Art: The Definitive Visual Guide (DK Definitive Cultural Histories)

Product Information

Graphics and overlays explain the simple steps required to analyze, and inform your enjoyment of, any work of art. colour illusts, very good hardback with decorated boards (no dustwraper as issued) This is a heavy book so expect extra freight charges. Finance is provided by PayPal Credit (a trading name of PayPal UK Ltd, Whittaker House, Whittaker Avenue, Richmond-Upon-Thames, Surrey, United Kingdom, TW9 1EH). What the artists did to create each work — and how — is revealed with the help of graphics, overlays, and detailed close-ups. Interspersed through the book, double-page features show how different artists have approached the same popular themes.

The book opens with a short section detailing how artists use color, composition, light and shade, perspective, and different media to bring their ideas to fruition.

is there any point in a repro of a giant mannerist painting which would have covered half a wall being reduced to a two inch square?

This book is not a specialized look at one particular period or a handful of canonized artists, but devotes a good amount of space to artists we are not as familiar with, placed in context with other artists and works we are more familiar with. Andrew Graham Dixon is one of the leading art critics and presenters of arts television programmes in the English-speaking world. He has written a number of books on subjects ranging from medieval painting and sculpture, to contemporary art. If you ever just feel the need to look at art, this is the book to pick up; the photography is crisp and the art chosen is encyclopedic in its range. He has presented six landmark series on art for the BBC, including the acclaimed A History of British Art, Renaissance, and Art of Eternity, as well as numerous individual documentaries on art and artists.More than 700 artists from all periods and cultures — Western and non-Western, right up to the present day — are profiled alongside key examples of their work. From Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper to Francis Bacon’s Screaming Pope , 22 key works are analyzed at full-page size in terms of composition, story, and techniques. I am newly studying art and reading this gave me a decent overview and some ideas for time periods and cultures that I want to study further.

Parceling out my reading in those short bursts kept it from becoming tedious, which the tiny print would do if I read too long.Discover key facts about the most prominent artistic movements, including their origins and influences, and follow a timeline of the most famous works.

Under the heading of "Brushstrokes and Texture" someone described The Birth of Venus by Alexandre Cabanel as "the acceptable face of female nudity posing as high art on the pretext of retelling a classical myth. Art - The Definitive Visual Guide by DK Books is probably the most in-depth encyclopedia that takes you through various decades of art; it is enlightening and inspiring, it is the graduate course in fine arts that you may have wanted to take but never got around to. I'll also note that the modern art descriptions and stuff are often absolutely laughable but tbh I hate a lot of the modern art stuff they have in this book so I guess I would say that.It's a visual guide - I guess that means that they cram in references to every major and most minor painters and sculptors since time began plus many non-Western artists too, refreshingly, so A+ for inclusiveness - BUT everything is squished and rammed and crammed into fun-sized paragraphs and thumbnail illustrations.