A renowned art historian explores what paintings can teach us—if we can really learn to see them.What happens when we look at a painting? What do we think about? What do we imagine? How can we explain, even to ourselves, what we see or think we see? And how can art historians interpret with any seriousness what they observe?In six engaging, short narrative "fictions," each richly illustrated in color, Daniel Arasse, one of the most brilliant art historians ...

The Books That Shaped Art History reassesses the impact of some of the most important texts of art history published during the twentieth century. Each of the sixteen incisive chapters focuses on a single title and is written by a leading art historian, curator or one of the promising scholars of todays generation. In bringing these cross-generational contributions together, this book provides a varied and invaluable overview of the history of art, told through its seminal texts. The sixte...

Unlock the more straightforward side of The Elegance of the Hedgehog with this concise and insightful summary and analysis!This engaging summary presents an analysis of The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, a thoughtful, witty look at the absurdity of human life. Through the unlikely friendship between a suicidal 12-year-old schoolgirl, an incredibly cultured 54-year-old concierge and a perceptive Japanese pensioner, The Elegance of ...

This unique, richly illustrated book confronts the elusive questions: how, and why, do we look at art? Beginning with an enigmatic fragment of yellow jasper - all that is left of the face of an Egyptian woman who lived 3,500 years ago - Philippe de Montebello, longest-serving director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and art critic Martin Gayford met and talked on two continents and in six countries in art galleries, churches and museums. Whether they were in the Louvre or the Prado, the...

Collaborative and collective art practices have proliferated around the world over the past fifteen years. In The One and the Many, Grant H. Kester provides an overview of the broader continuum of collaborative art, ranging from the work of artists and groups widely celebrated in the mainstream art world, such as Thomas Hirschhorn, Superflex, Francis Alÿs, and Santiago Sierra, to the less-publicized projects of groups, such as Park Fiction in Hamburg, Networking and Initiatives fo...

In hyperdrawing: beyond the lines of contemporary art, authors and artists come together to explore the potential of what drawing in contemporary art theory and practice might become. In this follow-up to 2007's drawing now: between the lines of contemporary art, Phil Sawdon and Russell Marshall, two of the current directors of TRACEY, curate contemporary drawing within fine art practice from 2006 through to 2010. Four essays and images from 33 international artists collectively explore th...

What is computer art? Do the concepts we usually employ to talk about art, such as ‘meaning’, ‘form’ or ‘expression’ apply to computer art?A Philosophy of Computer Art is the first book to explore these questions. Dominic Lopes argues that computer art challenges some of the basic tenets of traditional ways of thinking about and making art and that to understand computer art we need to place particular emphasis on terms such as ‘interactivity’ and ‘user’.Drawing on...

Anthropology and Art Practice takes an innovative look at new experimental work informed by the newly-reconfigured relationship between the arts and anthropology. This practice-based and visual work can be characterised as 'art-ethnography'. In engaging with the concerns of both fields, this cutting-edge study tackles current issues such as the role of the artist in collaborative work, and the political uses of documentary. The book focuses on key works from artists and anthropologists tha...

This book examines the art and writings of Wassily Kandinsky, who is widely regarded as one of the first artists to produce non-representational paintings. Crucial to an understanding of Kandinsky's intentions is On the Spiritual in Art, the celebrated essay he published in 1911. Where most scholars have taken its repeated references to "spirit" as signaling quasi-religious or mystical concerns, Florman argues instead that Kandinsky's primary frame of reference was G.W.F. Hegel's ...

Insightful perspectives on the use of the computer as a tool for artists. The approaches taken vary from its historical, philosophical and practical implications to the use of computer technology in art practice. The contributors include an art critic, an educator, a practicing artist and a researcher. The Editor's contribution will look at the potential for future developments in the field, looking at both the artistic and the computational aspects of the field. This collection seeks to b...

In A Brief History of the Artist from God to Picasso, Paul Barolsky explores the ways in which fiction shapes history and history informs fiction. It is a playful book about artistic obsession, about art history as both tragedy and farce, and about the heroic and the mock-heroic. The book demonstrates that the modern idea of the artist has deep roots in the image of the epic poet, from Homer to Ovid to Dante. Barolsky’s major claim is that the history of the artist is inseparable ...

In Reimagining Life, Raihan Kadri presents a pioneering critical history of the epistemological and theoretical origins of the Surrealist movement and its subsequent legacy. The book contains extensive examination and new interpretations of the oft-neglected theoretical writing of Surrealists such as Louis Aragon, Antonin Artaud, André Breton, and Salvador Dalí, in order to demonstrate how Surrealism embodied a sensibility connected to a broader lineage of philosophical pessimism—involving...