In authoritative prose and breathtaking full-color reproductions, this remarkable compendium offers a comprehensive selection of indisputable masterpieces, including paintings, sculptures, and architecture. A double-page spread introduces each major step in the development of the Western tradition, and a selection of important dates runs across the top of each page, putting the works in their cultural context.

A compact edition of Hockney and Gayford's brilliantly original book, with updated material and brand-new pieces of art Informed and energized by a lifetime of painting, drawing, and making images with cameras, David Hockney, in collaboration with art critic Martin Gayford, explores how and why pictures have been made across the millennia. Juxtaposing a rich variety of images--a still from a Disney cartoon with a Japanese woodblock print by Hiroshige, a scene from an Eisenstein film with a Velazquez paint-ing--the authors cross the normal boundaries between high culture and popular entertainment, and argue that film, photography, paint-ing, and drawing are deeply interconnected. Featuring a revised final chapter with some of Hockney's latest works, this new, compact edition of A History of Pictures remains a significant contribution to the discussion of how artists represent reality.

"The World's Greatest Art" series has been hugely successful on the back of the best-selling bigger book "The World's Greatest Art". Now, to fit in with the series as a whole we've introduced this "Brief History of Art" which covers popular art from 1200.

The definitive survey of Western art is now available in a deluxe, one-volume slipcased edition, bound in rich cloth and stamped in gold foil. 1,243 illustrations, 736 in color. 111 line drawings. 12 maps.

A friendly and inspiring introduction to art history, telling the stories of the world's greatest paintings and artists from prehistory to the modern day The Story of Paintings begins with the cave paintings of our Stone Age ancestors and continues through to the modern day. Mick Manning and Brita Granström take your on a tour of their personally selected gallery which showcases the work of some of the world's most famous artists and few a less well-known ones. The artists featured include van Eyck, da Vinci, Bruegel, Rembrandt, Velázquez, JMW Turner, Van Gogh, Monet, Matisse, Georgia O'Keefe, Picasso, Frida Kahlo and Jackson Pollock as well as Dame Laura Knight and Kalan Khan. The friendly text and illustrations help children to appreciate the art, highlighting interesting biographical details and picking out key details to spot. The book's large format means the art is reproduced on a wonderfully impactful scale. This really is a book to give and treasure. The creative team of Mick Manning and Brita Granström are well-known for their ground breaking children's information books. Their many awards range the TES Information Book Award for What's Under the Bed? and the English Association Non-fiction award for Charlie's War Illustrated.

This thought-provoking and original book argues that hyperimages—calculated displays of images on walls or pages—have played a major role in the history of art. In exhibitions, illustrated art books, and classrooms, artworks or their photographic reproductions are arranged as calculated ensembles that have their own importance. In this volume, Felix Thürlemann develops a theory of this type of image use, arguing that with each new gathering of images, an art object is reinterpreted. These hyperimages have played a major role in the history of art since the seventeenth century, and the main actors of the art world are all hyperimage creators. In part because the hyperimage is not permanently available, this interplay of images has been largely unexplored. Through case studies organized within three groups of producers—collectors and curators, art historians, and artists—Thürlemann proposes a theory of the hyperimage, explores the semiotic nature of this plural image use, and discusses the arrangement and interpretation of such pictures in order to illuminate the phenomenon of Western image culture from the beginning of the seventeenth century until today. His analysis of the ways in which images are assembled and associated provides a crucial context for the explosive present-day deployment of images on digital devices.

A unique visual resource with over 2,000 illustrations.

Art history is more than just a collection of dates and foreign-sounding names, obscure movements and arcane isms. Every age, for the last 50,000 years has left its unique imprint on the world, and from the first cave paintings to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, from the Byzantine mosaics of the Hagia Sophia, to the graffiti-inspired paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat, art history tells the story of our evolving notions of who and what we are and our place in the universe. Whether you’re an art enthusiast who’d like to know more about the history behind your favorite works and artists, or somebody who couldn’t tell a Titian and a De Kooning—but would like to—Art History For Dummies is for you. It takes you on a tour of thirty millennia of artistic expression, covering the artistic movements, major artists, and indispensable masterworks, and the world events and cultural trends that helped spawn them. With the help of stunning black-and-white photos throughout, and a sixteen-page gallery of color images, it covers: The rise and fall of classical art in Greece and Rome The differences between Renaissance art and Mannerism How the industrial revolution spawned Romanticism How and why Post-Impression branched off from Impressionism Constructivism, Dadaism, Surrealism and other 20th century isms What’s up with today’s eclectic art scene Art History For Dummies is an unbeatable reference for anyone who wants to understand art in its historical context.

Looking at pictures can be enjoyable, exciting or moving. Some pictures are easily appreciated at first glance, but others - often the most rewarding - require some explanation before they can be fully understood. This clearly written and enjoyable book is intended to increase pleasure and stimulate thought. It tackles many aspects of looking at paintings as well. Starting with familiar ideas, Dr Susan Woodford moves on to explore subtler, less obvious concepts. For example, she shows how paintings can be appreciated as patterns on a flat surface emotional effect; how ordinary objects can conceal hidden meanings and how knowledge of tradition improves our understanding of revolutionary works.

"This book by Nils Buttner traces the history of gardens, as seen through the eyes of artists, over the course of 2,000 years. The focus of this book is not gardens themselves or different concepts of the garden, but rather the representation of gardens in art. In this study the author explains why pictures of gardens are a mirror of the social, historical, and aesthetic context in which gardens were conceived. He also examines how artists paint gardens by presenting some 185 beautifully reproduced pictures, including full views and details of both well-heralded and little-known masterpieces." "The wide-ranging coverage includes late-medieval devotional pictures featuring Madonnas in idyllic gardens, Botticelli's masterwork La Primavera, an allegory of love, set in a grove of orange trees, that was created for a bridal chamber; sixteenth-century views of well-known historic gardens, like those of the Vatican, which were in demand because of a new interest in geography and topography; realistic depictions of nature, without any attempt to beautify it, by Courbet and other so-called "naturalists'; painters' gardens, like Monet's Giverny; and representations of modern gardens, like David Hockney's Red Pots in the Garden, which are extremely varied in style and reflect the artist's subjectivity. In sum, the carefully chosen paintings in this book represent a progression of developments in art history and foster a deep appreciation for actual gardens as well as paintings of them."--BOOK JACKET.