This companion volume to the author's Learning to Look at Paintings addresses some of the questions most commonly asked about modern art. Why does it appear so different from the art of the past? Why is it so difficult to understand? How should we approach it? Acton suggests that the best way to understand modern art is to look closely at it, and to consider the different elements that make up each art work - composition, space and form, light and colour and subject matter. Her engaging and beautifully-written guide to art of the modern and postmodern period covers key art movements including...

This new book from Mary Acton is a perfect companion volume to Learning to look at Paintings and Learning to look at Modern Art. Like them it is primarily about looking - and particularly about the differences in the experience of looking at three-dimensional art. Covering all periods of Western sculpture from Classical times to the present day, each chapter is broadly chronological, taking examples from different periods, while the book itself takes a thematic approach. Important themes throughout the book include a discussion of the idea of mimesis (the imitation of the natural world) and...

Learning to Look at Sculpture is an accessible guide to the study and understanding of three dimensional art. Sculpture is all around us: in public parks, squares, gardens and railway stations, as part of the architecture of buildings, or when used in commemoration and memorials and can even be considered in relation to furniture and industrial design. This book encourages you to consider the multiple forms and everyday guises sculpture can take.

Exploring Western sculpture with examples from antiquity through to the present day, Mary Acton shows you how to analyse and...