roman imperial times, that are possibly and likely very different from the taste of the original Athenian audience. Has the tragedy of the 5th century really been tragic in the sense that Roman school teachers seem to imply? Marx's attempt to answer this question is intellectually sophisticated, wonderfully readable - and full of surprising insights. -- Luca GiulianiMarx, a comparative literature professor at the Collège de France, refreshes ancient literature and the concept of tragedy in this intelligent work of criticism....Elliott's translation is smooth and elegant, matching the sophistication of Marx's thought as he reinvigorates Greek tragedy. * Publishers Weekly *

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Book SynopsisPhotography was invented between the publication of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations and Karl Marx and Frederick Engels's The Communist Manifesto. Taking the intertwined development of capitalism and the camera as their starting point, the essays in Capitalism and the Camera investigate the relationship between capitalist accumulation and the photographic image, and ask whether photography might allow us to refuse capitalism's violence-and if so, how?Drawn together in productive disagreement, the essays in this collection explore the relationship of photography to resource extraction and capital accumulation, from 1492 to the postcolonial; the camera's potential to make visible critical understandings of capitalist production and society, especially economies of class and desire; and propose ways that the camera and the image can be used to build cultural and political counterpublics from which a democratic struggle against capitalism might emerge. With essays by Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, Siobhan Angus, Kajri Jain, Walter Benn Michaels, T. J. Clark, John Paul Ricco, Blake Stimson, Chris Stolarski, Tong Lam, and Jacob Emery.Trade ReviewThese essays scrutinize the photograph from multiple angles to expose the image-capitalism of our ongoing Imperial Age. A treasure trove of contemporary approaches to critical visual studies. -- Susan Buck-Morss, CUNY Graduate CenterThis is the most original and ground-breaking collection of essays on photography that I have seen in many years, featuring notable critics and scholars at the height of their powers. Do not look for consensus here, but a refreshing take on the enduring contradictions that beset this essential medium of modernity. -- W. J. T. Mitchell, author of What Do Pictures Want?Scintillating ... [in Capitalism and the Camera] Coleman and James ask us to consider the primary destructive gaze of powerful companies. -- Shanti Escalante-De Mattei * Art in America *

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Book SynopsisIn this exciting, innovative work, Polish feminist philosopher Ewa Majewska maps the creation of feminist counterpublics around the world-spaces of protest and ideas, community and common struggle, that can challenge the emergence of fascist states as well as Western democratic "public spheres" populated by atomized, individual subjects.Drawing from Eastern Europe and the Global South, Majewska describes the mass labor movement of Poland's Solidarnosc in 1980 and contemporary feminist movements across Poland and South America, arguing that it is outside of the West that we can see the most promising left futures. Majewska argues for the creation of a feminist public-a politics and a world held in common-and outlines the tactics this political goal demands, arguing for a feminist political theory that does not reproduce the same forms of domination it seeks to overcome.Trade ReviewEwa Majewska looks at the ways that feminist spaces resist the tide of fascism. * Lit Hub (75 Nonfiction Books You Should Read This Summer) *A central figure in Polish feminism. -- Amia Srinivasan * New Yorker *

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Book Synopsis'If we want to achieve a different society where the principle of money operates equitably, if we want to abolish the power money has developed over people historically, and position money in relationship to freedom, equality and fraternity ...then we must elaborate a concept of culture and a concept of art where every person must be an artist...' - Joseph Beuys. The world of finance exerts a huge influence over our lives, being responsible for economic turmoil and seemingly interminable peaks and crashes. Whereas money was once a simple means of exchange, today it is a commodity in itself and as 'capital' exerts power over individuals, degrading work to tradable labour. Can we find a new way of understanding money today, so that we can begin to overcome its destructive aspects? In November 1984, a remarkable discussion took place at the Meeting House in Ulm, Germany. It featured the radical artist Joseph Beuys, two professors (of Financial Sciences and Political Economics) and a banker. Beuys would appear to be out of place among these heavyweight academics, professionals and authors. But rather than being intimidated by his fellow panellists, Beuys - also a social and political activist - demonstrates his groundbreaking thinking on the subject, and his ability to bring fresh perspectives. Here for the first time is a transcript of this debate, together with analysis by Ulrich Rosch, which will be of equal interest to artists, economists and spiritual seekers.Table of ContentsForeword 'What is Money' A report of a debate held on 29 November 1984 at the Meeting House in Ulm, Germany between Joseph Beuys, Johann Philipp von Bethmann, Hans Binswanger, Werner Ehrlicher and Rainer Willert Introducing the participants Appendix One can only understand what Joseph Beuys says by having already understood him: an overview of Joseph Beuys's concepts of money and capital by Ulrich Rosch

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Book SynopsisJean-Claude Lebensztejn’s history of the urinating figure in art, Pissing Figures 1280–2014, is at once a scholarly inquiry into an important visual motif, and a ribald statement on transgression and limits in works of art in general. Lebensztejn is one of France’s best-kept secrets. A world-class art historian who has lectured and taught at major universities in the United States, his work has remained almost entirely in French, his American audience limited to a small but dedicated group of cognoscenti. First introducing the Manneken Pis—the iconic little boy whose stream of urine supplies water to this famous fountain and is also the logo for a Belgian beer company—the author takes the reader through a semi-scatological maze of cultural history. The earliest example is a fresco scene located directly above Cimabue’s Crucifixion from around 1280 at the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, in which Lebensztejn’s careful eye locates an angel behind a pillar who looks like he is about to urinate through a hole in his garment. He continues to navigate expertly through cultural twists and turns, stopping to discuss Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1968 film Teorema, for example, and Marlene Dumas’s 1996–1997 homage to Rembrandt’s pissing woman. At every moment, Lebensztejn’s prose is lively, his thinking dynamic, and his subject matter entertaining.  In this short and poignant cultural history, readers not only find the care for detail that has made Lebensztejn into one of the greatest European art historians, but also the rebelliousness that makes him one of the most interesting intellectuals of our time. The first widely distributed book of Lebensztejn’s in English, Pissing Figures 1280–2014 is simultaneously published in France by Éditions Macula.

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Book SynopsisSurveying some 20 years of Swiss video art, this book includes works by Alexander Hahn, Klara Kuchta, Eric Lanz, Jean Otth, Pipilotti Rist, Alex Silber and Hannes Vogel, it reviews discussion surrounding the exhibiting of video art and the problems associated with long-term conservation.

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Book SynopsisL'Internationale is a trans-institutional network of five major European museums and artists' archives: Moderna Galerija Ljublana, Július Koller Society Bratislava/Vienna, MACBA Barcelona, Van Abbemusuem Eindhoven and MHKA Antwerp. With these five museums and their respective collections as a starting point, L'Internationale: Post-War Avant-Gardes Between 1957 and 1986 presents a range of case studies and historiographical and theoretical essays that reconsider a period in art history that was dominated by the art of Western Europe and North America. The publication instead portrays a more dispersed, multi-polar and interconnected neo-avant-garde, one that existed long before it became common to think in terms of globalization or trans-nationalism. In the process, this book questions how local narratives can be brought together in a new rhizomatic way, one that works to reshape our ideas of translocalism and internationalism.

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Book SynopsisFuture Bodies from a Recent Past brings to life a hitherto little-noticed phenomenon in art and sculpture in particular: the reciprocal interpenetration of bodies and technology. With 120 works by 59 artists—primarily from Europe, the USA and Japan—the exhibition is dedicated to the major technological changes since the post-war period and examines their influence on our notions of bodies. With contributions on topics such as the influence of changing production technologies, materialities, and concepts of the body, but also interdisciplinary considerations of body-technology relations, a multi-perspective history of contemporary sculpture will be outlined. English Edition! Exhibition Museum Brandhorst Munich2 June 2022 until 15 January 2023

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Book SynopsisHow is art criticism to be understood within an expanding artistic field? A look at its history and its manifestations within globalized conditions shows the variety of the genre, of the criteria and of the styles of writing. This reader is an attempt to bring a diverse range of art-critical voices and perspectives into conversation with each other, with texts from the 18th century to the present. The editors Beate Söntgen and Julia Voss have invited colleagues from various geographical and intellectual backgrounds to present and discuss the art critics of their choice, choosing one example from their respective bodies of work to comment upon. How have these writers approached art criticism? Which styles do they employ? What makes them extraordinary? What can we learn from their writings today, and why is it important in its contemporary context? Texts by: Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy, Denis Diderot, Takashi Kashima, Patrick Mudekereza, Annemarie Sauzeau-Boetti, Bertha Zuckerkandl and many more Comments by: Juli Carson, Yuriko Furuhata, Isabelle Graw, Angela Harutyunyan, Monica Juneja, Wolfgang Kemp, Florencia Malbran, Yvette Mutumba, Azu Nwagbogu, Sarah Wilson and many more

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Book SynopsisThe publication Zusammen / Together is a comprehensive recollection of the exhibition highlights of the years 2015 to 2022 at Museum Haus Konstruktiv and brings together what is separated in space and time. A series of insightful conversations with the artists Etel Adnan, Claudia Comte, Elisabeth Goldring-Piene, Brigitte Kowanz, Alicja Kwade, Dóra Maurer, Amalia Pica, Tomás Saraceno, as well as in-depth texts on Imi Knoebel and William Kentridge are accompanied by numerous exhibition views. Many of the conversations and exhibition views have not been published before; some of the texts reprinted here in slightly modified form are taken from books that have long been out of print today and are given their well-deserved new visibility.

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Book SynopsisA new, fully transcribed edition of the celebrated collection of Jack Whitten's wide-ranging, perceptive writingsWriting occupied a fundamental place in Jack Whitten's artistic practice and in his day-to-day life, weaving the two together. Notes from the Woodshed gathers the artist's daily logs, longer essayistic entries, and selected talks and published statements. Edited by Katy Siegel, these texts intertwine Whitten's experiments in the studio, thoughts about painting as a medium, and broad investigations of politics, matter, and metaphysics. Now in its second edition, this publication is the definitive resource on Whitten's writings, presenting a fully transcribed collection of the artist's handwritten logs. Selections from these writings are illustrated with facsimiles of the originals, giving us a feel for the studio and for Whitten's hand, animating his remarkable line of thought. This edition also features a new afterword in the form of a conversation on Whitten between curators Matilde Guidelli-Guidi and Zoé Whitley and artist Glenn Ligon that sketches out the different forms a deep engagement with his writings might take.

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Book SynopsisA conversation with filmmaker and artist John Akomfrah, exploring how his work with montage can be understood to articulate contemporaneity in sensuous ways.Taking the form of a conversation with filmmaker and artist John Akomfrah, this book sets out to explore how Akomfrah's work with montage can be understood to articulate contemporaneity in sensuous ways. In multilayered video installations, sequences of images are forced into the same time and space, allowing the viewer to experience connections in her/his/their present. With examples from many of his key works, topics discussed include untold histories and the diaspora, migration, and the enigma of arrival. Akomfrah defines his way of working with montage not only as a technique but as an ethic, an ontology in which differences are brought together.

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Book SynopsisAn alternative introduction to modern art, focusing on the stories of 50 key works that consciously questioned the boundaries, challenged the status quo and made shockwaves we are still feeling today. Table of ContentsIntroductionBREAKING TRADITIONS: 1850–1909 The Bathers, Gustave Courbet Art Inventions Olympia, Édouard Manet Manet and Modern Art The Kiss, Auguste Rodin Photography The Starry Night, Vincent van Gogh Skeletons Fighting Over a Pickled Herring, James Ensor The Scream, Edvard Munch Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, Paul Gauguin Nuda Veritas, Gustav Klimt Les Demoiselles D’Avignon, Pablo Picasso The Influence of African ArtTHE HORRORS OF WAR: 1910–1926 Seated Male Nude (Self-portrait), Egon Schiele Composition V, Wassily Kandinsky Synaesthesia Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, Umberto Boccioni Revolution! Black Square, Kazimir Malevich Fountain, Marcel Duchamp Cut with the Kitchen Knife Through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany, Hannah Höch Spirituality Skat Players (Card-Playing War Cripples), Otto Dix Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Grey and Blue, Piet Mondrian De Stijl and Neo-Plasticism Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale, Max Ernst Black Iris, Georgia O’KeeffeCONFLICT AND DEGENERACY: 1927–1955 The Persistence of Memory, Salvador Dalí The Doll, Hans Bellmer Degenerate Art The Broken Column, Frida Kahlo The Second World War Dhôtel Nuancé D’Abricot, Jean Dubuffet Number One, 1950 (Lavender Mist), Jackson Pollock Erased de Kooning Drawing, Robert Rauschenberg Experimentation Untitled Anthropometry (Ant 106), Yves Klein Artist’s Shit, Piero ManzoniCOMMERCIALISM AND PROTEST: 1956–1989 Concetto Spaziale, Lucio Fontana Brillo Boxes, Andy Warhol Materialism Pop and High Culture Equivalent VIII, Carl Andre Anatomic Explosion on Wall Street, Yayoi Kusama New Materials Trademarks, Vito Acconci Rhythm O, Marina Abramovic The Dinner Party, Judy Chicago Feminism Arroz con Pollo, Jean-Michel Basquiat Nan One Month After Being Battered, Nan Goldin Immersion (Piss Chris), Andres Serrano Untitled (Your Body is a Battle Ground), Barbara Kruge Do Women Have to be Naked to get into the Met. Museum?, Guerrilla GirlsBEYOND THE FRAME: 1990–PRESENT The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, Damien Hirst Light Sentence, Mona Hatoum Propped, Jenny Saville Untitled (House), Rachel Whiteread Installations Globalization Yo Mama’s Last Supper, Renee Cox La Nona Ora, Maurizio Cattelan Cell XXVI, Louise Bourgeois Svayambhu, Anish Kapoor Tatlin’s Whisper #5, Tania Bruguera Performance Art Computerization A Subtlety, Kara Walker Love is in the Bin (Girl with Balloon), Banksy Glossary Picture Credits Index Acknowledgements

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Book SynopsisWhat makes a work of art a masterpiece? Discover the answers in the fascinating stories of how these artworks came to be and the circumstances of their long-lasting impact on the world. Beginning with Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, we travel through time and a range of styles and stories – including theft, scandal, artistic reputation, politics and power – to Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans, challenging the idea of what a masterpiece can be, and arriving in the twenty-first century with Amy Sherald’s portrait of Michelle Obama, a modern-day masterpiece still to be tested by time.   Each artwork has a tale that reveals making a masterpiece often involves much more than just a demonstration of artistic skill: their path to fame is only fully disclosed by looking beyond what the eye can see. Rather than trying to describe the elements of greatness, Making a Masterpiece takes aTable of ContentsIntroduction Birth of Venus Sandro Botticelli Mona Lisa Leonardo da Vinci Judith Beheading Holofernes Artemisia Gentileschi Girl with a Pearl Earring Johannes Vermeer The Great Wave Katsushika Hokusai Fifteen Sunflowers Vincent van Gogh Woman in Gold Gustav Klimt American Gothic Grant Wood Guernica Pablo Picasso Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird Frida Kahlo Campbell’s Soup Cans Andy Warhol Michelle Obama Amy Sherald Endnotes Select Bibliography Index Picture Credits Acknowledgements About the Author

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Book SynopsisFollowing key terms from AZ, these books illuminate little-known aspects and shed new light on familiar motifs and themes. This time about the artist Edvard MunchEdvard Munch is one of the most famous painters of the early 20th century and a role model for many artists to this day. His legendary painting Scream even inspired a popular emoji, something that no other artist has ever achieved. Munch had a unique way of placing himself as an individual in the foreground of his art, making his psychological state the subject of his work. In doing so, he created a personal and at the same time universal diary of the soul that still captivates us today, as international exhibitions of the Norwegian artist show. In twenty-six short chapters, from A for anxiety to G for ghosts, R for revolvers and Z for zoo, familiar but also surprising aspects of his art and life are presented in a compelling way.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"José Ortega y Gasset is certainly the greatest philosophical essayist of the first half of the 20th century, and very likely one of its few genuinely seminal minds. . . . The Dehumanization of Art is still among the best efforts to define and interpret the radical break in continuity between modern art and the whole Renaissance tradition of representation which ended in the 19th century."—Joseph Frank, New Republic"An erudite and magnanimous capitulation of the old to the young . . . both wise and noble."—Mark Helprin, New Criterion

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Book SynopsisArt historian George A. Kubler (1912-1996) was a foundational scholar of ancient American art and archaeology as well as Spanish and Portuguese architecture. During over five decades at Yale University, he published seventeen books that included innovative monographs, major works of synthesis, and an influential theoretical treatise. In this biography, Thomas F. Reese analyzes the early formation, broad career, and writings of Kubler, casting nuanced light on the origins and development of his thinking. Notable in Reese's discussion and contextualization of Kubler's writings is a revealing history and analysis of his Shape of Time-a book so influential to students, scholars, artists, and curious readers in multiple disciplines that it has been continuously in print since 1962. Reese reveals how pivotal its ideas were in Kubler's own thinking: rather than focusing on problems of form as an ordering principle, he increasingly came to sequence works by how they communicate meaning. The author demonstrates how Kubler, who professed to have little interest in theory, devoted himself to the craft of art history, discovering and charting the rules that guided the propagation of structure and significance through time.

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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 SynopsisA history of the last 50 years of curating told through Hans Ulrich Obrist''s interviews with legendary curators Anne D''Harnoncourt, Werner Hoffman, Jean Leering, Franz Meyer, Seth Siegelaub, Walter Zanini, Johannes Cladders, Lucy Lippard, Walter Hopps, Pontus Hulten, and Harald SzeemannPart of JRPRinger''s innovative Documents series, published with Les Presses du R?el and dedicated to critical writings, this publication comprises a unique collection of interviews by Hans Ulrich Obrist mapping the development of the curatorial field--from early independent curators in the 1960s and 70s and the experimental institutional programs developed in Europe and the U.S. through the inception of Documenta and the various biennales and fairs--with pioneering curators Anne D''Harnoncourt, Werner Hoffman, Jean Leering, Franz Meyer, Seth Siegelaub, Walter Zanini, Johannes Cladders, Lucy Lippard, Walter Hopps, Pontus Hulten and Harald Szeemann. Speaking of Szeemann on the occasion of this legendary curator''s death in 2005, critic Aaron Schuster summed up, the image we have of the curator today: the curator-as-artist, a roaming, freelance designer of exhibitions, or in his own witty formulation, a ''spiritual guest worker''... If artists since Marcel Duchamp have affirmed selection and arrangement as legitimate artistic strategies, was it not simply a matter of time before curatorial practice--itself defined by selection and arrangement--would come to be seen as an art that operates on the field of art itself?

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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 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 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 SynopsisWhen it comes to viewing art, living in the information age is not necessarily a benefit. So argues Michael Findlay in this book that encourages a new way of looking at art. Much of this thinking involves stripping away what we have been taught and instead trusting our own instincts, opinions, and reactions. Including reproductions of works by Mark Rothko, Paul Klee, Joan Miro , Jacob Lawrence, and other modern and contemporary masters, this book takes readers on a journey through modern art. Chapters such as "What Is a Work of Art?" "Can We Look and See at the Same Time?" and "Real Connoisseurs Are Not Snobs," not only give readers the confidence to form their own opinions, but also encourages them to make connections that spark curiosity, intellect, and imagination. "The most important thing for us to grasp," writes Findlay, "is that the essence of a great work of art is inert until it is seen. Our engagement with the work of art liberates its essence." After reading this book, even the most intimidated art viewer will enter a museum or gallery feeling more confident and leave it feeling enriched and inspired.Trade Review"I highly recommend Michael Findlay's new book, Seeing Slowly: Looking at Modern Art, published in September by Prestel. A longtime director at New York's Acquavella Galleries and, before that, the longtime head of Christie's department of Impressionist and modern art, Findlay is a veteran of the most specialized art speak and practical matters of history, condition, provenance - the works. Nevertheless, he believes that an appreciation of great art does not depend on knowledge of context and, in some cases, can actually be hindered by it." - Sarah Douglas, Editor-in-Chief, ArtNews

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Book Synopsis'Approaching the different and manifold sequences in this book...one will gradually come to realise that metamorphosis can become an ideal for knowledge, a guiding path for self-knowledge and knowledge of the world - as intuitive contemplation and as artistic creation.' - Dr Peter Wolf What is metamorphosis? Through the medium of art, sculptor Gertraud Goodwin invites us to enter the realm of time and continuously changing movement in this highly original book. With chapters by various artists and writers, interwoven with her key insights, Goodwin offers numerous points of entry to understanding the mystery of metamorphosis. Profusely-illustrated in colour, we are shown many sequences of images - of sculptures, reliefs and graphic works - which, with the aid of informed commentary, we are invited to 'read'. These images belong together, developing from one to the next - just as single experiences and events in life belong to our biographies. One motif, one movement, passes through all stages, from simple beginnings and more differentiated formations, to a culmination - and, from there, back to a more mature simplicity and concentration, which makes a new beginning possible.' In relation to the transcendent, where ordinary words fail, the language of form, texture and relations in space, like those of music in time, offer alternatives to words, perhaps less encumbered by preconceptions. These pages offer many examples of the beauties and mysteries of metamorphosis, which is itself an essential component of Nature's creative language.' - Dr Philip Kilner

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Book SynopsisThis is a cultural history of mathematics and art, from antiquity to the present. Mathematicians and artists have long been on a quest to understand the physical world they see before them and the abstract objects they know by thought alone. Taking readers on a tour of the practice of mathematics and the philosophical ideas that drive the disciplinTrade Review"This is a marvelous coffee table book ... very well researched and documented. It touches upon so many fundamental questions that philosophers, scientists, mathematicians and artists have asked since antiquity. But yet it guides the reader smoothly through all these competing visions and theories without becoming dull or getting lost in abstraction. This is the history of Western civilization with particular interest in art and mathematics, illuminating and instructive, and all wrapped up in a rich, colorful, and fancy book."--Adhemar Bultheel, European Mathematical Society "This is the beauty and power of this book: [Mathematics and Art] is an intellectual tour de force of art history and its interaction with mathematics that will draw most readers, including me, back for further reading and study."--Frank Swetz, MAA Reviews "Excellent new book... Overall this is a comprehensive, valuable and detailed book. It is written in an accessible style, with enough mathematics to interest the technical reader without overwhelming one with an arts background... Its rich anthology is particularly relevant today, given the explosion of interest in the digital arts and the need for digital artists to use maths creatively. I will definitely be keeping it close at hand."--William Latham, New Scientist "The author does an artful job in creating a wide-ranging and beautifully illustrated survey that mathematicians and art historians will enjoy."--John Barrow, The Art Newspaper "This sumptuously illustrated book chronicles the history of mathematics through its intersection with the development of visual art... Gamwell articulates the compelling, far-reaching connections within these fields in a way that is rewarding for scholars yet accessible to non-specialists."--Choice "Beautiful books that display the beauty of art are fine additions to many coffee tables; beautiful books that display the beauty of mathematics are fine additions to few coffee tables. Gamwell's impressive work integrates the beauty of these two disciplines to create a work larger than their sum... A book for all ages and of all ages: truly a brilliant 'millennial' composition!"--Sandra L. Arlinghaus, Mathematical Reviews "This splendidly produced volume will appeal to everybody interested in mathematics and art and offers room for agreement and disagreement with the author... This volume stands out by its richness in contents, its wealth of colour reproductions and, last but not least, its very affordable price."--Dirk Werner, Zentralblatt MATH "This wonderful book gives a very thorough overview of the impact of mathematics (and science) of the visual arts (and architecture) over the centuries."--Eos "An interesting read, filled with paradigm-shifting history and art, the book still posits a linear perspective of the relationship of art and mathematics, specifically recounting the ways math has influenced art."--Karie Brown, Mathematics Teacher "A monumental volume... Excellently illustrated by 523 images... Many highlighted quotations from writings of outstanding personalities of the sciences and the arts make the volume more colourful."--Gyorgy Darvas, Symmetry "Mathematics and Art is an enjoyable read accessible to anyone interested in the history of mathematics and art."--Andre Michael Hahn, British Journal for the History of ScienceTable of ContentsFOREWORD by Neil deGrasse Tyson IX PREFACE XI 1 Arithmetic and Geometry 1 2 Proportion 73 3 Infinity 109 4 Formalism 151 5 Logic 197 6 Intuitionism 225 7 Symmetry 249 8 Utopian Visions after World War I 277 9 The Incompleteness of Mathematics 321 10 Computation 355 1 1 Geometric Abstraction after World War II 385 12 Computers in Mathematics and Art 455 13 Platonism in the Postmodern Era 499 NOTES 512 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 547 CREDITS 548 INDEX 549

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