Best products from r/ArtHistory

I suppose it depends on what kind of art history you are looking for but I really loved James Elkins' work. He wrote a great comprehensive book called [Stories of Art] (http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Art-James-Elkins/dp/0415939437/ref=la_B000AQ0L44_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381519112&sr=1-12) that was a great intro to theoretical art history. I saw him speak at a conference in February and he has some really cool ideas about the way the field is changing in light of recent technologies. It's a super easy read. If you're not into that, there's always [Aby Warburg] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aby_Warburg). His work is a little more dense but he is considered one of the founders of art historical theory. Hope this helps. Best of luck!

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!

Of course, it's my pleasure! And to be completely honest, I haven't necessarily read all these books from cover to cover, so I can't remember exactly if pigments are a big point of discussion. I'm sure they're addressed to some extent in some of these books, but I'm not positive. I'm sorry, I wish I could be more helpful there.

But Howat's book on Frederic Church is one of, if not the best book on Church that you can find. It was my main research source for bibliographical information on Church. Not only is Howat's writing clear and very inspiring, the book is, as I'm sure you can imagine, chock-full of vivid and accurate (in terms of color) plates and images of Church's paintings. But yeah, his writing certainly does not fall short if that's what you're concerned about (I'd worry about it too with a price tag like that!).

Another really good book on Church is Franklin Kelly's Frederic Edwin Church and the National Landscape. The two books are somewhat difficult to compare, at least off the top of my head, partly because they're so similar. Kelly's book is certainly another to consider, but in my mind the prints in Howat's book are better. Anyway, I just thought I'd throw that one in there. I hope this has helped!

Hi, doing a master's in Art History here!

I don't know how specific you want to go, but Garder's Art Through the Ages is like the basic bible at most universities. On super new art I can recommend After Modern Art by David Hopkis. If you'd like to go closer to the turn of the century, you could also check Art of the Avantgardes, and then check the notes to each chapter to go closer into each movement.

If you'd like to try your hand on art theory you can try this one by the duo wonderfully named Hatt and Klonk. Hope it helps!

Some people dress all in black, others don't. Some people dress their houses all in white with minimalist furniture, others decorate with rich colors, fabrics, textures.


Some publicly owned buildings have decorative purposes, like an art gallery. Other buildings are institutions, like prisons. Corporate buildings may broadcast a message of luxury and beauty from their owners, others broadcast nothing - returning savings to shareholders.


Some cities are new and thriving, others are old and crumbling. Countries are made of all these people with wide varieties of taste and means. Civilization, the global march of 7 billion people, is either advancing, or declining. It all depends on how you look at it. Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.- Hamlet


I enjoyed this book, The Great Waves of History covering the last 1000 years. Seems to me we are at the precipice of a great crash. Look for beauty and enjoy it while you can.

No idea what was mentioned last time but:

Sol Lewitt's "Sentences on Conceptual Art" is brief, elegant, and eternally relevant.

Pretty much everything Kandinsky has ever written - particularly regarding spirituality and color. He's probably the most lucid and inspired writer among any 20th or 21st century visual artist

Guy Debord's "Society of the Spectacle", which only seems to become more and more relevant as media becomes increasingly omnipresent and disposable. You know a great theorist from a hack academic when you can simply hand any stranger on the street one of their texts and have it resonate with them. "In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation."

On that note, Dick Hebdige's "Subculture: the Meaning of Style" is interesting to read these days, as so many classic subcultures are being folded upon each other and churned around through the internet.

Borges' "Blindness" where he meditates on the progressive loss of his vision due to a degenerative disease. You might nitpick about sound artists or something, but in art we're really in the business of looking, and it's fascinating to read such an excellent writer on the topic of vision. It's also like eight pages long, so if you don't read it you are kind of being an ass.

Depends on your discipline in medieval art. What are you looking for?

Marilyn Stokstad wrote a decent survey textbook on medieval art here. It's a good starting point. You can also check out James Snyder's survey on "Medieval Art" but I find it a bit "drier" compared to Stokstad, who gets into function and context a bit more than Snyder's formalist approach.

Check out the slim volumes in the Oxford Art Series. These go for a more thematic approach but they are quite good and accessible. They include Veronica Sekules "Medieval Art"; Lawrence Nees "Early Medieval Art" (great and kind scholar); Susie Nash's Northern Renaissance book, Roger Stalley's book on medieval architecture, and so forth.

From the "Perspective" series, check out Andreas Petzold's book on Romaneque art and the late, great Michael Camille's book on Gothic art. For that matter, check out anything by Michael Camille.

Although long and at times tedious, I love Peter Lasko's "Ars Sacra" (focusing primarily on medieval "minor arts"). It's part of the Yale University Press series on various art topics; I think Paul Williamson wrote a text on Gothic art and there's an old Romanesque title by George Zarnecki.

There are many survey texts on medieval manuscripts: look for books by JJG Alexander, Christopher de Hamel, and Raymond Clemons/Timothy Graham.

I am not going to address survey textbooks on early Christian and Byzantine art here, but if you want I can certainly send a list.

Start with the ones listed above; if you want more titles, please say so. I can try and dig up my reading list for my M.A. and Ph.D. exams, although they are about a decade old.

(Source: Ph.D. in Medieval and Northern Renaissance Art.)

Agreed that you're not going to find a good book that's an overview of all art. If you can't sum up all of History in one text, you certainly can't describe history+ culture+ artistic movements +individual styles, etc.

Art History's History- This book will give you a great overview of Art History, but I suspect you wanted a book on the history of art, not the history of describing art. It's a great book though, and I highly recommend it.


Renaissance Rivals- Renaissance is a good place to start if you're just getting into art, because (for better or for worse) it remains the style that people usually use as a comparison for other works. This book is palatable and informative.

<3 You're too kind! ahahah I'm just happy to put my extensive knowledge of early modern Japanese erotica to some practical use outside the ivory tower of academia.

If you're interested in shunga, the definitive text on it in English is Timon Screech's Sex and the Floating World. https://www.amazon.com/Sex-Floating-World-Erotic-1700-1820/dp/1861894325

This is probably the most comprehensive introduction to shunga and the libidinal economy that supported the production and culture behind these images in Edo Japan. His writing is super clear too, I highly recommend it. He has a debatable stance on the purpose of shunga (he argues pretty strongly for a mostly masturbatory purpose, and a very male-centric focus which has been shown to not be the case) which some scholars in Japan and America disagree with, but that aside, the breadth of history and examples is staggering.

Rosina Buckland's work is also pretty accessible and expansive. https://www.amazon.com/Shunga-Erotic-Japan-Rosina-Buckland/dp/1468306987

If you have access to JSTOR, I cannot recommend her "Shunga in the Meiji Era" article enough. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41959827

She addresses stuff more relevant to the name change question raised here; that is the westernization in Japan during Meiji and how that contributed to the decline of shunga as a widely accessible art because of its inappropriate connotations.

Actually, if you can access that issue of the Japan Review, it was all about shunga and all the articles are quite fun in my opinion :)
https://www.amazon.com/Shunga-Sex-Humor-Japanese-Literature/dp/409150986X (amazon link to show full issue information)

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

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.

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.

If you're able to get your hands on a copy of this - https://www.amazon.com/Approaches-Art-History-Diana-Scott/dp/0757538878 - very good over view of art history from ancient to modernity. It is a little workbook-y, but a great resource

A lot of the best literary works can depend greatly on your background. For example, I have many friends who are technicians of one sort or another, so technique was one point to strengthen their connection to art. I might get them to watch Tim's Vermeer and then read David Hockney's Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters. I understand that these assumptions about technique are still theory, but many find it interesting and relatable.

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

I have this [book] (http://www.amazon.com/Egon-Schiele-Watercolors-Jane-Kallir/dp/0500511160/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=1D32C09NHMSKZVSKYP90) about Egon. The images are fantastic, and the quality of the book is absurd considering its relatively low cost. The majority of the book is high res images but it does have a fairly lengthy biographical section in the front, including some critical responses from the public during his life. I haven't read it in about a yeat so I can't be too specific but I think it's definitely worth the price and I believe you would get some use out of it.

Thames and Hudson has a book on Egon Schiele's watercolors and drawings that's one of the best out there. it chronicles his progress and because he didn't make it out of his twenties but was very prolific, you can visualize his progression in a matter of months.

http://www.amazon.com/Egon-Schiele-Watercolors-Jane-Kallir/dp/0500511160

(i don't buy a lot of overview books but try to go for specific artists one at a time)

Painters have always used various optical devices, I dont think it detracts from their painting, its just another tool.

Its the Hockney-Falco thesis that you are referring to, he discusses it in depth with proof in this book, its an interesting read, Id give it a whirl if I were you.

Also check on David Hockney's Secret Knowledge, if you find this interesting