Art History Theory

"A dauntingly ambitious, obsessively researched" (Los Angeles Times) global history of music that reveals how songs have shifted societies and sparked revolutions. Histories of music overwhelmingly suppress stories of the outsiders and rebels who created musical revolutions and instead celebrate...

Discover how Impressionism transformed the art world and laid the foundation for modern art as we know it. This comprehensive exploration traces the movement's origins in 1870s France through its profound influence on twentieth-century artistic development. From Monet's water lilies to Renoir's intimate portraits, explore the masterpieces that challenged academic tradition and revolutionized how artists investigate color, light, and visual perception. Learn how Impressionism's radical principles opened pathways to Fauvism, Cubism, abstraction, and beyond—making it the pivotal movement ...

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. How did the most precious...

Discover the fascinating world of mesmerism in this captivating book that sheds light on its birth, tumultuous history, and modern-day resurgence. Whether you're new to mesmerism or seeking to deepen your understanding, this comprehensive guide offers valuable insights and practical instructions to become a skilled mesmerist. Delve into the life of Franz Anton Mesmer, the visionary behind animal magnetism, and uncover the remarkable challenges he faced, from betrayal to unjust accusations. As you immerse yourself in Mesmer's true journey, you'll gain a newfound appreciation for his ...

What if postmodernism was absolute nonsense? What if we were at the starting point of a great new artistic movement? Could this movement take us beyond the outdated logic of postmodernism and into an entire new world of possibilities for artist and non-artist alike? We are almost a century past the great art movement championed by Gertrude Stein that left ripples through the 20th century and this book will navigate you through in a similar manner why it is time to move beyond postmodernism (in a similar manner that Stein guided Picasso, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Henri Matisse, etc....

Film Studies is a concise and indispensable introduction to the formal study of cinema. Ed Sikov offers a step-by-step curriculum for the appreciation of all types of narrative cinema, detailing the essential elements of film form and systematically training the spectator to be an active listener and critic. He treats a number of fundamental factors in filmmaking, including editing, composition, lighting, the use of color and sound, and narrative.

The Queer Art of Failure is about finding alternatives - to conventional understandings of success in a heteronormative, capitalist society; to academic disciplines that confirm what is already known according to approved methods of knowing; and to cultural criticism that claims to break new ground but cleaves to conventional archives.

Ida B. Wells is an American icon of truth telling. Born to slaves, she was a pioneer of investigative journalism, a crusader against lynching, and a tireless advocate for suffrage, both for women and for African Americans. She cofounded the NAACP, started the Alpha Suffrage Club in Chicago, and was a leader in the early civil rights movement. This engaging memoir relates Wells’ private life as a mother as well as her public activities as a teacher, lecturer, and journalist in her fight for equality and justice.

From Berlin to the Congo, from Moscow to the back streets of London, these are the stories of the agents on the front lines of British intelligence. And the truth is often more remarkable than fiction.

MI6 has been cloaked in secrecy and shrouded in myth since it was created a hundred years ago. Our understanding of what it is to be a spy has been largely defined by the fictional worlds of Ian Fleming and John le Carré. Gordon Corera provides a unique and unprecedented insight into this secret world and the reality that lies behind the fiction.

Saint Augustine's contributions to Christian theology are second to no other post-apostolic author in the whole sweep of church history. Yet along side his doctrinal treatises, Augustine tells a story of his life devoted to Christ as his only satisfaction.

Abridged for audio. Read by the author, Clive James. With fascinating essays on towering figures from Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig, via Charles de Gaulle, Hitler, Thomas Mann and Wittgenstein, Cultural Amnesia is one of the crowning achievements in Clive James's illustrious career as a critic...

A Landmark Translation of the Original Renaissance Quadrivium Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) was the last great Renaissance polymath—and one of the first global scholars. In the mid-1600s, he published his monumental three-volume work, Oedipus Aegyptiacus, which aimed to decode the ancient world’s symbolic language. This volume contains Kircher’s exploration of the Quadrivium: Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy—the four liberal arts of classical education. Drawing on ancient sources from Pythagoras to Plato, Kircher weaves a cosmological vision in which number, form, sound...

A delicious romp through the heyday of rock and roll and a revealing portrait of the man at the helm of the iconic magazine that made it all possible, with candid look backs at the era from Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Elton John, Bono, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, and others. The story...

Grandmaster Chan represents the sixth generation of the Wah Lum Kung Fu system and has over 60 years of martial arts experience. He has instructed thousands of students and has schools throughout the world. Grandmaster Chan has appeared on national television in Discovery Channel’s Secret of the Warrior’s Power and in ESPN.

The history of the films, cartoons, toys, and more: The Back to the Future series is a timeless collection that is greatly revered by all audiences. The beauty of this audiobook by Brad Gilmore is that it doesn't present the history of the film as textbook information. Gilmore discusses these films from a place of passion and so effectively reveals how the history behind the movies is just as engaging as the films themselves.

Discover the timeless wisdom of Aristotle and how his Poetics continues to shape literature, theater, and storytelling today. For more than two thousand years, Aristotle’s Poetics has stood as one of the most influential works in literary history. In Aristotle and the Art of Poetics: Exploring His Enduring Influence on Literature and Storytelling, The Practical Atlas takes readers on a clear and engaging journey through Aristotle’s vision of tragedy, epic, and comedy, revealing why his ideas remain vital for understanding the power of stories. From Aristotle’s definition of tragedy ...

Niccolo Machiavelli's Art of War is one of the world's great classics of military and political theory. Praised by the finest military minds in history and said to have influenced no lesser lights than Frederick the Great and Napoleon, the Art of War is essential for anyone who wants to understand the history and theory of war in the West and for those familiar with The Prince and Discourse on Livy who seek to explore more fully the connection between war and politics in Machiavelli's thought.

Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and laws.

The first major biography of the pathbreaking, perpetually influential surrealist artist and iconoclast whose inspiration can be seen in everyone from Jasper Johns to Beyoncé—by the celebrated biographer of Cézanne and Braque In this thought-provoking life of René Magritte (1898‒1967)...

We live in an age of the mobile image. This recent kinetic revolution of the image has enormous consequences not only for the way we think about contemporary art and aesthetics but also for art history as well. Responding to this historical moment, Theory of the Image offers a fresh new theory and history of art from the perspective of this epoch-defining mobility. The image has been understood in many ways, but it is rarely understood to be fundamentally in motion.