Drawings and paintings are made, and the process of making creates unique meanings that transform our perception of space-time and our sense of finitude. By using a phenomenological approach, the understanding of art practice and its relation to particular historical and cultural contexts can be significantly enhanced.

There are as many meanings to drawing and painting as there are cultural contexts for them to exist in. But this is not the end of the story. Drawings and paintings are made, and in their making embody unique meanings that transform our perception of space-time and sense of finitude. These meanings have not been addressed by art history or visual studies hitherto, and have only been considered indirectly by philosophers (mainly in the phenomenological tradition). If these intrinsic meanings are explained and further developed, then the philosophy of art practice is significantly enhanced. The present work, accordingly, is a phenomenology of how the gestural and digital creation of visual imagery generates self-transformation through aesthetic space.

One of America's most celebrated art critics offers a lively meditation on the nature of art.

Introduction to Art: Design, Context, and Meaning offers a deep insight and comprehension of the world of Art. Contents: What is Art? The Structure of Art Significance of Materials Used in Art Describing Art - Formal Analysis, Types, and Styles of Art Meaning in Art - Socio-Cultural Contexts, Symbolism, and Iconography Connecting Art to Our Lives Form in Architecture Art and Identity Art and Power Art and Ritual Life - Symbolism of Space and Ritual Objects, Mortality, and Immortality Art and Ethics

After more than thirty years of research and teaching, artist Valerie Winslow has compiled her unique methods of drawing human anatomy into one groundbreaking volume: Classic Human Anatomy. This long-awaited book provides simple, insightful approaches to the complex subject of human anatomy, using drawings, diagrams, and reader-friendly text. Three major sections–the skeletal form, the muscular form and action of the muscles, and movement–break the material down into easy-to-understand pieces. More than 800 distinctive illustrations detail the movement and actions of the bones and muscles, and unique charts reveal the origins and insertions of the muscles. Packed with an extraordinary wealth of information, Classic Human Anatomy is sure to become a new classic of art instruction.

Beyond Vision is the first English-language collection of essays on art by Pavel Florensky (1882–1937), Russian philosopher, priest, linguist, scientist, mathematician – and art historian. In addition to seven essays by Florensky, the book includes a biographical introduction and an examination of Florensky’s contribution as an art historian by Nicoletta Misler. Beyond Vision reveals Florensky’s fundamental attitudes to the vital questions of construction, composition, chronology, function and destination in the fields of painting, sculpture and design. His reputation as a theologian and philosopher is already established in the English-speaking world, but this first collection in English of his art essays (translated by Wendy Salmond) will be a revelation to those in the field. Pavel Florensky was a true polymath: trained in mathematics and philosophy at Moscow University, he rejected a scholarship in advanced mathematics in order to study theology at the Moscow Theological Academy. He was also an expert linguist, scientist and art historian. A victim of the Soviet government’s animosity towards religion, he was condemned to a Siberian labor camp in 1933 where he continued his work under increasingly difficult circumstances. He was executed in 1937.

Pioneering work by the great modernist painter, considered by many to be the father of abstract art and a leader in the movement to free art from traditional bonds. 12 illustrations.

Presents a set of basic exercises designed to release creative potential and tap into the special abilities of the brain's right hemisphere.

An acclaimed art historian explains how to identify excellence in art In this book, Jakob Rosenberg takes up the timeless problem of how to make a valid judgment about artistic quality. In his search for criteria of excellence in art, Rosenberg examines both the achievements and failures of other critics from the Renaissance to modern times, including Giorgio Vasari, Roger de Piles, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Théophile Thoré, and Roger Fry. Drawing vital lessons from these critics’ writings, Rosenberg charts an effective approach to the challenges of judging quality in works of art by analyzing master drawings from the fifteenth to twentieth centuries and comparing them with examples of followers or minor contemporaries. The result is a set of practical criteria that are applicable across diverse periods and styles. Brimming with insights from a legendary art critic and historian, On Quality in Art sheds invaluable light on drawings by artists ranging from Dürer, Raphael, Leonardo, Rubens, Rembrandt, Watteau, Degas, and van Gogh to Matisse, Picasso, and Marin.