During the 1870s and 1880s, a loose group of French artists, including Pissarro, Monet, and Renoir, adopted a style of painting and subject matter that challenged the art prompted by the Academie Francaise and the Salons where "official" assumptions about the meaning of painting prevailed. What has been called "the revolutionary nature of the Impressionist enterprise" emerged from political radicalism, belief in science and individualism, and a view of art true to modern life and to immediate visual perception. In all these respects, Impressionism initiated the radical tendencies of modern...

The art of Hinduism constitutes one of the world's great traditions, as alive today as when the first images of Hindu gods were fashioned out of stone more than two thousand years ago. George Michell's invaluable survey looks at the entire period, covering shrines consecrated to Hindu cults as well as works of art that portray Hindu divinities, semidivine personalities, and mythological narratives. Michell outlines the development of Hinduism and the principal iconic forms of its pantheon (the symbolic basis for Hindu religious architecture), and explains the system of royal patronage that...

"Richly illustrated...brings to life the work of many lesser-known artists throughout the continent." Choice

Gainsborough is one of the most appealing artists of the 18th century. The author draws on recently discovered material to provide a fresh perspective on both the life and art of this master.

The art of the Fang, the BaTeke, the BaKota, and other African peoples is extraordinarily vigorous and shows a brilliant sense of form. The substantial aesthetic impact that their works have had on the development of twentieth-century Western art--on Picasso, Derain, Braque, and Modigliani, among others--continues to this day. This classic study reveals the astonishing variety and expressive power of the art of a continent that contains more distinct peoples and cultures than any other. The revised edition has been updated throughout, incorporating recent research and additional...

Recent art historical scholarship has helped restore, to a large degree, some understanding of the identities and cultural roles of Native American artists and the social contexts of the objects they created. Native American art is often discussed simply as a cultural production rather than the work of individual artists who made objects to fufill social and cultural purposes; this book focuses as much as possible on the artists themselves, their cultural identities, and the objects they made even when the names of the individual artists remain unrecoverable But this is not a book of artists'...

This pioneering book, originally published in 1999 under the titleNew Media in Late 20th-Century Art, discusses the most influential artists internationally--from Eadweard Muybridge to Robert Rauschenberg, Bill Viola, and Pipilotti Rist--and those seminal works that have radically transformed the map of world art. For this new and expanded edition, the book has been brought completely up to date to include the latest in digital work as technology takes art in new directions.

Organized thematically, the book focuses on subjects such as nature and technology, the grotesque, identity politics, and the place of the individual in society. Featuring work by artists such as Matthew Barney, Marlene Dumas, Olafur Eliasson, Oleg Kulik, and Ernesto Neto, it shows how the body continues to be pivotal to the understanding and expression of our place in the universe.

International in scope, this new edition includes updates on the most important new designers and the reinvention of brands. The reference section includes an extensive bibliography.