| Description |
x, 777 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 27 cm |
| Contents |
Painted caves and giant stones -- Ancient Egypt and the origins of style -- Palace art in the ancient Near East -- Greek art: idealism versus realism -- Rome: an art set in concrete -- Monotheism: basilica, mosque and tomb -- Dynamics of the Dark Age North -- The climax of cathedral art -- The rise of creative individualism under Christianity -- Rediscovery and transformation of Graeco-Roman culture -- The apotheosis of the statue -- The great masters of Italian painting -- The Roman climax of art and its confused aftermath -- The new realism of the seventeenth century -- The first great landscape paintings -- The golden century of Spanish art -- The Dutch attain 'the perfection of professional art' -- Towns, palaces, churches, gardens -- Splendours and mysteries of the eighteenth century -- Classical and religious revival -- The Western penetration of Asia: India, China, Japan and their art -- The watercolour and its global spread -- Romanticism and history -- Painting the American world and its wonders -- The belated arrival and sombre glories of Russian art -- The internal conflicts of nineteenth-century art -- Art and the realities of the industrialised world -- Skyscrapers, Art Nouveau, Art Deco -- The beginnings of fashion art -- The resurgence of the primitive -- The rule and ravages of ideological art -- The dangers and opportunities of twenty-first-century art |
| Summary |
In Art: A New History, Paul Johnson turns his great gifts as a world historian to a subject that has enthralled him all his life: the history of art. This narrative account, from the earliest cave paintings up to the present day, has new things to say about almost every period of art. Taking account of changing scholarship and shifting opinions, he draws our attention to a number of neglected artists and styles, especially in Scandinavia, Germany, Russia and the Americas. Paul Johnson puts the creative originality of the individual at the heart of his story. He pays particular attention to key periods: the emergence of the artistic personality in the Renaissance, the new realism of the early seventeenth century, the discovery of landscape painting as a separate art form, and the rise of ideological art. He notes the division of fashion art and fine art at the beginning of the twentieth century, and how it has now widened. Though challenging and controversial, Paul Johnson is not primarily a revisionist. He is a passionate lover of beauty who finds creativity in many places |
| Notes |
Includes index |
| Subject |
Art -- History.
|
| Genre/Form |
History.
|
| LC no. |
2004541124 |
| ISBN |
0060530758 |
|
