"This beautifully illustrated book offers a comprehensive guide to western artists, themes, paintings, techniques and stories."
"Art Firsts brings together 30... pioneering firsts to piece together an original approach to looking at and appreciating art, as well as understanding where it has come from and how it relates to you." (Provided by publisher.)
"... Explains the many aspects of contemporary art, from its backstory to today, including different approaches, media and recurring themes."
"... Focusing on subject matter and content rather than simply color and form, Karmel reconsiders the history of abstraction from a global perspective." (Book jacket.)
Classic art history survey textbook combining "formal analysis with contextual art history." (Google Books, 2024)
"... Guides the reader to re-evaluate their experiences of looking at art by learning to move beyond 'I don't know much about art, but I know what I like,' and shift towards an understanding of 'why...'"
A fresh take on the history of art, using cultural timelines to reveal little-known connections and influences between artworks and artistic movements.
To learn about art, you have to work with a variety of strategies. You can search by artist, title, subject, medium of the work, the style of the work, the period and place in which the work was made, or anything that the art itself references (could be another time or place). All of these strategies might not be relevant to your selected work of art and that's ok.
The style - how they used the principles and elements of art - media (materials), and subject matter can all be clues to what people of a certain culture thought was important in their world and what they thought was beautiful. Use the vocabulary of formal analysis - line, color, texture, space, shape, rhythm, unity, balance, etc. - explain how the cultural context of a work is translated into visual art.
Images from http://splitcomplementary.blogspot.ca/2012/08/new-and-improved-elements-and.html