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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorOn Art and Life
John Ruskin · 109 pages
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilizatio
The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa
Michael Kimmelman · 256 pages
About Looking
John Berger · 198 pages
This successor to John Berger's Ways of Seeing, written over the last ten years, searches for meaning within and beyond what is looked at. Why do zoos disappoint children? Why do we take snapshots of those we love? How do the media use photographs of agony? When an animal looks us in the eyes, what does that look mean? Berger describes how a sixteenth-century masterpiece he saw in the 1960s com
The Art Spirit: Notes, Articles, Fragments of Letters and Talks to Students, Bearing on the Concept and Technique of Picture Making, the Study of Art
Robert Henri · 275 pages
From 1915 to 1927, Henri was a popular and influential teacher at the Art Students League of New York. He provided for each student not a style so much as an attitude, an approach to art. Henri's philosophical and practical musings were collected by former pupil Margery Ryerson and published as The Art Spirit (1923), a book that remained in print for several decades. Henri's other students inclu
From Bauhaus to Our House
Tom Wolfe · 128 pages
A lamentation on the state of modernist, international style architecture. In this long-form architectural screed in essay form, Wolfe takes aim at celebrated figures in the modernist movement—most notably Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius—and examines the reasons for their rise and continuing acclaim.
The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone
Olivia Laing · 336 pages
"You can be lonely anywhere, but there is a particular flavor to the loneliness that comes from living in a city, surrounded by thousands of strangers. The Lonely City is a roving cultural history of urban loneliness, centered on the ultimate city: Manhattan, that teeming island of gneiss, concrete, and glass. What does it mean to be lonely? How do we live, if we're not intimately involved with an
Concerning the Spiritual in Art
Wassily Kandinsky · 92 pages
A pioneering work in the movement to free art from its traditional bonds to material reality, this book is one of the most important documents in the history of modern art. Written by the famous nonobjective painter Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), it explains Kandinsky's own theory of painting and crystallizes the ideas that were influencing many other modern artists of the period. Along with his o
Keeping an Eye Open: Essays on Art
Julian Barnes · 336 pages
An updated edition of the highly acclaimed collection of writing on art by one of Britain's best-loved authors, with seven new illustrated essays. 'Flaubert believed that it was impossible to explain one art form in terms of another, and that great paintings required no words of explanation. Braque thought the ideal state would be reached when we said nothing at all in front of a painting. But we
The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women & the Artists They Inspired
Francine Prose · 432 pages
"In this new book, Francine Prose explores the complex relationship between the artist and his muse. In so doing, she illuminates with great sensitivity and intelligence the elusive emotional wellsprings of the creative process.". "There is no ideal muse, but rather as many variations on the theme as there are individual women who have had the luck, or misfortune, to find their destiny conjoined
Still Life with Oysters and Lemon: On Objects and Intimacy
Mark Doty · 75 pages
Playing to the Gallery
Grayson Perry · 200 pages
Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art from Egypt to Star Wars
Camille Paglia · 202 pages
An enthralling journey through Western art's defining moments, from the ancient Egyptian tomb of Queen Nefertari to George Lucas's volcano planet duel in "Revenge of the Sith."
The Invisible Dragon: Essays on Beauty
Dave Hickey · 93 pages
"The Invisible Dragon made a lot of noise for a little book. When it was originally published in 1993 it was championed by artists for its forceful call for a reconsideration of beauty - and savaged by more theoretically oriented critics who dismissed the very concept of beauty as naive, igniting a debate that has shown no sign of flagging." "With this revised and expanded edition, Hickey is back
The Power of Art
Simon Schama · 448 pages
Taking eight famous painters and their great masterpieces, this book takes you back to the intense moment in history when these works were conceived and born. In each case the artist is backed into a corner, and given a chance to confound his rivals, enemies and critics.
Art in Theory 1900 - 2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas
Charles Harrison, Paul Wood · 1,288 pages
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
Scott McCloud · 215 pages
Praised throughout the cartoon industry by such luminaries as Art Spiegelman, Matt Groening, and Will Eisner, Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics is a seminal examination of comics art: its rich history, surprising technical components, and major cultural significance. Explore the secret world between the panels, through the lines, and within the hidden symbols of a powerful but misunderstood art
History of Beauty
Umberto Eco, Girolamo De Michele · 438 pages
From the Publisher: What is beauty? What is art? What is taste and fashion? Is beauty something to be observed coolly and rationally or is it something dangerously involving? So begins Umberto Eco's intriguing journey into the aesthetics of beauty, in which he explores the ever-changing concept of the beautiful from the ancient Greeks to today. While closely examining the development of the visual
Wall and Piece
Banksy · 207 pages
From the Publisher: Graffiti artist Banksy decorates streets, walls, bridges and zoos of towns and cities throughout the world. His identity remains unknown but his work is witty, subversive and prolific. And now, he's put together the best of his work in a fully illustrated color volume.
Color: A Natural History of the Palette
Victoria Finlay · 448 pages
The Lives of the Artists
Giorgio Vasari · 478 pages
After the End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of History
Arthur C. Danto · 272 pages
The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning
Maggie Nelson · 304 pages
Discusses whether the brutal imagery present in reality and entertainment will shock society into a less alienated state and help create a just social order or whether focusing on representations of cruelty makes society more cruel.