THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERLONGLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE'Revelatory' GUARDIAN'A firecracker somehow captured between two covers' LUCY WORSLEYAn instant bestseller and one of the most celebrated history books of the year, Femina reveals the power and influence of medieval women who have been written out of our history.
An illuminating reassessment of the architect whose innovative drawings of ruins shaped the enduring image of ancient RomeGiuliano da Sangallo (1443-1516) was one of the first architects to draw the ruins and artifacts of ancient Rome in a systematic way.
Translated by Lucinda Byatt This book tells the remarkable story of a rare discovery: the uncovering of two lost paintings by the great Renaissance artist Michelangelo.
In this book, Janet Todd, one of the leading authorities on seventeenth- and eighteenth century women writers, discusses gender issues from the Restoration to Romanticism investigating women authors and the fascination with culturally privileged art and with heroic death.
An adorable and informative picture book from the 2017 CBCA shortlisted author/illustrator Jennifer Cossins, author of A-Z of Endangered Animals and 101 Collective Nouns.
Evelyn Waugh's first book: a portrait of one of the greatest artists of the nienteenth century, from one of the greatest writers of the twentieth'Biography, as books about the dead are capriciously catalogued, is still very much in the mode'This is a sparkling account of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's tragic and mysterious life, telling the story behind some of the greatest poetry and painting of the nineteenth century.
Art historians have often minimized the variety and complexity of seventeenth-century Spanish painting by concentrating on individual artists and their works and by stressing discovery of new information rather than interpretation.
Breakfast at Sotheby's is a wry, intimate, truly insider-y exploration of how art acquires its financial value, from Philip Hook, a senior director at Sotheby'sWhen you stand in front of a work of art in a museum or exhibition, the first two questions you normally ask yourself are 1) Do I like it?
In Roman Eyes, Jas Elsner seeks to understand the multiple ways that art in ancient Rome formulated the very conditions for its own viewing, and as a result was complicit in the construction of subjectivity in the Roman Empire.
In this bold exploration of the political forces that shaped Impressionism, Albert Boime proposes that at the heart of the modern is a "e;guilty secret"e;--the need of the dominant, mainly bourgeois, classes in Paris to expunge from historical memory the haunting nightmare of the Commune and its socialist ideology.
A major new biography of legendary art collector and philanthropist Isabella Stewart GardnerIsabella Stewart Gardner (1840-1924) assembled an extraordinary collection of art from diverse cultures and eras-and built a Venetian-style palazzo in Boston to share these exquisite treasures with the world.
Between the third and sixth centuries, the ancient gods, goddesses, and heroes who had populated the imagination of humankind for a millennium were replaced by a new imagery of Christ and his saints.
The theory and practice of art underwent a number of fascinating changes between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries, changes which are clearly revealed in this unique collection of letters, journals, essays, and other writings by the artists and their contemporaries.
A cultural history of the face in Western art, ranging from portraiture in painting and photography to film, theater, and mass mediaThis fascinating book presents the first cultural history and anthropology of the face across centuries, continents, and media.
Bringing together studies by art historians, historians, and political scientists, Fascist Visions explores the themes and paradigms that pervaded protofascist and fascist aesthetic discourse, cultural policy, and artistic production in France and Italy.
In this fundamental rethinking of the rise of modernism from its beginnings in the Impressionist movement, Robert Jensen reveals that market discourses were pervasive in the ideological defense of modernism from its very inception and that the avant-garde actually thrived on the commercial appeal of anti-commercialism at the turn of the century.
Art historians have often minimized the variety and complexity of seventeenth-century Spanish painting by concentrating on individual artists and their works and by stressing discovery of new information rather than interpretation.
An artist's uniquely personal journey across AmericaIn the nineteenth century, ornithologist and painter John James Audubon set out to create a complete pictorial record of North American birdlife, traveling from Louisiana and the Florida Keys to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the cliffs of the Yellowstone River.
A trailblazing look at the historical emergence of a global field in contemporary art and the diverse ways artists become valued worldwidePrior to the 1980s, the postwar canon of ';international' contemporary art was made up almost exclusively of artists from North America and Western Europe, while cultural agents from other parts of the world often found themselves on the margins.
A revelatory history of the first artist collective in the United States and its effort to reshape nineteenth-century art, culture, and politicsThe American Pre-Raphaelites founded a uniquely interdisciplinary movement composed of politically radical abolitionist artists and like-minded architects, critics, and scientists.
An illuminating look at a fundamental yet understudied aspect of Italian Renaissance paintingThe Italian Renaissance picture is renowned for its depiction of the human figure, from the dramatic foreshortening of the body to create depth to the subtle blending of tones and colors to achieve greater naturalism.
In the late nineteenth century, Scandinavian urban dwellers developed a passion for a new, utterly modern sort of visual spectacle: objects and effigies brought to life in astonishingly detailed, realistic scenes.
The extraordinary life story of the celebrated artist and writer, as told through four decades of intimate letters to her beloved motherBarbara Chase-Riboud has led a remarkable life.
A bold reorientation of art history that bridges the divide between fine art and material culture through an examination of objects and their usesArt history is often viewed through cultural or national lenses that define some works as fine art while relegating others to the category of craft.
A marvelously illustrated A-to-Z compendium of bird names from around the globeThe Bird Name Book is an alphabetical reference book on the origins and meanings of common group bird names, from "e;accentor"e; to "e;zeledonia.
How California's counterculture of the 1960s to 1980s profoundly shaped-and was shaped by-West Coast artistsThe 1960s exert a special fascination in modern art.
The first history of indigenous photography in the Middle EastThe birth of photography coincided with the expansion of European imperialism in the Middle East, and some of the medium's earliest images are Orientalist pictures taken by Europeans in such places as Cairo and Jerusalem-photographs that have long shaped and distorted the Western visual imagination of the region.
How Robespierre's career and legacy embody the dangerous contradictions of democracyMaximilien Robespierre (1758-1794) is arguably the most controversial and contradictory figure of the French Revolution, inspiring passionate debate like no other protagonist of those dramatic and violent events.
A new look at the interrelationship of architecture and sculpture during one of the richest periods of American modern designAlloys looks at a unique period of synergy and exchange in the postwar United States, when sculpture profoundly shaped architecture, and vice versa.
How the urban spectator became the archetypal modern viewer and a central subject in late nineteenth-century French artGawkers explores how artists and writers in late nineteenth-century Paris represented the seductions, horrors, and banalities of street life through the eyes of curious viewers known as badauds.
A richly illustrated history of textiles in the Mughal EmpireIn the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a vast array of textiles circulated throughout the Mughal Empire.
A panoramic history of American individualism from its nineteenth-century origins to today's bitterly divided politicsIndividualism is a defining feature of American public life.
An illuminating reassessment of the architect whose innovative drawings of ruins shaped the enduring image of ancient RomeGiuliano da Sangallo (1443-1516) was one of the first architects to draw the ruins and artifacts of ancient Rome in a systematic way.
From the bestselling author of SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, the fascinating story of how images of Roman autocrats have influenced art, culture, and the representation of power for more than 2,000 yearsWhat does the face of power look like?
A meditation on how environmental change and the passage of time transform the meaning of site-specific artIn the decades after World War II, artists and designers of the land art movement used the natural landscape to create monumental site-specific artworks.
A bold reevaluation of Spinoza that reveals his powerful, inclusive vision of religion for the modern ageSpinoza is widely regarded as either a God-forsaking atheist or a God-intoxicated pantheist, but Clare Carlisle says that he was neither.
