Authors: Sharon Waxman.
Hardcover, 432 pages
Publisher: Times Books
Publication Date: 2008-10-28


Reviews :

    ...

Authors: Carol Strickland.
Paperback, 216 pages
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Publication Date: 2007-10-01
Edition: 2

Reviews :

    This second edition of Carol Strickland's The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern offers an illustrated tutorial of prehistoric to post-modern art from cave paintings to video art installations to digital and Internet media.

Featuring succinct page-length essays, instructive sidebars, and more than 300 photographs, The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern takes art history out of the realm of dreary textbooks, demystifies jargon and theory, and makes art accessible—even at a cursory reading.

From Stonehenge to the Guggenheim and from Holbein to Warhol, more than 25,000 years of art is distilled into five sections covering a little more than 200 pages....

Authors: Martha Cooper. Henry Chalfant.
Paperback, 104 pages
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
Publication Date: 1988-09-15


Reviews :

    Two gifted photographers have documented every aspect of this extraordinary urban subculture, complete with 239 full-color photographs.
...

Authors: Mary Ellen Miller.
Paperback, 256 pages
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Publication Date: 2006-10-30
Edition: 4th

Reviews :

    "An essential guide to the art and architecture of ancient Central America."—Colonial Latin American Historical Review

Mary Ellen Miller evocatively surveys the artistic achievements of the high Precolumbian civilizations—Olmec, Maya, Teotihuacan, Toltec, Aztec—as well as those of their less well-known contemporaries. Their pyramids and palaces, jades and brightly colored paintings emerge from these pages as vividly as when they first astonished Cortes's men in 1519.

The fourth edition of this standard work includes exciting new discoveries, from Palenque, Mexico, where architecture and sculpture reveal a dramatic eighth century, to San Bartolo, Guatemala, where Maya paintings have riveted an international audience. Continuing hieroglyphic decipherments provide fresh insights. The revised edition of the Art of Mesoamerica is the ideal companion for art historians, students, and travelers alike. 220 illustrations, 136 in color....

Authors: Gregory Curtis.
Paperback, 288 pages
Publisher: Anchor
Publication Date: 2007-10-09


Reviews :

    The Cave Painters is a vivid introduction to the spectacular cave paintings of France and Spain—the individuals who rediscovered them, theories about their origins, their splendor and mystery.

Gergory Curtis makes us see the astonishing sophistication and power of the paintings and tells us what is known about their creators, the Cro-Magnon people of some 40,000 years ago. He takes us through various theories—that the art was part of fertility or hunting rituals, or used for religious purposes, or was clan mythology—examining the ways interpretations have changed over time. Rich in detail, personalities, and history, The Cave Painters is above all permeated with awe for those distant humans who developed—perhaps for the first time—both the ability for abstract thought and a profound and beautiful way to express it....

Authors: Gisele Diaz. Alan Rodgers.
Paperback, 96 pages
Publisher: Dover Publications
Publication Date: 1993-06-22


Reviews :

    First publication of remarkable repainting of outstanding Mexican codex (priceless original is in Vatican Library), thought to have originated in the Cholula area, ca. a.d. 1400. Seventy-six large full-color plates show an astounding array of gods, kings, warriors, mythical creatures and abstract designs. A work of rare power and beauty now available in this inexpensive, high-quality edition. Introduction.
...

Authors: David Lewis-Williams.
Paperback, 320 pages
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Publication Date: 2004-04


Reviews :

    The breathtakingly beautiful art created deep inside the caves of western Europe has the power to dazzle even the most jaded observers. Emerging from the narrow underground passages into the chambers of caves such as Lascaux, Chauvet, and Altamira, visitors are confronted with symbols, patterns, and depictions of bison, woolly mammoths, ibexes, and other animals.

Since its discovery, cave art has provoked great curiosity about why it appeared when and where it did, how it was made, and what it meant to the communities that created it. David Lewis-Williams proposes that the explanation for this lies in the evolution of the human mind. Cro-Magnons, unlike the Neanderthals, possessed a more advanced neurological makeup that enabled them to experience shamanistic trances and vivid mental imagery. It became important for people to "fix," or paint, these images on cave walls, which they perceived as the membrane between their world and the spirit world from which the visions came. Over time, new social distinctions developed as individuals exploited their hallucinations for personal advancement, and the first truly modern society emerged.

Illuminating glimpses into the ancient mind are skillfully interwoven here with the still-evolving story of modern-day cave discoveries and research. The Mind in the Cave is a superb piece of detective work, casting light on the darkest mysteries of our earliest ancestors while strengthening our wonder at their aesthetic achievements. 87 illustrations, 26 in color....

Authors: William Manns. Peggy Shank. Marianne Stevens.
Hardcover, 256 pages
Publisher: ZON International Publishing
Publication Date: 1986-06


Reviews :

    Painted Ponies is teh classic book of antique carousel art. This extraordinary coffee table style book presents the finest carving examples by the most renowned carousel artists. The rarest horses and most unique menagerie animals were selected from America's premier private collections and antique operating carousels. Painted Ponies contains useful guides, charts, and directories for collectors, carvers, artists, and enthusiasts. This book contains over 650 color photographs, 256 pages, 9"x11.5", deluxe hardcover edition....

Authors: Ekkehart Malotki.
Paperback, 194 pages
Publisher: Kiva Publishing
Publication Date: 2007-07-31


Reviews :

    With an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 sites spread throughout its canyons, mountains and deserts, the Grand Canyon state of Arizona constitutes one of the premier rock art theaters in the world. Consisting primarily of engraved images (petroglyphs) on sandstone and basalt, but also offering paintings (pictographs) under overhangs, and ground figures (geoglyphs) on the desert pavements, Arizona's rock art truly commands awe and respect. This book, in a comprehensive survey, presents the full gamut of the state's impressive open-air art from its earliest beginnings until more recent manifestations in the historic era. Though The Rock Art of Arizona contains more than 380 color photographs, over 130 drawings, and numerous charts and maps, it goes beyond the usual bounds of a lavishly illustrated coffee-table book. In addition to describing the various Archaic and post Archaic rock art styles and traditions in the state's fifteen counties, author Ekkehart Malotki focuses on providing insights into what may have compelled Arizona's ancestral artists to produce the imagery and what functions it may have had in their daily lives. At the same time, he acknowledges the severe limitations of scientifically dating the paleoart, the subjective biases involved in stylistic classification, and the ultimate mystery of its meaning. Within the confines of this explanatory framework, drawing primarily on novel ideas derived from the field of evolutionary psychology and the concept of human universals, he argues that rock art, in a broadly defined context of art and ritual, had beneficial adaptive value in the human struggle for survival and thus can truly be perceived as art for life's sake....

Authors: Bill Holm.
Paperback, 133 pages
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Publication Date: 1965-06


Reviews :

    "NORTHWEST COAST INDIAN ART is a very beautiful book and it is also an important contribution to the fields of art and anthropology, Its most distinguished feature is the author's sensitive yet scientific approach in coming firmly to grips with elements of art which often have been considered intangible".--THE BEAVER....