The Oxford History of Western Art
Edited by Martin Kemp

This new book, The Oxford History of Western Art, moves away from the traditional way of dealing with art history, that is a in a linear timeline fashion.

Dealing with 2700 years of art, it uses a modular approach, grouping together carefully chosen pictures into 167 groups, it takes the reader on a tour showing the connections and environment in which they were produced. A thread that runs throughout the book is the dynamic produced by the rise and fall of religious and non-religious influences, both cultural, political and financial and the effect this had on art from antiquity onwards.

The traditional historic periods of art history like Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo have also been changed to reflect the influences felt on art and artists like the sack of Rome, the age of revolutions in the late 18th century and the start of the First World War.

The editor and his distinguished contributors take a fresh approach to the history of western art and, in doing so, give the reader a new insight into the effects that national, international and religious events had on artists and their styles and subject matter.

This well illustrated book is essential reading for serious students or lovers of visual arts and will be sure to extend their understanding and of visual art and the influences behind it.

Quick Facts
Title: The History of Western Art

ISBN: 0192804154

Editor: Martin Kemp

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Number of pages: 564

Price: UK £19.99

Copyright © 2002 by Carol Fisher All Rights Reserved

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