Art in Europe, China, History, Modern & African-American

Art in Europe 1700-1830

In an era of unprecedented change - rapid urbanization, economic growth, and political revolution - European artists from 1700-1830 were in the business of finding new ways of making, selling, and talking about art. Matthew Craske creates a totally new and vivid record of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century art in Europe, taking a critical view of such conventional categories as the "rococo," the "neo-classical," and the "romantic." He goes on to explore crucial thematic issues, such as changes in "taste" and manners, and the impact of enlightenment notions of progress, and at the same time goes well beyond the usual geographic limits of surveys to include St. Petersburg, Copenhagen, Warsaw, and Madrid. The result is a refreshingly holistic text which sets the art of the period firmly in its social history.
Art in Europe 1700-1830 by Matthew Craske
Oxford, 1997

Art in China

The last twenty years have witnessed profound changes in art history, the greatest of which stem from the social and cultural perspectives now attached to art scholarship. Written by scholars at the forefront of new thinking, many of whom are rising stars in their fields, the Oxford History of Art series offers substantial and innovative texts that clarify, illuminate, and debate the critical issues at the heart of art history today. Providing a fresh new look at art that moves away from traditional elitist approaches, the series makes use of new research and methodologies, as well as newly accessible and non-canonical works to offer comprehensive coverage of the art world from archaic and classical Greek art to twentieth-century design and photography, from the artistry of African-American and Native North Americans to the masterpieces of Europe, Polynesia, and Micronesia. Lavishly illustrated and superbly designed, the Oxford History of Art brings new substance and verve to the exciting and ubiquitous world of art.
Art in China by Craig Clunas
Oxford, 1997

The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology

The history of art has been written and rewritten since classical antiquity. Since the foundation of the modern discipline of art history in Germany in the late eighteenth century, debates about art and its histories have intensified. Historians, philosophers, psychologists, and anthropologists among others have changed our notions of what art history has been, is, and might be.
The Art of Art History is a unique guide to understanding art history through a critical reading of the field's most innovative and influential texts over the past two centuries. Each section focuses on a key issue: aesthetics, style, history as an art, iconography and semiology, gender, modernity and postmodernity, deconstruction and museology. More than thirty readings from writers as diverse as Winckelmann, Kant, Gombrich, Warburg, Panofsky, Heidegger, Lisa Tickner, Meyer Schapiro, Jacques Derrida, Mary Kelly, Michel Foucault, Rosalind Krauss, Louis Marin, Margaret Iversen, and Nestor Canclini are brought together, and Donald Preziosi's introductions to each topic provide background information, bibliographies, and critical elucidations of the issues at stake. His own concluding essay is an important and original contribution to scholarship in the field.
The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology by Donald Preziosi
Oxford, 1998

After Modern Art 1945-2000

Modern and contemporary art can be both baffling and beautiful; it can also be innovative, political, and disturbing. This book sets out to provide the first concise interpretation of the period as a whole, clarifying the artists and their works along the way. Closely informed by new critical approaches, it concentrates on the relationship between American and European art from the end of the Second World War to the eve of the new millennium.
Jackson Pollock, Jasper Johns, Yves Klein, Andy Warhol, Louise Bourgeois, Cindy Sherman, and Damien Hirst are among many artists discussed, with careful attention being given to the political and cultural worlds they inhabited. Moving along a clear timeline, the author highlights key movements such as Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Minimalism, Conceptualism, Postmodernism, and performance art to explain the theoretical and issue-based debates that have provided the engine for the art of this period.
After Modern Art 1945-2000 by David Hopkins
Oxford, 2002

African-American Art

From its origins in early eighteenth century slave communities to the end of the twentieth century, African-American art has made a vital contribution to the art of the United States. African-American Art provides a major reassessment of the subject, setting the art in the context of the African-American experience. Here, Patton discusses folk and decorative arts such as ceramics, furniture, and quilts alongside fine art, sculptures, paintings, and photography during the 1800s. She also examines the New Negro Movement of the 1920s, the era of Civil Rights and Black Nationalism during the 1960s and 70s, and the emergence of new black artists and theorists in the 1980s and 90s.
New evidence suggests different ways of looking at African-American art, confirming that it represents the culture and society from which it emerges. Here, Patton explores significant issues such as the relationship of art and politics, the influence of galleries and museums, the growth of black universities, critical theory, the impact of artists collectives, and the assortment of art practices since the 1960s. African-American Art shows that in its cultural diversity and synthesis of cultures it mirrors those in American society as a whole.
African-American Art by Sharon F. Patton
Oxford, 1998

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