General Arts topics Books

Almost more than artists, art critics today form an elite class that legislates cultural tastes. The Crisis of Criticism is a collection of brilliantly argued, provocative essays that address the problematic nature of the critic's authority and...

As one of the people who defined punk's protest art in the 1970s and 1980s, Gee Vaucher (b. 1945) deserves to be much better-known. She produced confrontational album covers for the legendary anarchist band Crass and later went on to do the same for...

The avant garde is dead, or so the story goes for many leftists and capitalists alike. But in an era of neoliberal austerity, neocolonial militarism and ecological crisis, this postmodern view seems increasingly outmoded. Rejecting 'end of ideology'...

The book examines how increasing engagement with the rest of the world transformed European art, architecture and design. It considers how commercial activity and colonial ventures gave rise to new and diverse forms of visual and material culture across...

Inspired by recent approaches to the field, the book reexamines the field of Renaissance art history by exploring the art of this era in the light of global connections. It considers the movement of objects, ideas and technologies and its significance...

Examines how images of accumulation help open up the climate to political mobilizationThe current epoch is one of accumulation: not only of capital but also of raw, often unruly material, from plastic in the ocean and carbon in the atmosphere to people,...

Thisnew edition of T. V. Reed's acclaimed work offers accounts of ten keyprogressive movements in postwar America, from the African American strugglefor civil rights beginning in the 1950s to Occupy Wall Street and Black LivesMatter in the twenty-first...

Bring your own manga characters to life!With millions of fans around the world, manga is a beloved art form. Now you, too, can learn how to draw your favourite characters from Japanese comics and anime! Manga Art for Everyone shows you how to draw...

The Fly As An Art FormThe purpose of this book is twofold: to trace the evolution of realistic fly tying and to feature the creations of the world's most-skilled practitioners of this art form. Some of these contemporary artisans concentrate on...

From geometry in motion to the possibilities of pi, this stunning volume reveals how art inspired the beauty and poetry of mathematical principles.The worlds of visual art and mathematics come together in this spectacular volume by award-winning writer...

This 12th edition of the bestselling LogoLounge book series features the leading edge of identity design created by highly accomplished and noteworthy up-and-coming designers from around the world. Carefully curated by an expert panel made up of some of...

For the past three decades, artist Christian Peltenburg-Brechneff has often traded his traditional artist studio for the expansive possibilities of a global odyssey. Immersing himself in terrains both near and far-from Lunuganga in tropical Sri Lanka to...

In 1969, at the invitation of John Kaldor, New Yorkbased artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude created the largest single artwork that had ever been made. Shrouding one million square feet of Little Bay with fabric and rope, Wrapped...

Shelter II is the second in a series of books about people building their own homes in different parts of the world. The principles outlined in Shelter, published almost 40 years ago, seem even more important today: relearning...

This is the first anthology to bring transnational feminist theory and criticism together with women's art practices to discuss the connections between aesthetics, gender and identity in a global world. The essays in Women, the arts and globalization...

This pioneering book studies the rise, heyday and demise of regionalism from the Belle Epoque until the Eve of the Second World War. By using a novel comparative perspective it gives a fresh view of the relationship between cultural regionalism,...

In this provocative new account, David Joselit shows how art from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries began to function as a commodity, while the qualities of the artist, nation, or period themselves became valuable properties. Joselit explores...

A new examination of the history of ceramic art, spanning ancient to modern times, emphasizing its traditions, materials, and methods of making.Concise but comprehensive, Ceramic Art brings together the voices of art historians, conservators, and artists...

Mashable's 20 Books from 2020 That Make Great GiftsIn the course of making Human Flow, his epic feature documentary about the global refugee crisis, the artist Ai Weiwei and his collaborators interviewed more than 600 refugees, aid workers,...

The first major history of the bravura movement in European paintingThe painterly style known as bravura emerged in sixteenth-century Venice and spread throughout Europe during the seventeenth century. While earlier artistic movements presented a...

A richly illustrated celebration of the paintings of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle ObamaFrom the moment of their unveiling at the National Portrait Gallery in early 2018, the portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama have become two of the...

Antiques & Arts Weekly Holiday Books Round-up 2020 How artists created an aesthetic of 'positive barbarism' in a world devastated by World War II, the Holocaust, and the atomic bomb.In Brutal Aesthetics, leading art historian and...

A classic work on radical aesthetics by one of the great philosophers of the early twentieth century No work of philosopher and essayist Jose Ortega y Gasset has been more frequently cited, admired, or criticized than his response to modernism, "The...

How science changed the way artists understand reality Exploring the Invisible shows how modern art expresses the first secular, scientific worldview in human history. Now fully revised and expanded, this richly illustrated book describes two...

Writings on human life and the refugee crisis by the most important political artist of our time Ai Weiwei (b. 1957) is widely known as an artist across media: sculpture, installation, photography, performance, and architecture. He is also one...

A novel interpretation of architecture, ugliness, and the social consequences of aesthetic judgmentWhen buildings are deemed ugly, what are the consequences? In Ugliness and Judgment, Timothy Hyde considers the role of aesthetic judgment-and its concern...

Neither art nor philosophy was kind to beauty during the twentieth century. Much modern art disdains beauty, and many philosophers deeply suspect that beauty merely paints over or distracts us from horrors. Intellectuals consigned the passions of beauty...

A stunning portrait of the nocturnal moths of Central and South America by famed American photographer Emmet Gowin American photographer Emmet Gowin (b. 1941) is best known for his portraits of his wife, Edith, and their family, as well as for his images...

This is a cultural history of mathematics and art, from antiquity to the present. Mathematicians and artists have long been on a quest to understand the physical world they see before them and the abstract objects they know by thought alone. Taking...

A fun and stunningly illustrated introduction to the art of linear optimizationLinear optimization is a powerful modeling method for discovering the best solution to a problem among a set of available alternatives. It is one of today's most important...

The international controversy over who "owns" antiquities has pitted museums against archaeologists and source countries where ancient artifacts are found. In his book Who Owns Antiquity?, James Cuno argued that antiquities are the cultural property of...

Printed: Images by Australian artists 1942-2020 traces the history of printmaking by Australian artists during an era of dramatic changes in Australian society and the visual arts. Arranged in three sections, it begins with the innovative wartime policy...

Stories for Ways and Means features original "grown up" story collaborations by some of this era's most compelling storytellers from the worlds of music and contemporary art.Ten years ago Jeff Antebi, the founder of music publisher Waxploitation, had an...

William Kluba, author, takes an in-depth look at the origins of inspiration and ideas, to help us better understand where creativity comes from in our bodies and minds, and to understand how this intangible force translates into artistic expression. This...

A paleoartist is an illustrator who specialises in the science and art of reconstructing ancient animals and their world. In "Dinosaur Art," ten of the top contemporary paleoartists reveal a selection of their work and exclusively discuss their working...

Exposes the charlatanry that fuels much academic art history today and leaks into the art world generally.

Sure to be a classic, Donald Richie's concise, profound insights into the mysteries of Japanese Aesthetics.This provocative book is a tractate-a treatise-on beauty in Japanese art, written in the manner of a zuihitsu, a free-ranging assortment of ideas...

The third in a trilogy of lavishly illustrated graphic novels set in the "Assassin's Creed "universe. Plunging in his genetic memory, Desmond acquires new skills, Desmond. In the Animus he sees Aquilus seeking revenge for his father's murder. His thirst...

In Israel East meets West. Their jewellery traditions blend, resulting in creative innovations. In the 1930s, immigrants from Germany and other European countries introduced the spirit of the Bauhaus, while oriental craftsmanship was invigorated in the...

Unleash your creative expression with open-ended watercolor prompts from the author of A Field Guide to Color. With 62 cards, The Color Meditation Deck offers over 500 potential combinations for endless color meditation opportunities. This deck gives...

Food appears everywhere in the arts. But what happens after viewers carry food away in the intestinal networks activated by social practice art, the same way digestion turns food into a body? Exploring the emerging field of metabolic arts, After...

This beautiful book brings you the very best of art throughout history - using a truly innovative timeline-led approach. Savour iconic paintings such as Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper and Monet's Waterlilies, and discover less well-known artists,...