The Visual Arts A History

by Honour, Hugh; Fleming, John

• ISBN13: 9780810939288
• ISBN10: 0810939282
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1995-02-01
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams

Summary

The most up-to-date and wide-ranging history of art ever published in a single volume, The Visual Arts: A History presents art as an integrated dimension of human activity. With insight and elegance, it offers an authoritative, balanced, and stimulating account of the arts - ranging from a statuette carved in central Europe some 30,000 years ago to contemporary installation pieces by Jenny Holzer and Gary Hill. The scope is international, including the art of Asia, Africa, and Oceania. The fine arts are represented, of course, by painting, mosaic, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, architecture, and photography. But so are other arts: textiles, coins, pottery, enamels, gold and silver work, Earth and Land Art, Body and Video Art, to name a few. Authors Hugh Honour and John Fleming, two of this century's most esteemed art historians, explore the purpose and meaning of art in ways that challenge conventional ideas about "progress" and aesthetic enjoyment. They show how art can give pleasure and also deepen our self-knowledge. They guide us in understanding the visual arts' role in maintaining beliefs, practicing rituals, and transmitting moral and social codes. On the practical side, their text presents a sound account of techniques and methods of painting, building, and sculpting, and it explains the basic tools of the visual arts, such as color and perspective systems.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Picture credits
Preface
Introduction
Before history	p. 4
The early civilizations	p. 20
Developments across the continents	p. 59
The Greeks and their neighbours	p. 95
Hellenistic and Roman art	p. 141
Buddhism and Far Eastern art	p. 192
Early Christian and Byzantine art	p. 264
Early Islamic art	p. 309
Medieval Christendom	p. 332
The fifteenth century in Europe	p. 388
The sixteenth century in Europe	p. 430
The Americas, Africa and Asia	p. 476
The seventeenth century in Europe	p. 530
Enlightenment and liberty	p. 570
Romanticism to Realism	p. 598
Eastern traditions	p. 643
Impressionism to Post-Impressionism	p. 656
Indigenous arts of Africa, the Americas, Australia and Oceania	p. 689
Art from 1900 to 1919	p. 716
Between the two world wars	p. 745
Post-war to Post-Modern	p. 775
Towards the third millennium	p. 803
Glossary	p. 828
For further reading	p. 841
Index	p. 848
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