(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best art history books

To engage in ever-more nested self-plagiarism, in a recent comment I offered some examples of resources in response to a similar question, which I would reproduce for efficiency's sake here; though I would be happy to elaborate or clarify in regards to your particular interests.

This is far from an exhaustive list, so much as what immediately occurred to me to recommend when the question was previously asked. To this earlier off-the-cuff list, I would add Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin's An Introduction to Early Irish Literature (Four Courts Press, 2011) and Ronald Hutton's Blood and Mistletoe: A History of the Druids in Britain (Yale University Press, 2009); the latter of which is an excellent overview of the development of Celtic scholarship and Celtic revivalism, both avenues of development which heavily influenced modern popular concepts of 'Celtic Mythology'.

>For Early Irish Literature—

> University College Cork's CELT Database is an expansive resource for digitised public domain scholarly editions/translations of various texts, including Cecile O'Rahilly's translations of the two major recensions of the [Táin Bó Cúailnge](https://celt.ucc.ie//published/T301035/index.html) ('The Cattle-Raid of Cooley'), and Elizabeth Gray's translation of [Cath Maige Tuired](https://celt.ucc.ie//published/T300010/index.html) ('The [Second] Battle of Moytura').

> Thomas Kinsella's The Táin (Dolmen Press, 1969) somewhat oversteps into literature rather than strictly scholarly translation, but is lovely as the former, and it includes many small remscéla as part of the composite narrative; of particular note Longes Mac n-Uislenn ('The Exile of the Sons of Uisliu').

> John Koch and John Carey's [The Celtic Heroic Age.](http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/836025179) (Celtic Studies Publications, 2003) includes a large assortment of early Irish (as well as Latin and Welsh) texts in translation, including particularly forgiving versions of Echtrae Nerai ('The Adventures of Nera') and the Lebor Gabála Érenn (often called 'The Book of Invasions'), the latter of which is often a notably difficult text even in translation.

> Jeffrey Gantz' Early Irish Myths and Sagas (Penguin, 1981) has, despite its unassuming appearance, a few English translations that are available nowhere else in wide publication as far as I am aware. A fine little book.

>For secondary sources regarding Early Irish Literature—

> John Carey's new [The Mythological Cycle of Medieval Irish Literature](https://uccshop.ie/shop/mythological-cycle-medieval-irish-literature/) (Cork Studies in Celtic Literatures, 2018) is certain to be an invaluable introduction, though I have not yet read it.

> Mark Williams' Ireland's Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth (Princeton University Press, 2016) is a decent introduction to elements of the mythological cycle, in regards towards the Tuatha Dé Danann and associated figures.

> Dáithí Ó hÓgáin's [Fionn Mac Cumhaill: Images of a Gaelic Hero](http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/568036506) (MacMillan, 1988) is, as with much of Ó hÓgáin's work (see also The Lore of Ireland (Boydell, 2006) mentioned below) a panchronic study, in this case of that most famous of Irish heroic figures.

> Tomás Ó Cathasaigh's The Heroic Biography of Cormac Mac Airt (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1977) is a good introduction to some of the features (historical and literary) of early Irish kingship, as well as the structure and language of Irish heroic narrative itself, in its analysis of that titular narrative paragon of Irish kingship.

>For modern traditional oral material, for convenience's sake I will reproduce an earlier comment of mine—

>>In lieu of knowing what particulars might be of interest, I can provide some generic resources on traditions in Ireland. The central pillar of all folklore and folklife documentation and scholarship in Ireland was the Irish Folklore Commission (1935-1970), now National Folklore Collection, which was established in order to record and archive the collective traditions, practices, beliefs, songs, stories and language, et cetera, that were seen to be rapidly changing in those nascent years of the Free State.

>>Today the National Folklore Collection possesses one of the largest and richest archives of traditional life, across written manuscripts, photographs, audio recordings, and video (Críostóir Mac Cárthaigh, et al. Treasures of the National Folklore Collection, Comhairle Bhéaloideas Éireann, 2010) is a beautiful publication which provides an overview of some of this material). Located at University College Dublin, the archive is freely accessible to the public, though naturally this access would be complicated if one happens to live overseas. In that event, parts of the collection, the Schools' Collection and ten thousand photographs from the photograph archive, are available on-line via Dúchas, a project to digitize (and transcribe by crowd-sourcing) the vast physical NFC archive. Both Counties Cork and Meath are extensively represented in each sub-collection, though the written material of the former will be substantially in Irish.

>>Many of the most authoritative works on Irish traditions have been products of IFC/NFC associates—

>> Archivist and prolific editor Seán Ó Súilleabháin (1903-1996), whom authored the legendary A Handbook of Irish Folklore (Folklore of Ireland Society, 1942 / Comhairle Bhéaloideas Éireann, 2014), published some of the finest collections of tradition Irish narratives, such as Folktales of Ireland (Routlege, 1966) and The Folklore of Ireland (Batsford, 1974).

>> Kevin Danaher (1913-2002), initially IFC collector then later esteemed folklore lecturer at UCD, authored numerous excellent works, of perhaps particular interest to yourself would be The Year in Ireland (Mercier, 1972) documenting the calendar customs of traditional Irish society.

>> The late Professor of Folklore at UCD, Dáithí Ó hÓgáin (1949-2011), likewise wrote and edited extensively both on modern folklore and early Ireland, including [The Sacred Isle: Belief and Religion in Pre-Christian Ireland](http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/59532594) (Boydell, 1999), and the exceedingly useful reference encyclopaedia The Lore of Ireland (Boydell, 2006).

>>An Cumann Le Béaloideas Éireann (The Folklore of Ireland Society) journal [Béaloideas](http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/473704687) contains a peerless wealth of folklore scholarship and documentation from the paramount figures in the field(s), and aside from the most recent issues, is available on JSTOR if you have journal access.

>>[Blúiríní Béaloidis*](https://soundcloud.com/folklore_podcast) is far and away the most scholarly and authentic podcast on Irish folklore, hosted by NFC researchers/archivists Claire Doohan and Jonny Dillon, and recorded within the archive.

In the informal sense 'Mythology' would probably refer more often to early (read: medieval) literature, but folklore and mythology are sometimes used interchangeably in common speech (though they are distinct concepts), hence my inclusion of modern folklore resources, to better anticipate the possible underlying interests, rather than the literal request.

Sure! SmartHistory is an amazing resource (http://smarthistory.org/)--we suggest it to our undergrads constantly, and many of us still use it ourselves when teaching outside out speciality . . . There's also Art History Teaching Resources, which is designed for teachers, but can be really helpful with quick overviews of periods and styles, and often has reading recommendations for beginners (http://arthistoryteachingresources.org/).

If you've got money to spend, I also strongly recommend The Great Courses (http://www.thegreatcourses.com/category/fine-arts/art-history.html?CFM=mega_menu)--they're dvds of courses by actual professors and experts in the field, and do an incredibly thorough job teaching specific material over a series of lectures. You can pick what courses you're interested in as well, and some of the lecturers are really amazing. They're not cheap, but they do go on sale a lot.

You could also pick up some textbooks, which do a great job introducing the whole history of art. We use [Gardener's Art Through the Ages] (https://www.amazon.com/Gardners-Through-Ages-Richard-Tansev/dp/0155011413), [Janson's History of Art] (https://www.amazon.com/Jansons-History-Art-Western-Tradition/dp/020568517X), and [Stockstad and Cothren's Art History] (https://www.amazon.com/Art-History-5th-Marilyn-Stokstad/dp/0205873472/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=C66Q35JR4CV6SYGG8PBK). Like all textbooks, they're on the pricey side, but new editions come out all the time, and you can find old editions for pretty cheap, and since art history doesn't change much, it really doesn't matter it it's out of date! A lot of them also come in "a la carte" editions, so if you're only interested in ancient art or the Renaissance say, you don't need to get a 900 page book that goes up through the 21st century.

Mayan hieroglyphs were deciphered as a result of a number of different approaches over the course of decades, of which archeology was one part.

1. Numbers came first. In the early 19th century, the re-discovery of the few, well preserved Mayan historical records (codices) preserved in European libraries allowed Constantin Rafinesque to decode the system of bars and dots. In the mid 19th, Ernst Forstemann was able to use the so-called Dresden Codex to decode the Mayan calendar, their astrological observations, and their system of annual timekeeping, which created a chronology for Mayan inscriptions that were dated.
   
   
2. There was a huge jump forward in interest and substantive work in the late 19th century when photographs rather than drawings allowed for the reduction in basic subjective errors from previous artistic recreations (like the bogus insertion of elephant symbols by enthusiastic but misguided artists).
   
   
3. J.E. Thompson created the T-number classification of Mayan writing for 800 different glyphs. Unfortunately, he also appended to this (with his vast influence in the field) the idea that the glyphs were impossible to decode as they represented a mystical conversation between Mayans and their gods or something else along those lines, which many attribute to the influence of WWI and his fondness for modern Mayan descendants as a sort of peaceful alternate history version of humanity; this may well be too-cute-by-half psychoanalysis, but the fact remains that he put in place a relatively unhelpful and inaccurate frame of reference for Mayan writing.
   
   
4. Tanya Proskouriakoff, formally trained as an architect, and working in Thompson's department, used both her experience surveying Mayan sites and assembling fragmented jade artifacts to put together a theory that the stelae in front of pyramids could be interpreted as chronologically organized histories of different reigns. This meant that rather than fables and myths, the available glyphs were histories that could be interpreted accordingly rather than set aside as inscrutable mysticism. Thompson was initially resistant but ultimately gave his blessing to this refutation of his doctrine.
   
   
5. Yuri Knorosov was a Russian soldier who encountered a copy of the three known codices in the ruins of German library in WWII. He went back home, studied linguistics, and worked on the language in near-isolation from the Thompson-dominated field. He figured out the connections to modern Maya language in terms of it being a mixed phonetic system; this would attack the second part of Thompson's views, by correctly identifying the symbols as sound + representation rather than just abstract "ideas". You can imagine that the Cold War dynamics and academic hubris and so on muddied the waters for some time, and many of his achievements were propagandized by the Soviets and under-recognized elsewhere (or directly attacked).
   
   
6. The next big step is in the 1980s when collaboration by Linda Schele, Peter Mathews, and others in different fields like art and epigraphy contribute to the attachment of temple records to particular rulers buried within them and their dynastic histories in specific, patterned ways. Modern Mayans objected in principle to the recording of these histories with English terminology and names; epistemologically, this was not a trivial complaint.
   
   
7. David Stuart, as a teenager working with Schele, then added the next big step by continuing Knorosov's work with all of these advances in mind, and systematized the interpretation and application of spoken Mayan to the glyphs and expanding the vocabulary from the 30 or so known phrases. One of his key insights was recognizing the distinction between an entirely different glyph and a glyph where an artist had simply taken creative license with the "non-essential" part of the image, which allowed for a systematic breakdown of a large number of symbols.
   
   
8. At this point, Mayan writing is a solid enough item that the Thompsonian noble scientists are decisively replaced by a complex, warlike culture that is, to borrow Stuart's words, filled with blood. It has given us a partially reconstructed history and mythology, which provide two different primary modes of writing for scholars to work with (the former is relatively more common thanks to monuments and tombs). Still, lots of work remains to be done.
   
   That's a rough summary from the way we cover the subject in brief for history survey courses at the university where I TA, and it's not nearly as much fun as actually seeing it yourself. The PBS documentary Cracking the Maya Code explains this visually in ways that are much more compelling, and I strongly recommend it. In terms of book references, Reading Maya Art is a beautiful presentation that is strong on visuals and somewhat weaker in terms of the quality of interpretations, while Understanding Maya Inscriptions is a drier work that lacks the same level of presentation but brings a comprehensive and (to my limited understanding) more authoritative approach to interpretation and decipherment that is acutely self-aware of the limitations of modern perspective.

I have a few recommendations for you:

1. First and foremost, Khan Academy's Art History section. It's absolutely wonderful and comprehensive, with videos on each era (which may be a bit more in depth than you need) and summaries of each era and the important points about them. The narrators do a great job of keeping it engaging. I've dropped quite a few hours on there. And best of all, it's free.
   
   https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-history
   
   
   
2. A Very Short Introduction: Art History
   
   These AVSI books are really great when you like a quick overview of a topic. They're usually 100-150 pages in length and generally pretty high quality. I wouldn't be scared away by the reviews on any of them, the books are all written by professionals and most of the reviewers are highbrow snobs. Cheap and short, so you don't have much to lose. I've read about 10 of them and have yet to be disappointed.
   
   Art History: A Very Short Introduction https://www.amazon.com/dp/0192801813/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_eINGxbJQRS88H
   
   
3. Gardner's Art Through the Ages
   
   This one is a textbook, so a bit more in depth. If you have access to a good library, you might be able to find it. But it's very well written and provides summaries of the important art historical eras along with beautiful photos and explanations. The book is a work of art in and of itself.
   
   Best of luck!

public and private space, but more specifically, 19th century urbanism... mostly because the initial conjunction of the city and capitalism called for more legally definable public and private spaces which nation-states could capitalize on... thus shifting the variation in ways in which we experience place, people. And it's still so relevant! the vast majority of our cities in Europe and America are designs by 19th century capitalists and modern urban thinkers, and yet no one seems to talk about it besides scholars. I have been vigorously reading many books on the subject and I am seeking out places where I can discuss it, hopefully with people more educated on the matter. I am a artist and learning about the city as a function of social systems helps me make connections in the work I do. If there are any online forums anyone can suggest, that would be awesome. As for the OP (or anyone else), here are some great books if my comment has caught your eye and you are interested. David Harvey has written most extensively on the subject, but I also recommend him because I lean more towards marxist approaches to urban theory.

The Urban Experience by David Harvey

Fin-De-Siecle Vienna by Carl E. Schorske ...particularly the chapter on Vienna's Ringstrasse, an excellently interesting massive urban reform project that isn't frequently talked about.

tl;dr the way cities work is inneresting! people should learn more about them if they live in them!

Sure thing! A good thing to check out if you're interested in Art History in the slightest would be something like Gardner's Art Through the Ages: A Global History. It can be quite expensive but a lot of the same material can be found through online sources or through me if you have any messages! Sources on this topic specifically are hard to come by if you're looking for textbooks or published papers. Some quick things that I found that have helped me in the past:

• This book gives a pretty good overview of Pre-History bronzes and jadework of China. It doesn't really get into calligraphy in the preview, but it might help spark interest. I really like the earlier works of the Shang, Han, and Qin dynasties! They're really cool to learn about.
  
  
• This source is more specific to calligraphy. It is very comprehensive and gives a little background on the type of follow-up question you asked regarding brush stroke and technique.
  
  To "tldr;" your leisure question....well, it's complicated. Skilled calligraphers that existed back around the time I mentioned....don't really exist anymore. Contemporary Chinese art broke away from these traditions and focuses heavily on political imagery (Communism vs. Capitalism), etc. However, there are some traditions that remained constant in these 'shan-shui' works. First of all, the callophone is a dead giveaway. Nearly every nature scene is accompanied by the poem to add to the composition.
  
  Another strange tradition they had was in the viewing of these scrolls. If you asked a person to look at your work and they unfolded the entire thing and said "Wow!", they would be very wrong. These pictures were meant to be unfolded gradually and appreciated piece-by-piece. They were almost never fully unrolled at one time. It gave the viewer a greater sense of piece when they can look at the incredible detail of the piece rather than be overwhelmed by everything.
  
  I also mentioned before that, aside from Guo Xi, artists didn't sign their work. They were known solely by their handwriting. Only master calligraphers could tell the difference between the brushstrokes of Guo Xi and Ma Yuan.
  
  Another 'tradition,' I guess, would be that traditional Chinese artists will know the difference between a Chinese artist's work and a foreigner's work. It is weird to think of in our cultural context, but for example when the Jesuits were on their way to China to follow their religious duties, several of them became renowned artists of this style, but were never recognized as successful because they weren't Chinese. An example of this would be Giuseppe Castiglione. He was much later than the masters Guo Xi and Ma Yuan.
  
  I suppose another key feature of these types of works would be the subject matter. The topography of China is weird. Very weird. So the art would reflect that with strange mountains and hills that look almost imaginary. Well they are completely imaginary. They're a figment of the artist's imagination, but they are based on the topography of China. So if an artist painted a work that resembles nothing like China, you can be pretty sure that they're not really accurate. There is also a convention about the perspective. The artists often achieved multiple-perspective works. They would take an image, break it apart, and show it to the viewer from multiple directions. It would be equivalent to looking at 3 different parts of a mountain in one image. This might go back to the way in which these works were presented though. So if a work is accurate geographically, it is probably inaccurate.
  
  I hope that answers your question! There aren't really any solid rules or conventions though. It was mainly just a purpose of meditation for the literati. So long as the artist was at peace, they succeeded.
  
  

ESPO's rules of graffiti (originally published in this book):

You suck until further notice.

It's gonna take a long time before we even acknowledge your existence, even longer before we can bear to look at that foul scribble you call your name. To speed the process of acceptance, you can A) Choose a clever name that defies the norm of simple-minded slang. An example of a good name is "ARGUE" (RIP). It looks good when written, sounds cool when spoken, and conveys a combative attitude. On the other hand, "ENEMA" (actual name) looks, sounds, and conveys a shitty attitude. BE CHOOSY. B) Use paint, gain a thorough knowledge of supplies, remember that permission walls, stickers, and dust tags are small parts of a balanced diet, be bold, learn a style of writing for every occasion, and write your name bigger every time you go out.

Jealousy is a disease for the weak. Your heart is your greatest possession, dont let it get taken from you. Dont write on houses of worship, people's houses in general, other writer's names, and tombstones. Writing on memorial walls and cars is beef beyond belief. Furthermore, involving civilians in your beef is grounds for dismissal. These are are the five fingers of your right hand. Get to know them well. Give soul claps, firm handshakes, and throw smooth bolo punches.

Although being a toy seems undesirable, you should enjoy it while you can. At this stage you can bite all you want with no remorse. All your elders will say is, "Awww isn't that cute, kootchie kootchie koo." So steal that dope connection, rob that color scheme. and loot whole letterforms. Dont worry about giving any credit, we'll pat ourselves on the back and brag how we're influencing the next generation.

However, style isnt a crutch or a schtick. It is understanding why that connection you bit flows, or why that color scheme bumps. Style is the process to an appealing end. Once you got it down to a science, you can reinvent letterforms to suit yourself. This creative growth will amaze the old and young alike. Pretty soon somebody will steal your secret sauce and the cycle will be renewed. If this happens to you, don't bitch about not getting your due. Graffiti is the language of the ignored. If your style is stolen, someone heard you speaking. You got what you wanted from the beginning, some attention, you big baby.

It must be noted that the vandal squad loves graffiti. Their job requires them to fiend for graff as much as you do. When you wreck enough walls, they'll want to meet you. Just like the ball huggers outside the graff shop, they'll recite every spot you hit, with the difference being you'll also hear the Miranda Warning. To postpone this, go solo as much as possible. Dont write with anyone that wont fight for you. Don't be paranoid, but be careful. If you avoid writing on pristine properties, you'll stay in misdemeanor territory, and you wont divert the cops' attention from pastry and caffiene consumption (consult local laws to be sure). Remember, if they didn't see you do it, it's almost impossible for them to win a conviction without your own damming testimony. Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP! Giving a cop info on another writer will doom you to a life of ridicule, from cops and kids alike, with no parole.

There's nothing wrong with knowing you're the shit as long as you are. But once you reach that conclusion, your one foot over the edge of falling off. Watch your step fathead, there's no shortage of people chanting, "JUMP JUMP JUMP!" There are plenty of writers that have been painting well for the better part of 20 years, and your posing and fronting looks retarded next to them. Get back to work, you "never was" slouch. In conclusion, graffiti is free, impresses the girls, is heroic in our couch potato culture, will provide you with a million stories to tell at parties, and a sure cure for the inner-city blues. If it's not fun, you're doing it wrong or have been doing it too long. So get going, fame awaits the fly among you."

This is a list of books that was suggest to me by John Langdon (An internationally known typographer for his ambigram used in The DaVinci Code) while I was taking his class in College:

Type Directors Club Annuals: I just recently picked up the latest issue of this (32 I believe) and it shows current works of typography across a broad spectrum of mediums. These are great because they feature only current work and many of the featured designs are extremely creative and pushing the envelope in terms of readability and style.

Logo Lounge Master Library Vol. 1: I do not have a copy of this book but I have thumbed through it briefly and it features tons of logos that mainly deal with letter forms. This is certainly on my personal list of books I would like.

Type: A Visual History of Typefaces and Graphic Styles, Vol. 1: I recently purchased this book as well and I have to say it is a MASSIVE collection of vintage typography and ornaments from type founders all over the world. The majority of the samples in this book are from before the 1900's so you are almost guaranteed to not recognize anything in it. Excellent resource for inspiration!

Logo, Font & Lettering Bible: This is another book on my list. Covers a broad spectrum of lettering and is also good for learning fundementals.

Some other books he has suggested to me but I have not personally look through or read are: Type & Typography, Fonts & Logos, and finally John Langdon's book: Wordplay.

I hope this helps!

I added some Achaemenid works to the r/askhistorians reading list a while back:

• From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire by Pierre Briant. From Cyrus to Alexander, written by the doyen of Achaemenid Persian studies, is the most comprehensive history of the Persian empire. Briant covers all aspects of Persian history in exhaustive detail in addition to addressing aspects of society like warfare and the structure and administration of the empire.
  
  
• Ancient Persia: A Concise History of the Achaemenid Empire, 550-330 BCE by Matthew Waters. Considerably shorter than Briant's book, this book provides a concise but comprehensive summary of Persian history. Waters does a good job of incorporating Greek sources in addition to Elamite and Persian texts.
  
  
• The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period by Amelie Kuhrt. An excellent companion volume to the histories of Waters and Briant, Kuhrt has provided a superb compilation of annotated translations for the major Persian texts and inscriptions as well as Greek accounts of ancient Persia.
  
  
• Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia edited by John Curtis and Nigel Tallis. This well-illustrated book is a very readable introduction to all aspects of ancient Persia, including history, language, palaces, food and dining, jewelry and clothing, religion, administration, and warfare.
  
  
• King and Court in Ancient Persia, 559 to 331 BCE by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones. This is the best overview of the royal court of ancient Persia, including chapters on high officials, royal women, and daily life in the court. Each chapter is accompanied by a variety of translated primary sources drawn from Persian and Greek texts.
  
  If you're interested in Greek sources as well, see Ctesias'’ Persica in Its Near Eastern Context by Matt Waters and Ctesias' 'History of Persia': Tales of the Orient by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and James Robson.

I would strongly suggest learning enough German to get basic stuff done. You can find some pretty decent crash courses on spotify if you have this. i would also strongly suggest reading this book as it gives you a pretty good perspective on the city's rich cultural traditions. if you cant speak the language it definitely helps to know and be interested in their culture. they actually really like it when you do.

Some must see things are the kunsthistorisches museum, anything in district 1, mariahilfstrasse and nachtsmarkt. also seek out any museum w gustav klimmt works. the stadtpark is quite a cool place to people watch

if you meet some locals definitely mention you want to check out cafe sperl. its really one of those places they wont serve you unless you are local but if you drop that name to a wiener they will be impressed. its the typical viennese coffee house. also must eats are a schnitzel at figlmuller and a kasekronner from any street vendor. just be warned there is no ice anywhere and cokes/water cost just as much as beer

also the subway system rivals new york city. see if you can get a monthly discount through your university. it takes you everywhere

if you see someone before lunch you greet them with morgen. around lunch is typically mahlzeit and any other time is usually servus.

good luck man. the croatian women around there are the most beautiful in the entire world

If it's a thing, it's not a big one, and it's not really known as virtue aesthetics.

That said, thanks to your description, I can kinda highlight some stuff that you may be interested in. If you haven't read them yet, I would recommend the following:

• Plato: Republic, Bks. 3, 4, and 10 especially; Phaedrus
  
• Aristotle: Poetics
  
  Those works set the conversation for art, its function in society, and considerations of how aspects of the artwork interact with aspects of the ethical and political in the person and society. Plato takes the line that all but moral artwork should be banned from the just polis (but then ends his political work with the myth of Er). Aristotle seems to be okay with tragedy and poetry, if it's a technically sound as an artwork, because it can play a kathartic role. Now, you can problematize these positions with close readings of either text, but these are the established traditions.
  
  Along contemporary lines, there's a lot of work on "ethics and art," which I think should be your next avenue for research. Scholar Berys Gaut wrote a recent, technical (and somewhat dry) book about the topic called Art, Emotion, and Ethics. Jerrold Levinson also edited a volume on the topic, which would be another good place to check out.
  
  Lastly, if you want to take a "virtue aesthetic" route, you'll want to get the basis of virtue ethics. But instead of evaluating art on the basis of anything else, you will want to criticize it on (a) how it affects our moral character, by training our emotions, drives, or reason in a good or bad way, to be attracted to or repulsed from the right/wrong things, and (b) how it affects our ability to flourish, which involves how we improve ourselves, relate meaningfully to others, and try to live in a characteristically human way.
  
  Best of luck!

I would also recommend watching some videos first.

For a book recommendation, I'd suggest getting The Annotated Mona Lisa. It covers art from pre-history up until present day in 200 pages and is easy to read. Preview the first few pages of it on amazon, and buy it used for $4 shipped in the US, so it's a no-brainer: http://www.amazon.com/The-Annotated-Mona-Lisa-Prehistoric/dp/0836280059

There are nearly infinite subjects in art history to learn about. And I'm sure you won't care about most of them. So after reading through The Annotated Mona Lisa, I'd suggest you go to the (largely unknown) Google Art project: https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/project/art-project

Search for a museum near you and look through the collection to find something to learn about. Hopefully there will be something that interests you. Or if you live near a major city, search for an artist that you like. Pick a piece and LEARN all about the piece, the artist, and the period of art it belongs to on wikipedia. If there's no museums listed near you, just search for one online or stop by one and pick up a catalog, or plan a trip.

If it's something very famous there should be some video, documentary, or movie made about the piece or the artist.

Then go the the museum and look at it for yourself. A lot of art is very different in person than it is on a screen. You might be blown away by an 18 foot wide Jackson Pollock. Or you might stare at a Jan van Eyck painting and not be able to find a single brush stroke. Or you might not have known that some painters like Lucian Freud painted with giant crags of paint (it's much more dramatic in person when viewed from the side). Or you might be able to see details in the painting you were never able to notice on screen.

For example you've probably seen van Gogh's Starry Night. You may even have seen a high res image of it.
But that's not what it looks like in person. See it here and zoom in ALL the way: https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/the-starry-night/bgEuwDxel93-Pg?projectId=art-project

You can see the individual brush strokes, the unmixed paint, and you can see that van Gogh didn't paint in layers on top of layers, like painters did in the past. There's no base coat (underpainting), and his quick, light strokes skipped across as he painted them, creating frequent spots of bare canvas.

You can see this even more in his Irises: https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/irises/DgFVFAJo_30MeQ?projectId=art-project

And if you look under the white iris, you can see that he painted the leaves first and then the background later. The brush strokes only occasionally overlap, so the painting is like a collection of brush strokes that fit together as a jigsaw puzzle.

But that is all superficial stuff. Go to the museum to look at it in person and just wonder around. But looking only gets you so far. The more you learn about anything, the more you'll appreciate it.

Hi there! I'm exactly like you and have been inspired by so many things that I've grown up with in the fantasy and sci-fi world. I've also started learning the path digital art (and traditional art in general) literally a couple of weeks ago, so here are my observations with my research on this subreddit and other stuff.

• Sites such as ctrlpaint and drawabox are good guides in getting your fundamentals in the core concept of art down. By knowing the fundamentals, you will have an easier time of portraying the idea in your head if it looks believable and realistic.
  
  
• Repetition is key. You will find that everyone that is good at art practices drawing very often and will sketch books filled to the brim. They all were crap at one point put polished their skills over time. So don't get discouraged even if yours aren't up to snuff just yet.
  
• There are varying arguments here where people who want to get into digital art feel like they don't need to learn traditional art due to the medium that they are using (paper vs tablet). I'd argue that traditional art is still a helpful concept to learn to get your concepts down on paper before transferring it over to digital. Drawing between the two mediums does feel a little odd, but nothing that will be hard to get used to once you are ready for the transfer.
  
  I'm a huge Blizzard Entertainment fan and I actually just ordered this book to inspire me. Here's to both our journeys starting new!

I bet you'd be interested in the work of Marcel Duchamp. If you read about the Dada movement, and some of his works in particular, I'm sure you'll probably gain an immense appreciation for art in general.

Duchamp was the fucking man.... and familiarity with some of his key works is vital to understanding a great deal of modern art.

He eventually stopped making art to focus on playing chess. You should really read about him... as an INTP, you'll probably love him.

Here's an out-of print biography that's fantastic - I suggest buying it used... or wait until October when the re-release will be like $15.

Wikipedia, the source of truth. hahaha
Splatter paint, a urinal, ancient cave painting, and the art of a tumbler selfie.
The art of war. Make art not war.
Go read A Picture of Dorian Grey and learn about art. It is considered to be one of the greatest books about art, written by one of the great art definers.
''All art is quite useless'' -O. Wilde
Your beloved wiki saves the day.
You can then move on to the Duchamp biography here
Then you can look into Roy Neuberger and his revolutionizing of the business of modern art.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Neuberger
Most people who act like they know about 20th century art have never heard of him.
Another 20th century milestone revolves around Jean Dubuffet and his advocacy of ''art-brut'' or primitive art, especially the art of obsessives and the mentally ill.
He built a whole museum, and revolutionized the attention that outsider art gathers today.
Does the Museum of Modern Art in NYC understand what I'm talking about?
Art Brut- Term used from the mid-1940s to designate a type of art outside the fine art tradition. The commonest English-language equivalent for art brut is ‘Outsider art’. In North America, the same phenomenon tends to attract the label ‘Grass-roots art’. The French term was coined by Jean Dubuffet, who posited an inventive, non-conformist art that should be perfectly brut, unprocessed and spontaneous, and emphatically distinct from what he saw as the derivative stereotypes of official culture. In July 1945 Dubuffet initiated his searches for art brut, attracted particularly by the drawings of mental patients that he saw in Switzerland. In 1948 the non-profit-making Compagnie de l’Art Brut was founded, among whose partners were André Breton and the art critic Michel Tapié. The Collection de l’Art Brut was supported for a while by the company but was essentially a personal hobby horse of Dubuffet and remained for three decades an almost entirely private concern, inviting public attention only at exhibitions in 1949 -Paris, Gal. René Drouin- and 1967 -Paris, Mus. A. Déc.-. In 1971 Dubuffet bequeathed the whole collection to the City of Lausanne, where it was put on permanent display to the public at the Château de Beaulieu. At the time of opening , the collection comprised 5000 works by c. 200 artists, but it grew thereafter.
Art is impossiblke to define, just like virtue. Which art works have virtue?
There is no consensus, beyond elitism and ignorance.

I'm late to the party, but am something of an expert here, and feel very strongly about this subject. I have a Specialist degree in East Asian Studies, which I completed a year early, with distinction. Specialist in this case refers to a quirk of the Canadian system (I'm an alumnus of University of Toronto), which allows for basically a double major in the same topic, with a more specific concentration. So my area is specifically Chinese language and Chinese culture, with a focus on Chinese sectarian Buddhism. Basically, 中国文化. I went on to work for a language pedagogy software company, and got into second language acquisition and linguistics that way. I'm currently applying for graduate work in linguistics.


>The question is: are Chinese characters actually more difficult, and if so to what extent are they more difficult, than phonetic alphabets?


This is not the right question, although we can unpack some of the erroneous assumptions and still answer it. You seem to assume that 1) Chinese scripts are not 'phonetic,' and 2) alphabets are phonetic. By phonetic, it seems obvious you mean that one can figure out how to pronounce a hitherto unknown word solely by deciphering how it is written...and a potential corollary to that is: one can figure out the meaning from etymological clues.

Neither of these assumptions is the case. Chinese has an incredible amount of phonetic information built into the character system (assuming we're talking about 普通话, and from the perspective of a speaker of standard Mandarin). The most common type of character formation is a 'meaning radical' + 'sound radical.' As someone who has studied 5 years of Chinese, I'm sure you've already seen this. 精静情请晴清青 are all pronounced either "jing," or "qing." There are tons of similar examples. If you haven't seen it, the first Chapter of the Yale Reader, 高级汉语, has a very large section devoted specifically to deciphering phonetic information in Chinese characters. I would argue that Chinese characters, specifically when discussing standard Mandarin, have only slightly less phonetic information that English words.


Moreover, any literate adult is not actually sounding out words as they read, and there are tons of studies on this phenomenon.


Finally, to answer the question: the available research suggests that 1)Chinese tends to activate the same parts of the brain as recognizing faces, and 2) it is no easier or harder than any other language. The exception is that Arabic scripts seem to be harder to learn to read and write...although this is just extrapolation from fMRIs which suggest Arabic script uses a different part of the brain, one associated with math.

Now, let's address your rhetoric:

>My experiences over the last few years in Taiwan have led me to believe that Chinese would be much better off with a government-led / public-schooling led push to pinyin over the characters, for a number of reasons:

Point-by-point

>the time it takes to learn the written language

Do you have anything other than anecdotal evidence to suggest that it takes significantly longer to learn Chinese than any other language? A great idea for a study would be to compare the time it takes 2nd language learners to learn to read and write to the same level in English, Russian or Chinese (since English and Russian retain quite a few bizarre and phonetically unpredictable elements, such as silent letters, multiple pronunciations of the same string of letters [gue, ough], etc.).


I haven't seen any reliable data establishing a baseline for how quickly or how slowly one can actually acquire writing ability in Chinese, although I have seen native-speaking adult learners learn to read and write at their adult speaking level within 6 months.


I strongly suspect the "it takes a long time to learn," argument is based mostly on anecdotal evidence and firsthand experience with poor teaching methods.


>the memory capacity it takes to store all of the visual information about characters for recognition

Given the studies suggesting it uses the same part of the brain as facial recognition, it would seem this doesn't really take any effort at all. If you're talking about learning to write, it's a question again of how it was taught.


Chinese has 214 radicals, of which some are far, far more frequently occurring. That's roughly on par with the number of characters one has to know to be able to read English in all the situations one would need it (capital, lowercase, cursive, print...that's 104 not including any other symbols than the 26 letters, such as & or @, which are necessary for functioning as an adult). Comparing characters to letters is comparing apples to oranges.


If you want to say Chinese requires you to learn way more characters than letters, fine. But then I can say English requires you to learn way more words than radicals.


>the even higher capacity it takes to store stroke/radical/muscle-memory information for writing characters


Dude. What? is 丁 somehow harder than T? This is the first part of your post that left me just completely baffled.


>the amount of consistent exposure it takes to both reading and writing characters to prevent loss of skills


This is the same for any language you study as an L2 as an adult.


>the inflexibility of using characters with regards to importing/exporting loan-words (i.e., total loss of syllables, consonant or vowel sounds, like cartoon to katong, or a complete change from a globally-existing loan word to a purely Chinese construction, like computer -> diannao - I just did a quick Google Translate check and computer translates to a word that sounds basically the same in almost every language)

This is also not unique to Chinese, and has almost nothing to do with the writing system. English has "alkali," from Arabic, but we forced the ق into our system of phonology rather than leaving it as is. The country Iraq is a perfect example: we pronounce no sound in that word the way it is pronounced in Arabic, because we have forced it into English phonology. We also borrow without regard for conjugation, declension, or really anything. Ever order a panini? Yeah, no. And, more specifically to Chinese, we do the exact same thing: I had chow fun with my chopsticks, but wasn't so American as to ask for it with ketchup (borrowed from 茄汁).


Furthermore, google translate? Yes, you can get similar words, but while كمبيوتر (kombyooter) exists in Arabic, almost no one uses it, preferring instead حاسوب which comes from the same roots as "gravel; pebble," along a similar derivation process as "calculus." The French use "ordinateur."


>the seeming difficulty native Chinese speakers tend to have with learning and associating sounds to letters in a phonetic alphabet


Everyone who learns another language as an adult, without very specific training in phonology, tends to pronounce new words with the phonology they are comfortable with. It's why non-native speakers of x language tend to have an accent from their first.


I guarantee you Chinese speakers wonder why you just can't seem to hear and pronounce the difference between x and sh, or q and ch, or why your tones are sometimes wrong, or lacking contour. If not now, then at least when you started learning, five years ago.


---------

I did not take your post as Chinese bashing, however it did have certain exoticizing and orientalist undertones (no judgement. As a white guy, I know I do it to. I just actively root it out and try to eliminate it in my mind). Chinese orthography is not just a "national treasure," but it's also really, truly, not that hard and not that complex. It has been in continuous use, in some form, for at least 3 thousand years: more than any other writing system. Why? because it works.

By the way, you want to see needlessly complex? Check out Classical Mayan.

I've read an extensive amount of Romantic poetry, but I've never found Bloom to be particularly insightful. Most of his insights tend to be shallow or tangential, and he likes to simplify things to basic historic trends.

If you are not interested in English Romantic poetry and do not intend to read any of it, I would suggest you look elsewhere for a good book about novelists. I don't know offhand of any Grand Theory of Prose a la Harold Bloom encapsulation, but books such as this about specific subject matters may prove amenable to your interests.

Started late in high school (1999-2000). Kept at it up until around junior/senior year of undergrad.

Started drawing in my blackbook, mostly biting the hell out stuff I saw in mags (mostly Life Sucks Die and some Euro mags I can't remember the name of) and the internet. The Espo (Stephen Powers) book The Art of Getting Over is a must read for anyone starting. Reading the rules at the back of the book really helped me from being a little shit vandal (writing on schools, garage doors, churches, ect.) to trying to at least be a competent writer.

Finally picked up a can and practiced the hell out of doing block letters and basic can control in my basement. Later I set up plywood in the backyard to practice. My parents were cool as hell about letting me do that. Once I wasn't too embarrassed by my letters I starting hitting really chill spots- under bridges and abandoned building.

Fuck the kids that I see now-a-days scribbling on a super high profile spot with something that doesn't even look as good as shitty gang graffiti. And especially fuck the kids who go over something they clearly can't burn in a super high profile spot. Learn your shit before you make that big public debut.

Went bombing in the city/town a little bit, but never really anything heavy. The yards are what drew my attention and made me fall in love with going out writing. Nothing like riding your bike into a yard and creeping around until you knew you were alone and found that perfect freight (what, a line of flat box cars and holy rollers!). I never got down with a crew and mostly rode solo to the yards in the summer. The quality of my painted work always dipped when college was going on, but I tried to always end the summer a little better from the last. I was never a great writer in my area, but got along with and had mutual respect with the better writers in the area. My college note books are full of graffiti at the top of each page.

Eventually I got really serious about school and started doing summer research projects and internships instead of hitting the yard every chance I got. Graffiti was cool as hell, but I was making a career. Got really serious with a girl (my soon to be wife) and that also took up a lot of my graffiti time. Also, the risk of getting caught was less and less appealing the older I got. Finally, I went to grad school and kind of just stopped picking up a can.

It's been 3-4 year since I've been to a yard. 2-3 years since I last seriously picked up a can.

I still love the art form and culture behind it. I still get excited when a burner, full car, or just a nice style rolls by when I'm railroaded. If I am in a class or meeting that is losing my interest next thing I know I'm writing some graffiti at the top of my notes. It keeps me busy enough that I can listen and not have my mind wonder.

To the kids that are coming up: learn your local and wider graffiti history, try to be ethical in picking your spots, respect your elders, don't go over a piece unless you can burn it, and practice, practice, practice. Don't get mad when someone bites your style. That only means you've been recognized and have influenced the next generation of writers.

Bring back the magic lantern show and update it past being just a power point presentation to be clicked through. Make it an animated and moving. Bring back the visual crowd instead of being strictly verbal.

Better ornaments and furniture of the lodge, including CNC ornate goodness. Would love to see Solomonic columns in addition to our five represented.

More artistically done jewels than the current supply store versions.

Updated versions of the Tracing Boards.

Smart phone apps connecting members while being secure. Ability to pay on-line in advance for dinners and events.

Lodge security apps. Ability to be notified of intrusion, fire, and other alarms remotely, and cycle through cameras to see if genuine or false alarm at 2am without having to drive over.

One of my favorite books of the history of science in general: A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England by Steven Shapin. It's an excellent read about the establishment of the empirical authority of experimental science and the Royal Society, through the figure of Robert Boyle. The book is as much about epistemological questions as it is about historical ones, and builds a really convincing case for how knowledge is inherently social. I honestly found it really engrossing.

Leviathan and the Air-Pump, from the same author with Simon Schaeffer, is the more famous book - it's considered a seminal text in the history of science and in science & technology studies (STS). It similarly focuses on Boyle, but counterposes him with Thomas Hobbes, and is about how the philosophical grounding of modern science came to be.

Pamela Smith's The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution is also a great work about the ways that science emerged from and interacted with art and artisans' work and insights.

Austrian here :-). I am living in Vienna and basically the whole fin de siecle time was the golden era of the city (Freud, Kokoschka, Klimt, ..) and tons of buildings from then still exist and are in use
so I might suggest you this one, an American friend of mine loved it:
http://www.amazon.com/Fin---Siecle-Vienna-Politics-Culture/dp/0394744780/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317593149&sr=8-1 ( here is a brief abstract: http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/personal/reading/schorske-siecle.html).

regarding fiction I would highly recommend to read something from Arthur Schnitzler, who also wrote the novel to which "eyes wide shut" is refering. i.e. http://www.amazon.com/Night-Games-Other-Stories-Novellas/dp/1566635063/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317593454&sr=1-1


This all is of course just relevant if you even visit Vienna ;-). If you would like some recommendations for places/restaurants/sights etc. here just pm me.

This is a great point. There is some great work done by historians of the scientific revolution showing how artists fueled scientific innovation. I highly recommend The Body of the Artisan.

> One of the world's most celebrated scholars, Stephen Greenblatt has crafted both an innovative work of history and a thrilling story of discovery, in which one manuscript, plucked from a thousand years of neglect, changed the course of human thought and made possible the world as we know it.

> Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic, On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius-a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion, colliding and swerving in new directions.

> The copying and translation of this ancient book-the greatest discovery of the greatest book-hunter of his age-fueled the Renaissance, inspiring artists such as Botticelli and thinkers such as Giordano Bruno; shaped the thought of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein; and had a revolutionary influence on writers such as Montaigne and Shakespeare and even Thomas Jefferson.

***

The book has been the subject of 2 r/HistoryofIdeas posts:

Stephen Greenblatt on Lucretius and the 1417 Rediscovery of 'De Rerum Natura'

and

"For this reason, the word “epicurean” came to mean a seeker of luxury, a sybarite; but in fact, Greenblatt shows, the original Epicureans led a modest lifestyle.".

Here's the Amazon link.

Dana Arnold's Art History A Very Short Introduction is a great short book to give you an overview; others have pointed you to Khan Academy and the BBC's A History of Art in Three Colours is a great 3 part documentary and personally I adore Waldemar Januszczak's documentaries take your pick from a variety but a really good one is Paradise Found and here's a bunch of available free short courses

Those do sound like they would fun to color. Medieval seems easier than towns, though here's a city:
https://www.amazon.com/Fantastic-Cities-Coloring-Amazing-Imagined/dp/1452149577
https://www.amazon.com/Fantastic-Structures-Coloring-Buildings-Imagined/dp/145215323X

Medieval:
https://www.amazon.com/Coloring-Medieval-Times-celebrated-illustrator/dp/1600584039

There's several books of castles:
https://www.amazon.com/Castles-World-Coloring-Dover-History/dp/0486251861
https://www.amazon.com/Castles-World-Coloring-Dover-History/dp/0486251861

I ran across some images from this one today:
https://www.amazon.com/Romantic-Country-Fantasy-Coloring-Book/dp/1250094461

I got this one last week and am pleased with it:
https://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Tapestries-Coloring-Dover-Fashion/dp/0486436861

I don't know if you're a fan, but there's one for Game of Thrones
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1101965762/

Here's some free coloring pages
http://www.medievalists.net/2012/09/coloring-pages-about-the-middle-ages/

Dubliners might be his most accessible work, but I think if you're interested in Joyce as a modernist, then Portrait is a more explicit display of the methods he would develop.

Also OP, I'd recommend Modernism: A Very Short Introduction by Christopher Butler. It's cheap, easy and can be read in an afternoon.

Hi there! I will recommend three books, each of them with different goals. First, Pierre Briant's From Cyrus to Alexander is the history of the Persian Empire right now. It is meticulous, detailed, thorough, and dense. Thus, the book is not for everyone. Also, the visuals are disappointing, so if you're looking for glossy photos or excellent maps, this is not the book.

For a book with excellent photos, however, find John Curtis and Nigel Tallis's Forgotten Empire. The editors are renown scholars at the British Museum, and with such resources at their hands, they have published a magnificent and beautiful book. High quality photos of Persian artifacts, architecture, ceramics, etc. are to be found here.

Lastly, if you want a book that focuses on the primary textual sources of the Persian Empire, you must go to Amelie Kuhrt's The Persian Empire. She is a well-respected scholar who has meticulously translated nearly all of the ancient documents written both by and about the Persian Empire. The book is physically huge, but if you want to read the words of Persian kings themselves (in English), then this book is a must-read.

People swear by The Annotated Mona Lisa for art history. I'll say in my experience, there are obvious ones and there are ones you couldn't have prepared for. I still remember there was a question on an obscure artist that threw me for a loop. But you gotta do your best to use what you know to BS an answer. I threw as many details about that general area of the world to come up with an answer. Good Luck!

Seconding Thinking with Type. I also recommend Type & Typography by Phil Bains and Andrew Haslam. Both are visually interesting, and definitely useful.

I think Gombrich is a good choice but I have always been Partial to Marilyn Stokstad's writings https://www.amazon.com/Art-History-5th-Marilyn-Stokstad/dp/0205873472/ref=la_B001IGQDGK_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526063176&sr=1-4 and https://www.amazon.com/Art-History-Vol-2-5th/dp/0205877575/ref=la_B001IGQDGK_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1526063176&sr=1-5

Marilyn Stokstad and Michael Cothren are probably two of the best living authorities regarding Art History.

Apparently a sub-Reddit can have three settings. "Private", you have to join to be able to read and write. "Restricted", everybody can read, but you have to join to be able to post. This was the setting that I checked. Strangely enough non-members can't make new posts, but they can reply, so what's the use of that? And how should a user ask to be added? So now that I know that, I chose the option "public". I guess that means that everybody can read and write. Let's see how that goes about.

Rees, yes he wrote a very interesting and an 'alright' book. I hadn't heard of this interview (or the website for that matter), so thanks for sharing.

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.com

amazon.co.uk

amazon.ca

amazon.com.au

amazon.in

amazon.com.mx

amazon.de

amazon.it

amazon.es

amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

amazon.fr

Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
I currently look here: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca, amazon.com.au, amazon.in, amazon.com.mx, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.es, amazon.com.br, amazon.nl, amazon.co.jp, amazon.fr, if you would like your local version of Amazon adding please contact my creator.

A coloring book of medieval tapestries because coloring is FUN.

whiskey in the jar-oh

We love you too!

My university textbook for Art History 101 is this one. I also found the e-version on the pirate bay, but it's the 4th edition. Anyways, it has lots of information and I mean, obviously it's a textbook, it's a bit dry, but it's probably not too bad if you're reading selected bits and pieces for fun rather than huge chunks of it for class.

This is my collection from back in 2015. I was in the middle of moving, hence the box, but it's grown since then. My favorite addition since then is the Art of Blizzard art book. So yes, I collect art books.

Based on the blurb, there's a lot of different topics you would be covering in ethics and aesthetics. It might be a good idea to email your professor and get a copy of the syllabus to get a better idea of what to read. Without more information, these SEP articles could be helpful: metaethics, aesthetic judgment, moral realism, moral anti-realism, moral relativism, moral particularism, moral epistemology, and the concept of the aesthetic.

Depending on how much you talk about the intersection between the two, Aesthetics and Ethics edited by Jerrold Levinson and Art, Emotion, and Ethics by Berys Gaut are two books you might want to look at. Also, here is a syllabus on art and ethics.

There is a bunch of different books on a bunch of different art movements, so it depends on what you would be interested in. The theory and philosophy, techniques, general art history, etc.

There are also many different approaches that authors, critics and such take when viewing or talking about art. I may be just making your search worse..

I have read a few things about contemporary art and the art world by Dave Hickey. There is a lot out there.
A more general art history that I have used is Gardner's Art Through The Ages. http://www.amazon.com/Gardners-Art-through-Ages-History/dp/111177157X

You might get lost in the search, but good luck!

oxford university press do a series called 'very short introduction' covering alllll kinds of topics, and the art history one is brilliant, there's also art theory and then others on particular artistic/creative movements - they're really affordable and really easy to read and actually so informative

Book for adults, later for kids (it's good):

"The Swerve: How the World Became Modern", by Stephen Greenblatt (2011). ISBN-13: 978-0393064476

​

In the book, there are 20 points that are made by Lucretius about us in our world(s). They end with these:

15. All organized religions are superstitious delusions.

16. Religions are invariably cruel.

17. There are no angels, devils or ghosts.

18. The highest goal of human life is the enhancement of pleasure and the reduction of pain.

19. The greatest obstacle to pleasure is not pain; it's delusion.

20. Understanding the nature of things generates deep wonder.

Yes, deep wonder. To some degree, this "wonder" betokens our purpose then. As self-aware parts of the Universe, we look up and around, and down and into, and we WONDER. And while the Universe is able to be appreciated, it will be.

https://www.amazon.com/Swerve-How-World-Became-Modern/dp/0393064476/ref=mt_hardcover?_encoding=UTF8

It's worth getting the hardcover. ;)

Well there is, Siavash, Kaveh, Fereydoon, Farzad, Farshad, Farhad, Farbod, Farid, Fardin, lol I know a lot of Far-s. Khosro, Rostam, Bahman, Ramin, Esfandiyar, Ardeshir, Cyrus, Darius and more.

Read Shahnameh. A lot of names in there. And a good fictional, mythological, poetry book.

https://www.amazon.com/Shahnameh-Epic-Persian-Kings-Ferdowsi/dp/1593720513/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1482359064&sr=8-1&keywords=shahnameh+english

That link didn't work for me but I got it by just searching on Amazon. Try this

https://smile.amazon.com/Leonardo-Vinci-Beginning-Biographies-Painters-ebook/dp/B01MSL98U2/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1549647996&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=kindle+leonardo+da+vinci+a+life+from+beginning+to+end&dpPl=1&dpID=61Xskc%2BfvmL&ref=plSrch


Edit: Can someone explain how you make those shorter links? Thanks!

You may like this gorgeous book.

I actually know lodges that open with having the newest EA draw the board on a chalkboard on the ground.

I've only had one, and my dog won it!!

This? or... This?

Gubbinz - Them things over there, All of them, See the lamp? That's a gubbin.

My gf has

A Handbook of Irish Folklore for college. I don't know if it is really academic or not.
She also has The Táin.

Hope that is useful for you.

pretty sure it was this one http://www.amazon.com/Shahnameh-The-Epic-Persian-Kings/dp/1593720513/ref=pd_sim_b_7?ie=UTF8&refRID=0WYJ8SAG84SMDB5N3MRP

My favorite Christmas song is from Christmas Eve on Sesame Street. Keep Christmas With You! Sing and sign.

Video: http://youtu.be/Sd5PEVKuAro


https://www.amazon.com/dp/0486436861/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_7AzxwbS9NE8HC

FYI, Amazon has it discounted over $25 as I'm posting this. I bought it.

I'm reading a book about Lucretius and the guy, Poggio, who rediscovered him 6 centuries ago. Recommended!

Nice. Got a copy of his book, The Art of Getting Over, when it came out, but, like an idiot, I lent it out and never saw it again. Recommended reading if you can snag a copy (at least a $100 for a used copy these days).

INTERNET (my mother picked mine up when she went to new york but this is also an option)

Did you buy the Art of Blizzard book?

http://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Tapestries-Coloring-Dover-Fashion/dp/0486436861/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=ITPV52B41KA8&coliid=I3RP2L4ADOCPJU

If you're in the US try here.

Not sure if its essential. But i very much liked "Wien - Geist und Gesellschaft im Fin de Siécle" by Carl. E. Schorske.

There is also a version in english.


Also Stefan Zweigs autobiographical book "Die Welt von Gestern".