Written to engage and inspire students with little or no previous experience in studio art or art history, the third edition of Approaches to Art: A New Introduction to Art History employs an accessible postmodern approach to a general education course, introducing readers to seminal works of art throughout time. This edition features increased coverage of art by people of color and women, exposing students to diverse artists and restructuring the ways in which "key figures" and "important artists" are introduced to them. The text features more than 100 new images and a timely focus on issues of agency, identity, and social equity. The book includes the essential information presented in an introductory art history course-visual elements, principles of design, style, media, and historical context-in a compelling format that encourages critical thinking and multicultural visual literacy. Students learn not only the parts of art, but also develop a deeper understanding of art's power to communicate on multiple levels-universal, cultural, and personal.

Nazar, literally 'vision', is a unique Arabic-Islamic term/concept that offers an analytical framework for exploring the ways in which Islamic visual culture and aesthetic sensibility have been shaped by common conceptual tools and moral parameters. It intertwines the act of 'seeing' with the act of 'reflecting', thereby bringing the visual and cognitive functions into a complex relationship. Within the folds of this multifaceted relationship lies an entangled web of religious ideas, moral values, aesthetic preferences, scientific precepts, and socio-cultural understandings that underlie the intricacy of one's personal belief. Peering through the lens of nazar, the studies presented in this volume unravel aspects of these entanglements to provide new understandings of how vision, belief, and perception shape the rich Islamic visual culture. Contributors: Samer Akkach, James Bennett, Sushma Griffin, Stephen Hirtenstein, Virginia Hooker, Sakina Nomanbhoy, Shaha Parpia, Ellen Philpott-Teo, Wendy M.K. Shaw.