Early Medieval Architecture (Oxford History of Art)
by Roger Stalley
from Oxford University Press, USA
The early middle ages were an exciting period in the history of European architecture, culminating in the development of the Romanesque style. Major architectural innovations were made during this time including the medieval castle, the church spire, and the monastic cloister. By avoiding the traditional emphasis on chronological development, Roger Stalley provides a radically new approach to the subject, exploring issues and themes rather than sequences and dates. In addition to analysing the language of the Romanesque, the book examines the engineering achievements of the builders, focusing on how the great monuments of the age were designed and constructed. Ranging from Gotland to Apulia, Stalley explores the richness and variety of European architecture in terms of the social and religious aspirations of the time. Symbolic meanings associated with architecture are also thoroughly investigated. Written with style and humour, the lively text includes many quotations from ancient sources, providing fascinating insight into the way that medieval buildings were created, and in the process enlivening study of this period.
An Introduction to Music and Art in the Western World
by Milo Wold
from McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
An Introduction to Music and Art in the Western World, 10th edition, is a clear and attractive guide to the great artists and composers of the West and the societies in which they lived and worked.
Medieval Architecture (Oxford History of Art)
by Nicola Coldstream
from Oxford University Press, USA
Medieval architecture comprises much more than the traditional image of Gothic cathedrals and the castles of chivalry. A great variety of buildings--synagogues, halls, and barns--testify to the diverse communities and interests in western Europe in the centuries between 1150 and 1550. This book looks at their architecture from an entirely fresh perspective, shifting the emphasis away from such areas as France towards the creativity of other regions, including central Europe and Spain. Treating the subject thematically, Coldstream seeks out what all buildings, both religious and secular, have in common, and how they reflect the material and spiritual concerns of the people who built and used them. Furthermore, the author considers how and why, after four centuries of shaping the landscapes and urban patterns of Europe, medieval styles were superseded by classicism.
Romanesque Sculpture: The Revival of Monumental Stone Sculpture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
by M. F. Hearn
from Cornell University Press
Romanesque Art: Selected Papers (Schapiro, Meyer, Selections.)
by Meyer Schapiro
from George Braziller
Lawrence Alma-Tadema
by Rosemary J. Barrow
from Phaidon Press
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912), was one of the finest and most distinctive of the Victorian painters. Dutch-born, he moved to London in 1870 and became famous for his depictions of the luxury and decadence of the Roman Empire, set in fabulous marbled interiors or against a backdrop of dazzling blue Mediterranean sea and sky. In this original study, Rosemary Barrow presents an absorbing and often amusing portrait of an exuberant personality who carved out a brilliant career for himself at the heart of London's artistic and cultural elite. But above all she subjects the paintings to a fresh scrutiny, and reveals that Alma-Tadema, a knowledgeable student of antiquity, repeatedly used literary and archaeological allusions in his paintings to play a game of interpretation with his viewers. Time and again the seeming innocence of the scenes he depicts is subverted by a mischievously placed inscription or statue, suggesting to the initiated a darker and usually risque meaning. Neglected after his death, Alma-Tadema's paintings are once again admired for their beauty and their remarkable mastery of light, colour and texture. With its intriguing insights into his personality and intentions, this book should provide a challenging reassessment of a major artist.
Art for Art's Sake: Aestheticism in Victorian Painting (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art)
by Elizabeth Prettejohn
from Yale University Press
In the London circles of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Frederic Leighton, the notion of “art for art's sake” became a shared concern: if art is not created for the sake of preaching a moral lesson, or supporting a political cause, or making a fortune, or any other objective, what might art be? Art historian Elizabeth Prettejohn traces the emergence of the debates over this issue in the 1860s and 1870s, focusing especially on the Rossetti, Whistler, Leighton, and other protagonists of the Aesthetic Movement and their paintings—some of the most haunting and memorable images in modern art. The English painters' search for the formula to best express the idea of “art for art's sake” was a unified and powerful artistic undertaking, Prettejohn demonstrates, and the Aesthetic Movement made important contributions to the history of modern art.
The Intelligence of Art (Bettie Allison Rand Lectures in Art History)
by Thomas Crow
from The University of North Carolina Press
With this book, Thomas Crow contributes a refreshing analysis of the present state of art history, the practice of interpreting art and making it "intelligible." He aims to relocate the discussion of theory and method in art history away from models borrowed from other disciplines by presenting what he considers three of the most successful and challenging works in the literature of art history: Meyer Schapiro on the Romanesque portal sculpture of the abbey church of Sainte Marie in the French town of Souillac, Claude Levi-Strauss on the Native American masks of the Northwest Coast, and Michael Baxandall on the limewood sculptors of Renaissance Germany.
Sketching the history of trends in art history—from description and biography, to more recent social-historical methods, to the latest wave of postmodernist approaches—Crow sets out a course that affirms the rich and valuable tools of language and methodology developed by generations of art historians while recognizing the important contribution of recent theory in raising the interpretive stakes.The Intelligence of Art offers nothing less than a concrete new way to grasp the infinitely complex operations of human intelligence in artistic form.
Romanesque Art (Perspectives)
by Andreas Petzold
from Prentice Hall
Early Medieval Art: Carolingian, Ottonian, Romanesque (World of Art)
by John Beckwith
from Thames & Hudson
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