Originally published in 1938, this book provides a history of the variety of forms of Buddhist art that grew up in Thailand from the 1st century AD to the end of the 16th century. Le May draws on his experience as part of the British Consular Service in Thailand to focus primarily on sculpture, how the trade routes in South and South-East Asia brought Thailand into contact with a variety of artistic styles and how the different areas of the country adapted these styles for their own use. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the history of Thai art specifically or of Eastern art more generally.

In Renaissance Florence, certain paintings and sculptures of the Virgin Mary and Christ were believed to have extraordinary efficacy in activating potent sacred intercession. Cults sprung up around these "miraculous images" in the city and surrounding countryside beginning in the late 13th century. In The Miraculous Image in Renaissance Florence, Megan Holmes questions what distinguished these paintings and sculptures from other similar sacred images, looking closely at their material and formal properties, the process of enshrinement, and the foundation legends and miracles associated with specific images. Whereas some of the images presented in this fascinating book are well known, such as Bernardo Daddi's Madonna of Orsanmichele, many others have been little studied until now. Holmes's efforts center on the recovery and contextualization of these revered images, reintegrating them and their related cults into an art-historical account of the period. By challenging prevailing views and offering a reassessment of the Renaissance, this generously illustrated and comprehensive survey makes a significant contribution to the field.

Saint Marks invokes and pluralizes the figure of Mark in order to explore relations between painting and writing. Emphasizing that the saint is not a singular biographical individual in the various biblical and hagiographic texts that involve someone so named, the book takes as its ultimate concern the kinds of material life that outlive the human subject. From the incommensurate, anachronic instances in which Saint Mark can be located-among them, as Evangelist or as patron saint of Venice-the book traces Mark's afterlives within art, sacred texts, and literature in conversation with such art historians and philosophers as Aby Warburg, Giorgio Agamben, Georges Didi-Huberman, T. J. Clark, Adrian Stokes, and Jean-Luc Nancy. Goldberg begins in sixteenth-century Venice, with a series of paintings by Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, Tintoretto, and others, that have virtually nothing to do with biblical texts. He turns then to the legacy of John Ruskin's Stones of Venice and through it to questions about what painting does as painting. A final chapter turns to ancient texts, considering the Gospel of St. Mark together with its double, the so-called Secret Gospel that has occasioned controversy for its homoerotic implications. The posthumous persistence of a life is what the gospel named Mark calls the Kingdom of God. Saints have posthumous lives; but so too do paintings and texts. This major interdisciplinary study by one of our most astute cultural critics extends what might have been a purely theological subject to embrace questions central to cultural practice from the ancient world to the present.

Published in 1848, this two-volume work was received with great praise. During a celebrated career, Anna Brownell Jameson (1794 1860) produced Shakespeare criticism, travel writing, biography, and art history, and was admired by contemporaries such as Mary Shelley and Thomas Carlyle. Taking an aesthetic rather than religious approach, the work is a study of the legends represented in Western art of the Middle Ages, ordered taxonomically. Though Jameson is considered the first professional female art critic, this is a reductive label; she was, rather, one of the great art critics of her age and her work is still of importance to art historians. Volume 1, which is richly illustrated, covers the literary origins of the legends and surveys the representation of angels and archangels, the Four Evangelists, the Twelve Apostles, the Doctors of the Church, and a number of significant saints, including Mary Magdalene.

Published in 1848, this two-volume work was received with great praise. During a celebrated career, Anna Brownell Jameson (1794 1860) produced Shakespeare criticism, travel writing, biography, and art history, and was admired by contemporaries such as Mary Shelley and Thomas Carlyle. Taking an aesthetic rather than religious approach, the work is a study of the legends represented in Western art of the Middle Ages, ordered taxonomically. Though Jameson is considered the first professional female art critic, this is a reductive label; she was, rather, one of the great art critics of her age and her work is still of importance to art historians. Volume 2, which is richly illustrated, examines the Patron Saints of Christendom, the Virgin Patronesses, the early martyrs, the Greek and Latin martyrs, the early bishops, the hermits, and the warrior saints.

Alexander Lindsay (1812 80) was the head of an aristocratic family who owned vast coalfields in Lancashire, generating enormous wealth. Educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, he spent the majority of his time travelling in Italy, collecting, and writing on a variety of subjects, including art, the Indo-Aryan race and the Etruscans. This important work, published in three volumes in 1847, surveys Christian painting and sculpture. Addressing Romance literature of the Middle Ages, iconography and legends of the saints, the book's historical narrative is infused with the author's strong moral approach to the subject. Volume 1 covers philosophical method, Christian symbolism and mythology, Roman art, and Byzantine art, which Lindsay sees as having stimulated the Western revival. Though derided by John Ruskin, the work strongly influenced aristocratic collecting, and remains relevant to readers interested in the Victorian construction of morals and artistic taste.

Alexander Lindsay (1812 80) was the head of an aristocratic family who owned vast coalfields in Lancashire, generating enormous wealth. Educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, he spent the majority of his time travelling in Italy, collecting, and writing on a variety of subjects, including art, the Indo-Aryan race and the Etruscans. This important work, published in three volumes in 1847, surveys Christian painting and sculpture. Addressing Romance literature of the Middle Ages, iconography and legends of the saints, the book's historical narrative is infused with the author's strong moral approach to the subject. Volume 2 covers Gothic architecture; the art of the Lombards; Pisano and Giotto, and their schools and followers. Though derided by John Ruskin, the work strongly influenced aristocratic collecting, and remains relevant to readers interested in the Victorian construction of morals and artistic taste.

Alexander Lindsay (1812 80) was the head of an aristocratic family who owned vast coalfields in Lancashire, generating enormous wealth. Educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, he spent the majority of his time travelling in Italy, collecting, and writing on a variety of subjects, including art, the Indo-Aryan race and the Etruscans. This important work, published in three volumes in 1847, surveys Christian painting and sculpture. Addressing Romance literature of the Middle Ages, iconography and legends of the saints, the book's historical narrative is infused with the author's strong moral approach to the subject. Volume 3 covers the schools of Siena, Florence and Bologna, then moves north to look at Cologne, D rer, and Cranach, the Van Eycks and the Netherlandish School. Though derided by John Ruskin, the work strongly influenced aristocratic collecting, and remains relevant to readers interested in the Victorian construction of morals and artistic taste.

Impresionantes ilustraciones pintadas a mano y comentarios esclarecedores dan vida a esta obra maestra. Escrito desde la celda de la carcel de Bunyan, El progreso del peregrino representa evocativamente una historia de lucha, perseverancia y fe. Con anotaciones y arte a traves del libro, esta edicion te invita a descubrir de nuevo la riqueza y los matices de este querido clasico. Originalmente escrito para el hombre comun, el clasico cristiano de John Bunyan tambien ha encontrado su camino en las bibliotecas de academicos y universidades, una verdadera obra maestra para todos los tiempos. Su riqueza historica, su simbolismo elocuente y su prosa deslumbrante han resistido la prueba del tiempo, y esta nueva edicion ayuda a los lectores a apreciar la belleza perdurable que se encuentra en las palabras de Bunyan. Para los fanaticos desde hace mucho tiempo del cuento de Bunyan, o para aquellos que lo han encontrado por primera vez, esta edicion ilustrada ofrece una nueva belleza y perspectiva. A los fanaticos del texto les encantaran las hermosas escenas pintadas a mano al comienzo de cada capitulo, y los lectores obtendran una comprension mas profunda de la alegoria a partir de las anotaciones insertadas en cada capitulo de este cuento clasico. El progreso del peregrino ha inspirado a los lectores a traves de los siglos a perseverar en su fe. Desde su publicacion en 1678, este libro ha sido traducido a mas de 200 idiomas. Es un best seller mundial, solo superado por la Biblia, y se ha convertido en un sello distintivo entre academicos y teologos de todo el mundo. !Un elemento basico para cualquier biblioteca domestica!

For many centuries, Hindus have taken it for granted that the religious images they place in temples and home shrines for purposes of worship are alive. Hindu priests bring them to life through a complex ritual "establishment" that invokes the god or goddess into material support. Priests and devotees then maintain the enlivened image as a divine person through ongoing liturgical activity: they must awaken it in the morning, bathe it, dress it, feed it, entertain it, praise it, and eventually put it to bed at night. In this linked series of case studies of Hindu religious objects, Richard Davis argues that in some sense these believers are correct: through ongoing interactions with humans, religious objects are brought to life.

Davis draws largely on reader-response literary theory and anthropological approaches to the study of objects in society in order to trace the biographies of Indian religious images over many centuries. He shows that Hindu priests and worshipers are not the only ones to enliven images. Bringing with them differing religious assumptions, political agendas, and economic motivations, others may animate the very same objects as icons of sovereignty, as polytheistic "idols," as "devils," as potentially lucrative commodities, as objects of sculptural art, or as symbols for a whole range of new meanings never foreseen by the images' makers or original worshipers.

Nothing in Anglo-Saxon pagan culture could withstand the impact of Christianity after the arrival of the disciples of Pope Gregory I in England. Originally published in 1999, Professor Henderson's book investigates the ways in which the English, in the two centuries following their conversion, expressed their new convictions about this world, and the next. It deals with the impact of books and travel on the Anglo-Saxons, discusses personal sanctity and the manipulation of belief by the state, and identifies the positive role of art in a society constantly afflicted by wars and epidemics. Henderson combines new fragmentary visual and literary evidence in this carefully illustrated book to bring out the peculiar character, both sophisticated and naive, of the new Christian civilisation which began to flourish and, to a surprising degree, recreate that of sixth-century Italy in seventh- and eighth-century England.

First published in 1951, as the revised edition of a 1935 original, this volume provides a historical study of English sculpture during the medieval period. It was created as a response to the increasing popularity of art history, providing students with a detailed, yet accessible, introduction to its subject. The text is particularly distinguished by its comprehensive range of illustrative material, containing 683 high-quality photographs from a broad range of sources. This is a fascinating book that will be of value to anyone with an interest in religious art and the development of medieval sculpture.

Originally published in 1996, Women, Art, and Spirituality: The Poor Clares of Early Modern Italy situates the art made between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries for the Franciscan nuns in its historical and religious contexts. Evaluating its production from sociological and intellectual perspectives, this study also addresses the discourse between spirituality, devotional practices, and aesthetic attitudes as formalised in the construction and decoration of the women's convents and in their didactic literature. Based on a range of sources, it integrates important primary texts, such as Saint Clare's rule, poetry composed by the nuns, financial records, and family history in the analysis of paintings, sculpture, and architecture commissioned by the order. The text also synthesises theories from anthropology, women's studies, history, and literature with traditional iconographical and social approaches from art history.

"How do we approach the study of masculinity in the past?" Ruth Mazo Karras asks. Medieval documents that have come down to us tell a great deal about the things that men did, but not enough about what they did specifically as men, or what these practices meant to them in terms of masculinity. Yet no less than in our own time, masculinity was a complicated construct in the Middle Ages. In Thou Art the Man, Karras focuses on one figure, King David, who was important in both Christian and Jewish medieval cultures, to show how he epitomized many and sometimes contradictory aspects of masculine identity. For late medieval Christians, he was one of the Nine Worthies, held up as a model of valor and virtue; for medieval Jews, he was the paradigmatic king, not just a remnant of the past, but part of a living heritage. In both traditions he was warrior, lover, and friend, founder of a dynasty and a sacred poet. But how could an exemplar of virtue also be a murderer and adulterer? How could a physical weakling be a great warrior? How could someone whose claim to the throne was not dynastic be a key symbol of the importance of dynasty? And how could someone who dances with slaves be noble? Exploring the different configurations of David in biblical and Talmudic commentaries, in Latin, Hebrew, and vernacular literatures across Europe, in liturgy, and in the visual arts, Thou Art the Man offers a rich case study of how ideas and ideals of masculinity could bend to support a variety of purposes within and across medieval cultures.

Amongst the manuscripts collected by Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, and presented to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, the most venerable is the sixth-century manuscript of the Gospels formerly owned by the great Benedictine Abbey of St Augustine's Canterbury. The manuscript has by tradition been associated with St Augustine, the Apostle of the English and first Archbishop of Canterbury; and may well have been one of the books sent by Pope Gregory the Great to St Augustine in the early years of the seventh century. In this volume, which was originally published in 1954, Professor Wormald tells what may be surmised about the origin and history of this manuscript and examines in detail the surviving work, with cautious suggestions about portions no longer existing. He concludes that there must have been a cycle of gospel scenes in the miniatures, certainly 72 and possibly 844.

Bring on the doodles

Zen doodle, that is In "Zen Doodle: Tons of Tangles," you'll find gorgeous images of the best doodle art from around the world. This collection of drawings and painted canvases from dozens of contributors features thousands of tangle patterns and doodle designs to inspire you to doodle anything and everything.

Create a mythical, doodled beast or abstract work of art. Draw an inspirational tangled card for a friend or add doodled intrigue to your art journal with patterned shapes. "Zen Doodle" provides you with the first steps toward creating unique tangled art, including traditional tiles, letterforms, Zendalas, landscapes, four-tile ensembles, paper quilts and more

Inside you'll find:

• More than 100 pieces of Zen doodled art from 42 artists.
• Step-by-step instruction to help you begin your own Zen doodles.
• Four chapters of doodle inspiration: Abstracts, Shapes & Objects, Animals & Beasts, and Friendship & Love.

Isn't it time you take your tangles to the next level?

This book provides a major study of the drawings, paintings and carvings of the crucifixion from tenth- and eleventh-century England, placing these works of art within the context of the tenth-century monastic revival. The drawings and paintings of the crucifixion are discussed in relation to the literature, theology, liturgy and devotional practices of the late Anglo-Saxon period in order to reveal the richness and subtlety of religious belief at this time. Late Anglo-Saxon religious art is shown to have played a central role in the monastic life; it called to mind the gospel events and set out their theological significance; it demonstrated the truth of the gospel message; it moved men's hearts, allowing them to experience the presence of Christ and to respond as though they had actually been present at His death.

The contributors to this 1992 book examine various aspects of the relationship among Christianity and the visual arts, architecture and music in Russia. Within this broad area the book concentrates on specific topics rather than attempting a broad survey. Nonetheless, the range of material extends from the earliest stages of the introduction of Byzantine art forms in Kievan Russia to the relation between Christian and folk decorative/iconographic motifs to the use of religious imagery in the work of contemporary filmmaker Andrei Tarkovskii. The related interests of the contributors create a concentration of topics in certain periods such as the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Some of the chapters are academically specialized, others are easily accessible to a general audience; but all are based on thorough and careful scholarship. Christianity and the Arts in Russia is based on, but not limited to, a symposium held at the Library of Congress in 1988 to mark the millennium of Russian Christianity.

Saved by good fortune from the flames that engulfed the first Goetheanum, Rudolf Steiner's wooden sculpture of the Christ - 'the Representative of Humanity' - standing between the adversary forces of Lucifer and Ahriman, remains intact and on display, although unfinished, to this day. Unique in the history of art, the Sculptural Group was deeply connected to Rudolf Steiner's inner being. The great Christian initiate even died by its side, having made efforts to work on the sculpture just days before he crossed the threshold. The essential source from which this work was created, says Sergei Prokofieff, '...lay in Rudolf Steiner's ego, in his spirit...It was only out of this intuitive connection of his own ego with the Christ Being that he was able to create this work of art.' Beginning with the Sculptural Group's early history, and Steiner's collaboration on its creation with Edith Maryon, Prokofieff enters into deeply esoteric perspectives, studying the artwork's relationship with the mysteries of the Holy Grail, the etherization of the blood, the Seventh Apocalyptic Seal, the Legend of the New Isis, as well as the being Anthroposophia.

Water belongs to our most profound dreams: it evokes motherhood, cleanliness, purity, sensuality, and death. Naturally, this is true for every civilisation, but in Islam this series of ideas found its most profound meaning, turning water into one of the cornerstones of human existence: a cornerstone that is both spiritual as well as social and aesthetic. Statements in the Koran and subsequent literature illustrate the historic development of the many roles and meanings of water and the incarnation of its significance in Islamic art and craftsmanship. This volume tells a story through images, artefacts, books, and miniatures: technology, everyday life, and art, which for centuries mirrored one another in the many ways of enjoying and using water.

ART"Grey's vision of a flawed but perfectible mankind stands as an antidote to the cynicism and spiritual malaise prevalent in much contemporary art." The New York Times "Alex Grey's art will bring you face to face with your soul and move you to a new level of enlightenment." Deepak Chopra, author of The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success "Alex Grey is making some of the most beautifully refined imagist work in the country today." Walter Hopps, senior curator, Guggenheim Museum and Menil Collection"Grey's work, like all great transcendental art, is not merely symbolic or imaginary: it is a direct invitation to recognize and realize a deeper dimension of our very own being." Ken Wilber, author of The Simple Feeling of Being Every once in a great while an artist emerges who does more than simply reflect the social trends of the time. Such an artist is able to transcend established thinking and help us redefine ourselves and our world. Today, a growing number of art critics, philosophers, and spiritual seekers believe that they have found that vision in the art of Alex Grey. Grey's art leads us on a transformative journey through the opacity and darkness of the material world to the recovery of our divinely illumined core. Images of becoming, of existential pain, search and confusion, love, death, and transcendence are icons in the long corridors of Grey's creative odyssey. From his earliest self-portraits and paintings of skeletons, to his most recent universal beings gridded with fire and eyes, Grey brings us an ever-deepening visual contemplation on the nature of personal and transpersonal identity.Transfigurations is a continuation of the dialogue between body and soul begun in Grey'sfirst book Sacred Mirrors--one of the most successful art books of the 1990s. Transfigurations includes all of Grey's major works completed in the following decade, presented here in 202 color reproductions and 93 black-and-white images. These works include the masterful seven-paneled Buddhist altarpiece Nature of Mind; World Soul, a bronze sculpture of a divine being that symbolically encompasses all realms of consciousness; and Cosmic Christ, a vision of Christ that embraces all religions and the countless dimensions of the universe. An essay by renowned author and transpersonal psychologist Stephen Larsen provides a biographical sketch of the artist's creative process, struggling with his demons and glimpsing the light of the beyond within. Grey's early forays into dark, transgressive performance art and his later theophanic installations are all documented in a special twenty-page performance section. Art critic Donald Kuspit elucidates Grey's primary subject, mystical light, as it manifests through his unique approach to the human figure. A conversation between noted philosopher Ken Wilber and the artist explores the exciting possibilities of art serving as a vehicle for transformation. Albert Hofmann, the chemist who discovered LSD, writes the foreword that places Grey's work at the conjunction of science and mysticism. Grey's paintings offer the viewer unforgettable glimpses of transfiguration, as bodies become translucent to the light of Spirit, transparent to the ground of being. The occurrence of beholding and becoming "the light" is a phenomenon that is described in all religions and wisdom paths. Grey's "X-ray" visions show the complex interplay of the anatomical body andthe glowing subtle energies of the soul, unveiling the relationship between our finite self and infinite spirit. Grey's quest is toward an integrative art that visually unites body, mind, soul, and spirit and helps heal the alienation and fragmentation felt between the individual and the world. ALEX GREY is the author of Sacred Mirrors: The Visionary Art of Alex Grey and The Mission of Art. His work has been exhibited around the world, including at the New Museum and Stux Gallery in New York City, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the Grand Palais in Paris, the Sao Paulo Biennial, and the ARK exhibition space in Tokyo. His art has also been featured in venues as diverse as album covers for the Beastie Boys, Nirvana, and Tool; Newsweek magazine; and the Discovery Channel. He lives in New York with his wife, artist Allyson Grey, and their daughter, actress Zena Grey.