This text provides students with a wonderfully written introduction to art that emphasizes critical thinking and visual literacy.Developing Visual Literacy. The Themes of Art. Seeing the Value in Art. Line. Space. Light and Color. Other Formal Elements. The Principles of Design. Drawing. Printmaking. Painting. The Camera Arts. Sculpture. Other Three-Dimensional Media. Architecture. Design. The Ancient World. The Christian Era. The Renaissance Through the Baroque. The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. The Twentieth Century.For anyone looking to develop an appreciation for a diverse range of art.

A gorgeously illustrated and engaging guide to the world of art. Immerse yourself in the amazing world of art in this beautiful book with text by Helena Hunt, stylishly illustrated by the inimitable print-maker James Brown. What is art, and how have we used it to express ourselves throughout history? From cave painting right up to pop art; the Renaissance to twentieth-century sculpture, discover the stories behind great movements, processes and artists - both the household names and the perhaps not-so-familiar. Covering thirty topics, including printing, pigment, ceramics and pattern and photography, as well as Impressionism, Romanticism and Surrealism, this is a thoughtful and easily digestible approach to a huge subject.

More than 500 large-size photographs of paintings, chronologically arranged, provide a journey through Western art, from the Gothic to the Renaissance to Neo-Classicism. Full-color.

"The definitive reference for art lovers of any level of knowledge and understanding. Packed with paintings by popular and essential artists from all over the world, this comprehensive new book is organized by era to reveal the development of art over time."--p. [4] of cover.

A fly-on-the-wall account of the smart and strange subcultures that make, trade, curate, collect, and hype contemporary art. The art market has been booming. Museum attendance is surging. More people than ever call themselves artists. Contemporary art has become a mass entertainment, a luxury good, a job description, and, for some, a kind of alternative religion. In a series of beautifully paced narratives, Sarah Thornton investigates the drama of a Christie's auction, the workings in Takashi Murakami's studios, the elite at the Basel Art Fair, the eccentricities of Artforum magazine, the competition behind an important art prize, life in a notorious art-school seminar, and the wonderland of the Venice Biennale. She reveals the new dynamics of creativity, taste, status, money, and the search for meaning in life. A judicious and juicy account of the institutions that have the power to shape art history, based on hundreds of interviews with high-profile players, Thornton's entertaining ethnography will change the way you look at contemporary culture.

From a world authority on impressionism and nineteenth-century French art comes this new addition to the World of Art series on the art and life of Claude Monet. One of the most famous and admired painters of all time, Claude Monet (1840– 1926) was the architect of impressionism—a revolution that gave birth to modern art. His technique of painting outside at the seashore or in city streets was as radically new as his subject matter: the landscapes and middle-class pastimes of a newly industrialized Paris. Working with unprecedented immediacy and authenticity, Monet claimed that his work was both natural and true, and therefore, entirely novel. In Monet, James H. Rubin, one of the world’s foremost specialists in nineteenth-century French art, traces Monet’s development, from his early work as a caricaturist to the late paintings of water lilies and his garden at Giverny. Rubin explores the cultural currents that helped shape Monet’s work, including the utopian thought that gave rise to his politics, his interest in Japanese prints and gardening, and his relationship with earlier French landscape painters and contemporaries such as E´douard Manet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Featuring more than 150 color illustrations of his key works, Rubin establishes Monet as the inspiration for generations of avant-garde artists and a true patriarch of modern art.

An introduction to the art of the Internet examines key works, events, and technological developments that show how artists have employed online technologies to engage with the traditions of art history, focusing on the themes of intellectual property, identity, economics, and power in the networked age. Original.

A best book of the year from New York Public Library, NPR, the Financial Times, Book Riot, and the Sunday Times (London). A fascinating, revelatory portrait of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its treasures by a former New Yorker staffer who spent a decade as a museum guard. Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. But only a select few have unrestricted access to every nook and cranny. They’re the guards who roam unobtrusively in dark blue suits, keeping a watchful eye on the two million square foot treasure house. Caught up in his glamorous fledgling career at The New Yorker, Patrick Bringley never thought he’d be one of them. Then his older brother was diagnosed with fatal cancer and he found himself needing to escape the mundane clamor of daily life. So he quit The New Yorker and sought solace in the most beautiful place he knew. To his surprise and the reader’s delight, this temporary refuge becomes Bringley’s home away from home for a decade. We follow him as he guards delicate treasures from Egypt to Rome, strolls the labyrinths beneath the galleries, wears out nine pairs of company shoes, and marvels at the beautiful works in his care. Bringley enters the museum as a ghost, silent and almost invisible, but soon finds his voice and his tribe: the artworks and their creators and the lively subculture of museum guards—a gorgeous mosaic of artists, musicians, blue-collar stalwarts, immigrants, cutups, and dreamers. As his bonds with his colleagues and the art grow, he comes to understand how fortunate he is to be walled off in this little world, and how much it resembles the best aspects of the larger world to which he gradually, gratefully returns. In the tradition of classic workplace memoirs like Lab Girl and Working Stiff, All The Beauty in the World is a surprising, inspiring portrait of a great museum, its hidden treasures, and the people who make it tick, by one of its most intimate observers.

Experience the uplifting power of art on this breathtaking visual tour of 2,500 paintings and sculptures created by more than 700 artists from Michelangelo to Damien Hirst. This beautiful book brings you the very best of world art from cave paintings to Neoexpressionism. Enjoy iconic must-see works, such as Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper and Monet's Waterlilies and discover less familiar artists and genres from all parts of the globe. Art That Changed the World covers the full sweep of world art, including the Ming era in China, and Japanese, Hindu, and Indigenous Australian art. It analyses recurring themes such as love and religion, explaining key genres from Romanesque to Conceptual art. Art That Changed the World explores each artist's key works and vision, showing details of their technique, such as Leonardo's use of light and shade. It tells the story of avant-garde works like Manet's Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe (Lunch on the Grass), which scandalized society, and traces how one genre informed another - showing how the Impressionists were inspired by Gustave Courbet, for example, and how Van Gogh was influenced by Japanese prints. Lavishly illustrated throughout, look no further for your essential guide to the pantheon of world art.