Western Art and the Wider World explores the evolving relationship between the Western canon of art, as it has developed since the Renaissance, and the art and culture of the Islamic world, the Far East, Australasia, Africa and the Americas.

• Explores the origins, influences, and evolving relationship between the Western canon of art as it has developed since the Renaissance and the art and culture of the Islamic world, the Far East, Australasia, Africa and the Americas
• Makes the case for 'world art' long before the fashion of globalization
• Charts connections between areas of study in art that long were considered in isolation, such as the Renaissance encounter with the Ottoman Empire, the influence of Japanese art on the 19th-century French avant-garde and of African art on early modernism, as well as debates about the relation of 'contemporary art' to the past.
• Written by a well-known art historian and co-editor of the landmark Art in Theory volumes

About the Author
Paul Wood is Senior Lecturer in Art History at the Open University, England. He has published widely in the field of modern and contemporary art, and is co-editor, with Charles Harrison and Jason Gaiger, of the landmark three-volume collection Art in Theory: An Anthology of Changing Ideas.

Reviews

"Western Art and the Wider World is certainly a timely myth-buster in terms of current anxieties and panics about the demise of the West's supposed cultural and economic place at the centre of things. Wood traces a long history of admiration and indebtedness to the East - in terms of knowledge, art, commerce and governance. He also asserts that the history of western 'cultural dominance' has been relatively short - less than 200 years in his reckoning. Western Art and the Wider World tells stories of exchange, parity and mutual curiosity between the West and rest." (The Visual Artists' News Sheet, 1 March 2014)

"A cautious, open-minded attempt to write about the history of Western Art form the Renaissance through the early and late modernist era, as it encountered, and was encountered by, the rest of the world." (Art Review, 1 March 2014)

Book Information
ISBN 9781444333923
Author Paul Wood
Format Paperback
Page Count 320
Imprint Wiley-Blackwell
Publisher John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Weight(grams) 658g
Dimensions(mm) 241mm * 170mm * 15mm