Authors: Bernard Meehan.
Paperback, 95 pages
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Publication Date: 1994-11
Edition: 2

Authors: Timothy B. Husband.
Hardcover, 388 pages
Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
Publication Date: 2009-01-06


Reviews :

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Authors: Robin Cormack. Maria Vassiliki.
Hardcover, 496 pages
Publisher: Royal Academy Publications
Publication Date: 2008-11-01


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Authors: Henry Luttikhuizen. Dorothy Verkerk.
Paperback, 512 pages
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Publication Date: 2005-07-08
Edition: 2nd

Reviews :

   

Describes the times in which the art was created as well as the issues of patronage, function, and ultimately, the public’s reception of the art as it was produced. Providing a magnificent overview of medieval painting, sculpture, and architecture–in Italy, Byzantium, Germany, and France from the 4th to the 14th centuries–including Early Christian, Byzantine, Pre-Romanesque Hiberno-Saxon, Carolingian, Ottonian, Romanesque, and Gothic art.

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Authors: John Lowden.
Paperback, 448 pages
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Publication Date: 1997-04-24


Reviews :

    Working from the surviving material presented here with the help of superlative photographs, many specially taken for this book, John Lowden explains how and why Early Christian & Byzantine art was made and used. This is an accessible and authoritative book that will inspire anyone who is curious about the origins of Christian art....

Authors: Marilyn Stokstad.
Paperback, 432 pages
Publisher: Westview Press
Publication Date: 2004-02-05
Edition: Second Edition

Reviews :

    This significantly updated and beautifully produced second edition survey of over a thousand years of Western art and architecture introduces the reader to a period of extraordinary historical and geographical extent ranging from ancient Rome to the age of exploration. The monumental arts and the diverse minor arts of the Middle Ages are presented here within the social, religious, and political frameworks of lands as varied as France and Denmark, Spain and Germany. Medieval Art spans the period from the second to the fifteenth centuries with over 400 illustrations, over 90 in color, four maps, a chronological table, glossary, bibliography, and index.

This significantly updated and beautifully produced second edition survey of over a thousand years of Western art and architecture introduces the reader to a period of extraordinary historical and geographical extent ranging from ancient Rome to the age of exploration. The monumental arts and the diverse minor arts of the Middle Ages are presented here within the social, religious, and political frameworks of lands as varied as France and Denmark, Spain and Germany. This second edition of Medieval Art focuses on all of the major works and monuments, describing each clearly and in detail with descriptions that are also sensitive and articulate, giving the reader a full sense of their beauty. Marilyn Stokstad also teaches her reader how to look at medieval art-which aspects of architecture, sculpture, or painting are important and for what reasons. Stylistic and iconographic issues and themes are thoroughly addressed with attention paid to aesthetic and social contexts. Medieval Art spans the period from the second to the fifteenth centuries with over 400 illustrations, over 90 in color, four maps, a chronological table, glossary, bibliography, and index....

Authors: Marc Drogin.
Paperback, 224 pages
Publisher: Dover Publications
Publication Date: 1989-11-01


Reviews :

    Spirited history, comprehensive instruction manual covers 13 important writing styles (ca. 4th century thru 15th). Fascinating facts about Roman Rustic, Uncial, Carolingian Minuscule, Early Gothic, eight other styles; all examples beautifully photographed. Detailed directions for duplicating medieval techniques with modern tools. 232 illustrations.
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Authors:
Paperback, 520 pages
Publisher: h. f. ullmann
Publication Date: 2008-02
Edition: 1

Reviews :

    These substantial volumes on art periods vividly portray the most important achievements from the areas of European architecture, sculpture, and painting. The impressive photographs of works from all visual arts movements are at the center of these richly illustrated volumes. The books successfully provide an overview of the artistic diversity of the individual periods, and they couldn't have been written and illustrated any more clearly. The informative and interesting texts have been written by renowned authors from the fields of history, architecture and art history, providing a multifaceted view of each period. These books are a real pleasure for anyone with an interest in art....

Authors: Jonathan Harr.
Hardcover, 288 pages
Publisher: Random House
Publication Date: 2005-10-25


Reviews :

    An Italian village on a hilltop near the Adriatic coast, a decaying palazzo facing the sea, and in the basement, cobwebbed and dusty, lit by a single bulb, an archive unknown to scholars. Here, a young graduate student from Rome, Francesca Cappelletti, makes a discovery that inspires a search for a work of art of incalculable value, a painting lost for almost two centuries.

The artist was Caravaggio, a master of the Italian Baroque. He was a genius, a revolutionary painter, and a man beset by personal demons. Four hundred years ago, he drank and brawled in the taverns and streets of Rome, moving from one rooming house to another, constantly in and out of jail, all the while painting works of transcendent emotional and visual power. He rose from obscurity to fame and wealth, but success didn’t alter his violent temperament. His rage finally led him to commit murder, forcing him to flee Rome a hunted man. He died young, alone, and under strange circumstances.

Caravaggio scholars estimate that between sixty and eighty of his works are in existence today. Many others–no one knows the precise number–have been lost to time. Somewhere, surely, a masterpiece lies forgotten in a storeroom, or in a small parish church, or hanging above a fireplace, mistaken for a mere copy.

Prizewinning author Jonathan Harr embarks on an spellbinding journey to discover the long-lost painting known as The Taking of Christ–its mysterious fate and the circumstances of its disappearance have captivated Caravaggio devotees for years. After Francesca Cappelletti stumbles across a clue in that dusty archive, she tracks the painting across a continent and hundreds of years of history. But it is not until she meets Sergio Benedetti, an art restorer working in Ireland, that she finally manages to assemble all the pieces of the puzzle.

Told with consummate skill by the writer of the bestselling, award-winning A Civil Action, The Lost Painting is a remarkable synthesis of history and detective story. The fascinating details of Caravaggio’s strange, turbulent career and the astonishing beauty of his work come to life in these pages. Harr’s account is not unlike a Caravaggio painting: vivid, deftly wrought, and enthralling.
". . . Jonathan Harr has gone to the trouble of writing what will probably be a bestseller . . . rich and wonderful. . .in truth, the book reads better than a thriller because, unlike a lot of best-selling nonfiction authors who write in a more or less novelistic vein (Harr's previous book, A Civil Action, was made into a John Travolta movie), Harr doesn't plump up hi tale. He almost never foreshadows, doesn't implausibly reconstruct entire conversations and rarely throws in litanies of clearly conjectured or imagined details just for color's sake. . .if you're a sucker for Rome, and for dusk. . .[you'll] enjoy Harr's more clearly reported details about life in the city, as when--one of my favorite moments in the whole book--Francesca and another young colleague try to calm their nerves before a crucial meeting with a forbidding professor by eating gelato. And who wouldn't in Italy? The pleasures of travelogue here are incidental but not inconsiderable." --The New York Times Book Review


"Jonathan Harr has taken the story of the lost painting, and woven from it a deeply moving narrative about history, art and taste--and about the greed, envy, covetousness and professional jealousy of people who fall prey to obsession. It is as perfect a work of narrative nonfiction as you could ever hope to read." --The Economist...

    In 1992 a young art student uncovered a clue in an obscure Italian archive that led to the discovery of Caravaggio's original The Taking of the Christ, a painting that had been presumed lost for over 200 years. How this clue--a single entry in an old listing of family possessions--led to a residence in Ireland and the subsequent restoration of this Italian Baroque masterpiece is the subject of this brisk and enthralling detective story. The Lost Painting reads more like a historical novel than art history, as Harr smoothly weaves several narratives together to bring the story alive. Though he does not provide an in-depth examination of the painting itself--the book is not aimed specifically at art experts--Harr does include many details for lay readers about restoration, the various methods used to track artwork through history, how originals are distinguished from copies, and an inside view of the art world, past and present. He also discusses various forensic approaches, including X ray, infrared reflectography, chemical analysis of the paints and canvas, and other modern techniques. But most of the book is focused on more primitive methods, including dogged research through dusty archives and meticulous attention to detail.

This entertaining book boasts an engaging cast of characters, all of whom are inflicted with the "Caravaggio disease," including some of the foremost Caravaggio scholars in the world, persistent students, obsessive restorers, and most of all, the artist himself. Mercurial, supremely gifted, and prone to violence, Caravaggio lived like an outlaw and a pauper most of his troubled life. Yet even when he attained wealth and fame--and briefly, respectability--he was still hounded by the law (for murder) and numerous vengeful enemies. Harr does an admirable job of bringing the man alive in these pages while keeping his long-lost painting at the center of the action. --Shawn Carkonen...

Authors: Catherine Daly-Weir.
Paperback, 32 pages
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Publication Date: 2000-03-06
Edition: Book and Access

Reviews :

    Why did knights of the Middle Ages have coats of arms? What did the different symbols and colors mean? Could anyone have one? Even girls? Here's a fascinating first look at heraldry with an accompanying stencil so that readers can create a shield with their very own coat of arms....