Description
Book SynopsisA beautifully illustrated survey of the relationship between the development of books, the artist and Western pictorial art from the 15th to the 20th centuries.
Trade Review'A fascinating look at the ways in which artists have sought to communicate, entertain and intrigue their audience through the inclusion of books in their paintings' - History Today
'The authors’ pooled expertise in history, art and publishing inform this sweeping exploration of that treasured human possession, the book … a fascinating work, by its very nature gorgeous' - Saga
'A scenic wander through what turns out to be rather more than a byway of art history' - Art Book Review
'A beautiful book which acknowledges how art and literature both define us and make commentary on us as civilized beings' - Book Murmuration
'Charming … our interactions with books during the last 500 years are more symbolic than we might think, and are therefore unlikely to be completely replaced' - Mr Porter
'Essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the long, interwoven histories of paintings and books' - .Cent magazine
'Fascinating … a book full of surprises' - Shiny New Books
'Academically thorough' - The Times, Art Books of the Year
'Gorgeously illustrated ... Buy six copies and declare your Christmas shopping over' - Literary Review
'Dark winter evenings have been lit up here in Oxford by this intricate work of great subtlety, strangeness, and delight. I’ve been stopped in my tracks by thought-provoking turns in the text' - Alexandra Harris, author of 'Romantic Moderns'
Table of ContentsPART ONE: 1. How It All Began • 2. Who Invented ‘the Artist’? • 3. Courtly Cultures and their Undercurrents • 4 . ‘People are Stuffed with Reading Matter’ • 5 . Books and the Painting of ‘Modern Life’ • 6 . Things Hold Together • PART TWO: Painting is ‘Like a book … which needs to give up its riches’ • Gallery 1. The Word of God • Gallery 2. ‘Book-Love’ and the Home • Gallery 3. Perennial Pleasures in Multiple Locations • Gallery 4. ‘All that Men Held Wise’
