History

As an underground art star, Andy Warhol (1928-1987) was the antidote to the prevalent abstract expressionist style of 1950s America. He introduced popular everyday subjects into his practice and openly acknowledged the wide-ranging influences on his...

In Venice, on the Grand Tour in 1731, the future fourth Duke of Bedford met with the great art agent, Consul Joseph Smith. The commission he placed resulted in 24 of the greatest and most typical works of Canaletto. First installed in Bedford House...

The joy that permeates Renoir's paintings was created by a complicated person. Even close friends and family members were often baffled by the multi-faceted and contradictory artist. Having known Renoir for over twenty years, Camille Pissarro complained...

A new way of appreciating art that puts the artwork front and centre, brought to us by one of the freshest and most exciting voices in cultural criticism. What makes great art great? Why do some works pulse in the imagination, generation after...

The passage from Imperial Rome to the era of late antiquity, when the Roman Empire underwent a religious conversion to Christianity, saw some of the most significant and innovative developments in Western culture. This stimulating book investigates the...

Written with the assistance, for the first time, of all of those involved, including Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno, Andy Mackay and Phil Manzanera; the fashion designer Antony Price, the founding guru of pop art, and Bryan Ferry's tutor, Richard Hamilton, and...

A groundbreaking method for writing art history, using the language of geometry. How do we embark on a history of art from the assumption of a global majority, outside of essentializing categories like race or hollow proclamations of solidarity? With...

Nobles, ladies, scholars, and merchants were the subjects of Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98-1543), an inventive German artist best known for his dazzling portraits. Holbein developed his signature style in Basel and London amid a rich culture of...

During the Middle Ages decorative floor tiles were used in abbey churches, royal palaces, parish churches and the homes of wealthy citizens. Tiles were durable and hygienic and added a new decorative element to the interior. Despite their simple tools...

The Art Nouveau movement became an international phenomenon at the beginning of the twentieth century that ushered in the era of modernity in almost every aspect of cultural life. For decades critics have argued that Art Nouveau was not an artistic...

Asmara, the capital of the small East African country of Eritrea, bordering the Red Sea, is one of the most important and exciting architectural 'discoveries' of recent years. Built almost entirely in the 1930s by the Italians, who transformed it into a...

Paul Klee on Modern Art, with an introduction by Herbert Read, represents the essential collection of thinking about art from one of the last century's most influential artists.Paul Klee on Modern Art, with an introduction by Herbert Read, represents the...

At the age of sixteen, Catherine Tylney Long became the wealthiest heiress in England, and the public found their 'angel'. Witty, wealthy and beautiful, Catherine was the most eligible of young ladies and was courted by royalty but, ignoring the warnings...

Making the Renaissance Man explores the images, objects and experiences that fashioned men and masculinity in the courts of fifteenth-century Italy. Across the peninsula, Italian princes fought each other in fierce battles and spectacular jousts; they...

Exotic lair, freezing garret or convivial rendezvous, artists' studios reflect their personalities, the way they work, their dreams and obsessions. Some are battlegrounds where hopes are dashed and original concepts fail dismally in their execution. A...

Occasionally, when something seems very familiar you lose sight of what makes it so special: Flemish Masters. From van Eyck to Bruegel sets out to counteract this effect and opens our eyes once again to the revolution that took place in the Low Countries...

Tales throughout the world generally place fabulous beasts in marginal locations - deserts, deep woods, remote islands, glaciers, ocean depths, mountain peaks, caves, swamps, heavenly bodies and alternate universes. Legends tell us that imaginary...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780486235530Author Hajime OuchiFormat PaperbackPage Count 170Imprint Dover Publications Inc.Publisher Dover Publications Inc.Weight(grams)...

This is the first of two volumes of the only English edition of Hegel's Aesthetics, the work in which he gives full expression to his seminal theory of art. The substantial Introduction is his best exposition of his general philosophy of art. In Part I...

Griselda Pollock, feminist art historian and longstanding advocate of gender and racial inclusivity, unpacks the racist, sexist and imperialist underpinnings of works by Gauguin and others as they competed for pre-eminence in the European avant-garde of...

Do artists travel away from or towards trauma? Is trauma encrypted or inscribed in art? Or can aesthetic practices (after-images) bring about transformation of trauma, personal trauma or historical traumas? Can they do this in a way that does not imply...

A fascinating exploration of the life and work of one of America's most famous and enigmatic postwar visual artists Mark Rothko, one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century, was born in the Jewish Pale of Settlement in 1903. He immigrated to...

"A novel par excellence that is destined to become a classic' of almost byzantine splendour . . . At its best worthy of comparison with Gabriel Garcia Marquez" Catherine Taylor, Irish Times"Afonso Cruz is one of the strongest voices in contemporary...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780957666566Author Alan PowersFormat HardbackPage Count 112Imprint The Mainstone PressPublisher The Mainstone Press

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780060531188Author Edward DolnickFormat PaperbackPage Count 270Imprint HarperCollins PublishersPublisher HarperCollins Publishers IncWeight(grams) 286g

Buried in the 14th century BC but unearthed by Howard Carter in 1922, the objects entombed with Tutankhamun are an invaluable window into a long-extinct belief system. Seen today, they create an intricate picture of how the ancient Egyptian people viewed...

Planet Earth needs a self-help book, and this is itThe future is happening to us far faster than we thought it would and this book explains whyFifty years after Marshall McLuhan's ground breaking book on the influence of technology on culture The Medium...

When we try to make sense of pictures, what do we gain when we use a particular method - and what might we be missing or even losing? Empirical experimentation on three types of mythological imagery - a Classical Greek pot, a frieze from Hellenistic...

The Armada Portrait is perhaps the most immediately recognisable depiction of Elizabeth I and, arguably, of any British monarch. It captures both the drama of a pivotal moment in Britain's history - the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 - and the...

Modern art arouses many different responses: suspicion, controversy and misunderstanding are among the most frequent. But it doesn't need to be like that. To help out, here is a clear, accessible, fully illustrated introduction to what can otherwise seem...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781912554430Author Guido RebecchiniFormat HardbackPage Count 259Imprint Harvey Miller PublishersPublisher Brepols N.V.Weight(grams) 1451gDimensions(mm)...

Lorenzo de' Medici: The embodiment of Florence's most powerful family, a brutal man who ruled the city with an iron fist, whilst protecting it from the shifting mire of Italian politics.Fra Girolamo Savonarola: An unprepossessing provincial monk whose...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9782080421944Author Jean-Louis CohenFormat HardbackPage Count 356Imprint FlammarionPublisher Editions FlammarionWeight(grams) 1400g

'Packed with absorbing detail and brilliant insights ... I was gripped from the first paragraph.' - Alison Weir No English king is as well-known to us as Henry VIII - famous for his six marriages, for dissolving the monasteries and for the ruthless...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780156167734Author Professor Quentin BellFormat PaperbackPage Count 180Imprint Mariner BooksPublisher Mariner BooksWeight(grams) 218gDimensions(mm) 197mm *...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781101873120Author Anne-Marie O'ConnorFormat PaperbackPage Count 368Imprint Vintage BooksPublisher Random House USA IncWeight(grams) 289gDimensions(mm)...

What is contemporary art? What makes it 'contemporary'? What is it for? And why is it so expensive? The contemporary art world can be a baffling place, but Kyung An and Jessica Cerasi are on hand to bring you up to speed. From museums and the art market...

The heyday of the Art Nouveau style was relatively short, spanning the decades immediately before and after 1900. However it was a tremendously important period, not only for its radical shift away from the academic and romantic movements of the late...

On New Year's Day 1986, encouraged by her dealer Andras Kalman, artist Mary Newcomb, then aged 64, began to keep a diary. She wrote in its opening pages: 'I wanted ... to remind ourselves that - in our haste - in this century - we may not give time to...

A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 'The first significant biography of the artist' Michael Prodger, The Times' 'Best art books of 2021' 'Exemplary ... a scintillating read' Alastair Sooke, Daily Telegraph 'For those who love Magritte and those who...