A concise, reader-friendly illustrated survey of Western art and architecture from prehistory to the present day. Acknowledging how architecture, painting, sculpture and the decorative arts reflect the culture and society of their time, this latest addition to the Art Essentials series invites the reader to experience and appreciate the entirety of Western art from prehistory to today. Focusing on the 'history' in art history, each of the twelve chapters opens with a question to ponder, followed by a summary of the major historical developments of the period, touching on social structure, political organization, migration, race, religious beliefs, scientific advances and customs. An exploration of these themes in the visual arts reveals how architecture, sculpture and painting simultaneously shape, reflect, and document the culture of the time and place they were created. A secondary focus explores the constantly evolving aesthetic preferences that swing between naturalism and abstraction, with each era and style either rebelling against the previous or seeking to improve it. Antecedents and outside influences are also discussed.

A sumptuous survey of over 300 women painters and their work spanning almost five centuries.

Great Women Painters is a groundbreaking book that reveals a richer and more varied telling of the story of painting. Featuring more than 300 artists from around the world, it includes both well-known women painters from history and today's most exciting rising stars.

Covering nearly 500 years of skill and innovation, this survey continues Phaidon's celebrated The Art Book series and reveals and champions a more diverse history of art, showcasing recently discovered and newly appreciated work and artists throughout its more than 300 pages and images.

Artists featured include: Hilma af Klint, Eileen Agar, Sofonisba Anguissola, Cecily Brown, Leonora Carrington, Mary Cassatt, Elaine de Kooning, Marlene Dumas, Nicole Eisenman, Jadé Fadojutimi, Helen Frankenthaler, Artemisia Gentileschi, Maggi Hambling, Carmen Herrera, Gwen John, Frida Kahlo, Tamara de Lempicka, Agnes Martin, Joan Mitchell, Alice Neel, Plautilla Nelli, Georgia O'Keeffe, Paula Rego, Bridget Riley, Jenny Saville, Dana Schutz, Lee Krasner, Yayoi Kusama

These fine-quality tear-out sheets feature 12 prints inspired by the centuries-old art of Japanese shibori--a process of hand-dyeing fabric. These papers are suitable for craft projects as well as for gift wrapping. The variety of designs means they are useful for any occasion--whether a holiday, birthday, anniversary or "just because." An introduction details the history and meaning behind the designs, giving you a better idea of their origin. Some wrapping ideas are also provided for inspiration to maximize your creativity. This paperback book includes: 12 sheets of 18" x 24" (45 x 61cm) paper 12 unique patterns Perforations so the papers are easy to tear out A 3-page introduction with wrapping tips & tricks Pair with the matching Tuttle note cards--Japanese Shibori, 16 Note Cards--for a colorful and cohesive gift! The tradition of gift wrapping originated in Asia, with the first documented use in China in the 2nd century BC. Japanese furoshiki, reusable wrapping cloth, is still in use four centuries after it was first created. Gift wrapping is one custom that has prevailed through the ages and across the world--it should be special for both the gift giver and recipient.

This book marks the culmination of Giancarlo M.G. Scoditti's renowned series of publications on the cultural production of the northern Massim island of Kitawa, Papua New Guinea. It explores how the Nowau 'creators of images' conceive of the way their artistic compositions come about - sketching Kitawan cognitive philosophy and aesthetic practice. Describing how for them images grow like the loops of the Nautilus shell - one of nature's prominant demonstrations of the logarithmic spiral and the golden section - Scoditti's analysis of Kitawan cognitive and artistic principles resonates with Levi-Strauss's work on myth and Kant's notion of the mental schema, and makes a ground-breaking contribution to our understanding of the 'oral mind'.

Superb Yokai images from the world's leading museums and private collections! Japan's vast pantheon of supernatural creatures includes demons (yokai), monsters, ogres (oni), ghosts (yurei) and magicians--mythical beings from folklore and popular culture which continue to thrill readers of traditional stories and manga today. This richly illustrated book by Andreas Marks, the leading authority on Japanese woodblock prints, presents authentic illustrations and descriptions of 100 different creatures, including: Bakeneko: Monster cats in human form who lick lamp oil and prey on humans born in the year of the Rat Han'nya: Female demons with sharp and pointed horns, metallic eyes and a smirking smile Hihi: Large ape-like monsters who live in the mountains and have superhuman strength, enabling them to kidnap and kill humans Mikoshi-nyudo: Yokai with an enormously extended necks who appear only at night And many more! The striking visual examples in this book are drawn from the rich canon of early Japanese prints, books, and paintings--sourced from leading museums, libraries and private collections worldwide. They show the "original" forms and appearances of the creatures which form the basis for all subsequent depictions. Also included are two long handscrolls from the Minneapolis Institute of Art (A Collection of Monsters and Night Parade of One Hundred Demons) which are reproduced here for the very first time. Prints and Paintings sourced from the following list of museums, libraries and private collections: Art Institute of Chicago Christie's, London & New York The Cleveland Museum of Art Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University Kyoto University, Main Library Library of Congress Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art Minneapolis Institute of Art National Museum of Japanese History Princeton University Library Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Smithsonian Libraries

In 1985, photographer and writer Vickie Jensen spent three months with Nisga'a artist Norman Tait and his crew of young carvers as they transformed a raw cedar log into a forty-two-foot totem pole for the BC Native Education Centre. Having spent years recovering the traditional knowledge that informed his carving, Tait taught his crew to make their own tools, carve, and design regalia, and together they practiced traditional stories and songs for the pole-raising ceremony. Totem Pole Carving shares two equally rich stories: the step-by-step work of carving and the triumph of Tait teaching his crew the skills and traditions necessary to create a massive cultural artifact. Jensen captures the atmosphere of the carving shed-the conversations and problem-solving, the smell of fresh cedar chips, the adzes and chainsaws, the blistered hands, the tension-relieving humor, the ever-present awareness of tradition, and the joy of creation. Generously illustrated with 125 striking photographs, and originally published as Where the People Gather, this second edition features a new preface from Jensen and an updated, lifetime-spanning survey of Tait's major works.

In 1573, 712 bales of Chinese silk arrived in New Spain in the cargos of two Manila galleons. The emergence and the subsequent rapid development of this trans-Pacific silk trade reflected the final formation of the global circulation network. The first book-length English-language study focusing on the early modern export of Chinese silk to New Spain from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century, An Object of Seduction compares and contrasts the two regions from perspectives of the sericulture development, the widespread circulation of silk fashion, and the government attempts at regulating the use of silk. Xiaolin Duan argues that the increasing demand for silk on the worldwide market on the one hand contributed to the parallel development of silk fashion and sericulture in China and New Spain, and on the other hand created conflicts on imperial regulations about foreign trade and hierarchical systems. Incorporating evidence from local gazetteers, correspondence, manual books, illustrated treatises, and miscellanies, An Object of Seduction explores how the growing desire for and production of raw silk and silk textiles empowered individuals and societies to claim and redefine their positions in changing time and space, thus breaking away from the traditional state control.

A compelling blend of art history, social analysis, and personal testimony, "Creative Collectives" presents a new paradigm for understanding Chicana/o studies. By following the artistic and ideological journeys of two groups of northern California Chicana artists, MarA-a Ochoa argues that the women involved in these collectives created complex images whose powerful visual social commentary sprang from the daily experiences of their lives.

Ochoa's artistic narrative first focuses on Mujeres Muralistas, a pathbreaking San Francisco group of mural painters organized in the early 1970s at the height of the Chicana/o Movement. The story then turns its attention to Co-Madres Artistas, a group of artists who came together in the 1990s after spending decades tending their families, becoming successful in their careers, and launching key Chicana/o cultural institutions in the Sacramento Valley. Ochoa tells the stories of the individual members of these collectives to show how they combined art and activism.

Through an innovative application of oral history interviews, a fascinating compilation of individual and collective stories emerges. Creative Collectives is notable for its skillful weaving of personal recollections, representational analysis of mural and easel painting, and social movement narration.

From starry-eyed fans with dreams of fame to cotton entrepreneurs turned movie moguls, the Bombay film industry has historically energized a range of practices and practitioners, playing a crucial and compelling role in the life of modern India. Bombay Hustle presents an ambitious history of Indian cinema as a history of material practice, bringing new insights to studies of media, modernity, and the late colonial city. Drawing on original archival research and an innovative transdisciplinary approach, Debashree Mukherjee offers a panoramic portrait of the consolidation of the Bombay film industry during the talkie transition of the 1920s-1940s. In the decades leading up to independence in 1947, Bombay became synonymous with marketplace thrills, industrial strikes, and modernist experimentation. Its burgeoning film industry embodied Bombay's spirit of "hustle," gathering together and spewing out the many different energies and emotions that characterized the city. Bombay Hustle examines diverse sites of film production-finance, pre-production paperwork, casting, screenwriting, acting, stunts-to show how speculative excitement jostled against desires for scientific management in an industry premised on the struggle between contingency and control. Mukherjee develops the concept of a "cine-ecology" in order to examine the bodies, technologies, and environments that collectively shaped the production and circulation of cinematic meaning in this time. The book thus brings into view a range of marginalized film workers, their labor and experiences; forgotten film studios, their technical practices and aesthetic visions; and overlooked connections among media practices, geographical particularities, and historical exigencies.

The story Raven and the Box of Daylight, which tells how Raven transformed the world and brought light to the people by releasing the stars, moon, and sun, holds great significance to the Tlingit people of the Pacific Northwest Coast. A new body of work by artist Preston Singletary (American, born 1963) will immerse readers in Tlingit traditions by telling this story through his monumental glass works and installations. Primarily known for his celebration of Tlingit art and design, Singletary will explore new ways of working with glass inspired by Tlingit design principles. Tlingit objects were traditionally used to show wealth and tell stories by representing elements of the natural world, as well as the histories of individual families. By drawing upon this tradition, Singletary's art creates a unique theatrical atmosphere, in which the pieces follow and enhance a narrative. This book includes texts that place Singletary's work within the wider histories of both glass art and native arts traditions-especially the art of spoken-word storytelling. Also included are a biography and an interview with the artist.

This volume features new research on Russia’s historic relationship with Asia and the ways it was mediated and represented in the fine, decorative and performing arts and architecture from the mid-eighteenth century to the first two decades of Soviet rule. It interrogates how Russia’s perception of its position on the periphery of the west and its simultaneous self-consciousness as a colonial power shaped its artistic, cultural and national identity as a heterogenous, multi-ethnic empire. It also explores the extent to which cultural practitioners participated in the discursive matrices that advanced Russia’s colonial machinery on the one hand and critiqued and challenged it on the other, especially in territories that were themselves on the fault lines between the east and the west. -- .

This book is a unique study which offers new perspectives on contemporary Islamic iconography and the use of imageries in ritual contexts. The representation of prophets and saints in Islam is erroneously considered nonexistent by many scholars of Islam, Muslims, and the general public. The issue is often dealt with superficially without attention to its deep roots in piety and religiosity. "Visualizing Belief and Piety in Iranian Shiism" offers new understanding of Islamic iconography and Muslim perspectives on the use of imageries in ritual contexts and devotional life. Combining iconographic and ethnographic approaches, Ingvild Flaskerud introduces and analyzes imageries (tile-paintings, posters and wall-hangings), ritual contexts and interviews with male and female local viewers to discuss the representation, reception and function of imageries in contemporary Iranian Shia environments. This book presents the argument that images and decorative programmes have stimulating qualities to mentally evoke the saints in the minds of devotees and inspire their recollection, transforming emotions and stimulating cultic behaviours. Visualization and seeing are significant to the dissemination of religious knowledge, the understanding of spiritual and ethical values, the promotion of personal piety, and functions as modes of venerating God and the saints.

This edited volume maps dialogues between science and technology studies research on the arts and the emerging field of artistic research. The main themes in the book are an advanced understanding of discursivity and reasoning in arts-based research, the methodological relevance of material practices and things, and innovative ways of connecting, staging, and publishing research in art and academia. This book touches on topics including studies of artistic practices; reflexive practitioners at the boundaries between the arts, science, and technology; non-propositional forms of reasoning; unconventional (arts-based) research methods and enhanced modes of presentation and publication.

What is the significance of the visual representation of revolution? How is history articulated through public images? How can these images communicate new histories of struggle? Imprints of Revolution highlights how revolutions and revolutionary moments are historically constructed and locally contextualized through the visual. It explores a range of spatial and temporal formations to illustrate how movements are articulated, reconstituted, and communicated. The collective work illustrates how the visual serves as both a mobilizing and demobilizing force in the wake of globalization. Radical performances, cultural artefacts, architectural and fashion design as well as social and print media are examples of the visual mediums analysed as alternative archives that propose new understandings of revolution. The volume illustrates how revolution remains significant in visually communicating and articulating social change with the ability to transform our contemporary understanding of local, national, and transnational spaces and processes.