History & Criticism

In this vivid and captivating journey through the colors of an artist’s palette, Victoria Finlay takes us on an enthralling adventure around the world and through the ages, illuminating how the colors we choose to value have determined the history of culture itself....

The unforgettable, unknown history of colors and the vivid stories behind them....

Five women revolutionize the modern art world in postwar America in this "gratifying, generous, and lush" true story from a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist (Jennifer Szalai, New York Times)....

Art & Fear explores the way art gets made, the reasons it often doesn't get made, and the nature of the difficulties that cause so many artists to give up along the way....

A fascinating biography of the philanthropist Albert Barnes, whose pioneering collection of modern art was meant to transform America’s soul.

At the same time Adolf Hitler was attempting to take over the western world, his armies were methodically seeking and hoarding the finest art treasures in Europe.....

The meteoric rise of the largest unregulated financial market in the world - for contemporary art - is driven by a few passionate, guileful, and very hard-nosed dealers. They can make and break careers and fortunes....

When Roxana Robinson’s definitive biography of O’Keeffe was first published in 1989, it received rave reviews and was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year....

A former New York Times Paris bureau chief explores the Louvre, offering an intimate journey of discovery and revelation.

Have your sense of art history overturned and your eyes opened to many artforms often ignored or dismissed. From the Cornish coast to Manhattan, Nigeria to Japan, this is the history of art as it's never been told before....

A modern classic cherished by many of the greatest artists of our time, The Gift is a brilliant, life-changing defense of the value of creative labor....

A Perfect Red recounts the colorful history of cochineal, a legendary red dye that was once one of the world's most precious commodities....

The Rescue Artist is a rollicking narrative that carries listeners deep inside the art underworld - and introduces them to a large and colorful cast of titled aristocrats, intrepid investigators, and thick-necked thugs. But most compelling of all is Charley Hill himself....

This audiobook narrated by best-selling author Mary Beard explores how images of Roman autocrats have influenced art, culture, and the representation of power....

The central argument of Chromophobia is that a chromophobic impulse—a fear of corruption or contamination through color—lurks within much Western cultural and intellectual thought.

Jerry Saltz is one of our most-watched writers about art and artists and a passionate champion of the importance of art in our shared cultural life. Since the 1990s he has been an indispensable cultural voice: Witty and provocative, he has attracted contemporary listeners to fine art....

One of the nation’s top art critics shows how six great artists made old age a time of triumph by producing some of the greatest work of their long careers—and, in some cases, changing the course of art history....

The award-winning art historian and founder of the Vision & Justice project uncovers a pivotal era in the story of race in the United States when Americans came to ignore the truth about the false foundations of the nation’s racial regime.

First published in 1973, this is a study of the force of photographic images, which are continually inserted between experience and reality....

In 1508, despite strong advice to the contrary, the powerful Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo....

In 12 fascinating lectures, you will hear the stories behind the theft and/or destruction of some of the world’s most famous pieces of art....

Part treatise, part critique, part call to action, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice is a journey into the uncanny realities revealed to us in the great works of art of the past and present....

An eminent psychologist offers a major new theory of human cognition: movement, not language, is the foundation of thought....

From Neil MacGregor, the author of A History of the World in 100 Objects, this is a view of Germany like no other....

What is art? Why do we value images of saints, kings, goddesses, battles, landscapes or cities from eras of history utterly remote from ourselves....

From prominent critic and biographer Blake Gopnik comes a compelling new portrait of America’s first great collector of modern art, Albert Coombs Barnes. Raised in a Philadelphia slum shortly after the Civil War, Barnes rose to earn a medical degree and then made a fortune from a pioneering antiseptic treatment for newborns. Never losing sight of the working-class neighbors of his youth, Barnes became a ruthless advocate for their rights and needs.

At twenty-five years old, Michael Stewart was a young Black aspiring artist, deejay, and model, looking to make a name for himself in the vibrant downtown art scene of the early 1980’s New York City. On September 15, 1983, he was brutally beaten by New York City Transit Authority police for allegedly tagging a 14th Street subway station wall. Witnesses reported officers beating him with Billy clubs and choking him with a nightstick. Stewart arrived at Bellevue Hospital hog-tied with no heartbeat and died after thirteen days in a coma.

Step into the dazzling world of Tudor England, where art and power intertwine. In Secrets of the Tudor Portraits, Sylvia Barbara Soberton uncovers the hidden stories behind some of the most iconic images of the Tudor period. From the commanding presence of Henry VIII in Hans Holbein’s Whitehall Mural to Elizabeth I’s carefully crafted image as the Virgin Queen, these portraits are more than mere likenesses—they are coded messages, political propaganda and deeply personal reflections of their sitters. Through meticulous research and vivid storytelling, this book delves into the lives ...

Китай — процветающее государство с богатыми историей, культурой, традициями. Искусство этой страны всегда выделялось на общем фоне, а разнообразные китайские надписи, статуэтки, кувшины, тарелки, чашки, зеркала, костюмы покоряют своей оригинальностью и красотой. Китайские парки, сады, пагоды отличаются необычным стилем оформления и каждый год притягивают миллионы туристов. Эта книга — своеобразный путеводитель по искусству Поднебесной, который подробнее познакомит вас с основными жанрами, видами, направлениями, шедеврами китайского искусства и его историей.

The book reveals the creative and innovative discoveries made as a result of in depth research, and years of Graduate studies, beginning at the Villa Schifanoia, and Villa I Tatti on Renaissance Art in Florence, Italy. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City with Maria Theresa Duncan and La Bibliothèque Château de Versailles. The Renaissance Culture known as Humanistic, Humanitus, as depicted in the Sculpting and Paintings of Michelangelo, Sandro Boticelli, Raphael, Da Vinci and others. Man was in balance with the Greater Universe, Art and Architecture.