Theory of art Books

'Great art has dreadful manners...' Simon Schama observes at the start of his epic exploration of the power, and whole point, of art. 'The hushed reverence of the gallery can fool you into believing masterpieces are polite things, visions that soothe, charm and beguile, but actually they are thugs. ...

The Dinka have a connoisseur's appreciation of the patterns and colours of the markings on their cattle. The Japanese tea ceremony is regarded as a performance art. Some cultures produce carving but no drawing; others specialize in poetry. Yet despite the rich variety of artistic expression to be fo...

While the collected writings of many major 20th-century artists, including Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell and Ad Reinhardt, have been published, Mark Rothko's writings have only recently come to light, beginning with the critically acclaimed "Artist's Reality: Philosophies of Art". Rothko's other...

This work provides a 12-week course that guides the reader through the process of recovering their creative self. It aims to dispel the "I'm not talented enough" conditioning that tends to hamper the creativity of many people. With the basic principle that creative expression is the nat...

"Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.""But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but word can never undo the fact that we are surro...

'Art and Photography' surveys a rich and important history, from the 1960s to the 21st century. Arranged thematically, it presents works by the most significant international artists who have explored and extended the boundaries of photography. This influential body of work by over 160 artists over ...

Behind the closed door of the contemporary artist 's studio is a hidden world of images those artworks from the distant or near past that have animated, troubled, consoled, or inspired the artists of today. This book reveals that hidden world, presenting an intimate guide to the imaginations of toda...

Art historical theory is a forum of intense, often passionate debate. This book provides an accessible introduction to the range of critical theories used in analysing art. It covers a broad range of approaches, presenting individual arguments, controversies and divergent perspectives. This second e...

A richly illustrated and extremely enjoyable reference book on the historical evolution of the nude. From the Paleolithic "great mothers" to the Greek athletes, from the Venus of Urbino by Titian to Leonardo's Vitruvian Man, from the Odalisque by Boucher to those by Ingres, to the Amazons of Helmut ...

Frontiers of Pleasure calls into question a number of influential modern notions regarding aesthetics by going back to the very beginnings of aesthetic thought in Greece and raising critical issues regarding conceptions of how one responds to the beautiful. Despite a recent rebirth of interest in ae...

In the face of unparalleled growth and a truly global audience, the popularity of contemporary art has clearly become a double-edged affair. Today, an unprecedented number of museums, galleries, biennial-style exhibitions, and art fairs display new work in all its variety, while art schools continue...

Philippe Daverio is one of Italy's most important contemporary art historians, whose discerning comments about art are voraciously consumed by the public through his writing as editor of the famed magazine "Art e Dossier" and his platform on a leading Italian television program "Passepartout." Now, ...

Art today is an increasingly multifaceted phenomenon, encompassing transgressive works that intervene in war, inequalities, ecological disasters, and revolutionary changes in technology. Carnal Aesthetics is a fascinating new examination of this aspect of contemporary visual culture. Employing recen...

Design is now one of the world's major industries - from the rarified world of elite designers creating high-end products and environments for wealthy consumers to the increasingly pervasive culture of brand management and mass consumption. The study of Design involves the analysis of both the form,...

An updated edition of the hugely successful original anthology that captures the essence and the edge of the contemporary art scene. Reedited to include new essays that cover today's topics such as new media and repatriation, this volume brings together a broad selection of important contributions t...

Design is now one of the world's major industries - from the rarified world of elite designers creating high-end products and environments for wealthy consumers to the increasingly pervasive culture of brand management and mass consumption. The study of Design involves the analysis of both the form,...

These essays by art historian and critic Charles Harrison are based on the premise that making art and talking about art are related enterprises. They are written from the point of view of Art and Language, the artistic movement based in England-and briefly in the United States - with which Harrison...

"Visible Signs: An Introduction to Semiotics" (2nd Edition) is an update to the popular first edition of the same name, in which David Crow introduces design students to the fundamentals of semiotics. Basic semiotic theories are taught in most art schools as part of a contextual studies programme, b...

Fighting Words and Images is the first comprehensive interdisciplinary and theoretical analysis of war representations across time periods from Classical Antiquity to the present day and across languages, cultures, and media including print, painting, sculpture, architecture, and photography.Featuri...

This text provides an accessible historical progression through the attempting to draw out more general issues and implications. The discussion of key figures such as Picasso, Matisse, Pollock and Warhol, and movements such as Cubism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and Minimal Art is animated by...

Author BiographyRudolf Arnheim (1904-2007) was Professor Emeritus of the Psychology of Art at Harvard University and Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Sarah Lawrence College. He was author of many books, including Art and Visual Perception, Film as Art, Power of the Center, and Visual Thinking.

As a novelist, essayist, and cultural historian, John Berger is a writer of dazzling eloquence and arresting insight whose work amounts to a subtle, powerful critique of the canons of our civilization. In About Looking he explores our role as observers to reveal new layers of meaning in what we see....

This is the first study of a fascinating, international phenomenon in the art of the past century. 'Naked portraiture' is an original hybrid of the traditional genres of the nude and portrait, and has been created by an astonishing range of major artists, in many different media and in a variety of ...

Learning to Look at Paintings is an accessible guide to the study and appraisal of paintings, drawings and prints. Mary Acton shows how you can develop visual, analytical and historical skills in learning to look at and understand an image by analysing how it works, what its pictorial elements are a...

How do we see the world around us? "The Penguin on Design" series includes the works of creative thinkers whose writings on art, design and the media have changed our vision forever. "Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak." "But, there is also another sense in...

One of the most important works of cultural theory ever written, Walter Benjamin's groundbreaking essay explores how the age of mass media means audiences can listen to or see a work of art repeatedly - and what the troubling social and political implications of this are. Throughout history, some bo...

The second revised edition of this classic book integrates text and pictures more clearly than in previous editions. Further illustrations have been added to include more colour diagrams and examples of current work done by students in recent years. The revisions were made by the author's widow, a l...

Film: The Key Concepts presents a coherent, clear and exciting overview of film theory for beginning readers. The book takes the reader through the often conflicting analyses that make up film theory, illustrating arguments with examples from mainstream and independent films. Concise and comprehensi...

A pioneering work in the movement to free art from its traditional bonds to material reality, this book is one of the most important documents in the history of modern art. Written by the famous nonobjective painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), it explains Kandinsky's own theory of painting and cr...

The central argument of "Chromophobia" is that a chromophobic impulse - a fear of corruption or contamination through colour - lurks within much Western cultural and intellectual thought. This is apparent in the many and varied attempts to purge colour, either by making it the property of some 'fore...

"Art" has always been contested terrain, whether the object in question is a medieval tapestry or Duchamp's "Fountain." But questions about the categories of "art" and "art history" acquired increased urgency during the 1970s, when new developments in critical theory and other intellectual projects ...

This book demystifies its subject for professionals and students alike. It inspires confidence in colour's application to graphic design, illustration, painting, textile art, and textile design. In addition to covering the fundamentals of colour theory, the author provides assignments that guide the...

Embodying the entire system of Robert Henris teaching, The Art Spirit contains much valuable advice, critical comment, and inspiration to every student of the arts.Author BiographyRobert Henri was born in Cincinnati in 1865 and died in 1929. He led the Ashcan School movement in art, and attracted a ...

Written with clarity, wit, and rigor, The Philosophy of Art provides an incisive account of the core topics in the field. * The first volume in the new Foundations of the Philosophy of the Arts series, designed to provide crisp introductions to the fundamental general questions about art, as well as...

Postmodernism has been a buzzword in contemporary society for the last decade. But how can it be defined? In this Very Short Introduction Christopher Butler challenges and explores the key ideas of postmodernists, and their engagement with theory, literature, the visual arts, film, architecture, and...