Palm mats and pilgrim tokens, manuscript illuminations and church frescoes, gold and enamel reliquaries and papier-mâché figurines, Russian icons and Mexican murals: What makes these works of art Christian? And what, as such, distinguishes them from other works? These are the questions at the center of this book, which is at once a sumptuously illustrated survey of Christian art over time and across the globe and a probing study of what "Christian art" really means, how it functions, where it arises, and whom it serves. Rowena Loverance draws extensively on the vast international collections of the British Museum, with its remarkable examples of Christian art in the fourth-century Roman empire, the meeting of Eastern and Western art during the Crusades, Christian missionary art and its reception in sixteenth-century Africa, India, and Japan, and twentieth-century Christian popular art from Latin America and Oceania. The Museum's collections of decorative arts yield original and lesser-known Christian iconography, allowing the author to show how Christian and other artists have responded to a variety of visual traditions. Within the European convention, the book considers the assaults of post-Renaissance scientific and philosophical discoveries and concludes with an assessment of the current state of Christian art at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

The Quiet Eye is a book of great charm, imbued with a love and understanding of art that speaks directly to the heart. The thirty-three pictures selected by the American sculptress Sylvia Shaw Judson cover a wide spectrum of subjects and styles, from the seventh century to the modern day. They include works by artists ranging from Durer and Brueghel to Rousseau and Klee, pottery and sculpture from ancient Greece, Oriental scrolls and wall paintings, and are accompanied by quotations from Plato and Shakespeare to Wordsworth and Walt Whitman. In making her choice, Sylvia Judson's intention was "to communicate a sense of affirmation, of wonder, of trust. This is a spirit alien to much of the art of our insecure time, but one which I am confident will some day return." The Quiet Eye was first published as a large format art book in 1954, when it won immediate acclaim. The 1982 edition features a more convenient size and some color images that were originally published in black and white.

Traces the author's twelve-year quest to own a Warhol painting that would best reflect the artist's essence, recounting his tour of galleries, auction houses, and private collections while revealing the factors that contributed to Warhol's celebrity and the prices of his works.

Presents step-by-step instructions for drawing familiar and obscure creatures and includes coverage of such techniques as shading and creating textures for scales, feathers, and hair.

This book of the grotesque creatures who love to torment unsuspecting humans--and most of whom starred in the movie Labyrinth--features detailed illustrations and humorous tales depicting the goblins' mind and spirit.

Big-Eye Art: Resurrected and Transformed provides a compelling introduction to the genre, including a dazzling array of more than 150 astonishing works by twenty-two big-eye fantasy artists, both renowned and emerging, among them Blonde Blythe, Jasmine Becket-Griffith, Misha, Mark Gleason, and Vicki Berndt. The book shows how dolls, and Japanese anime and manga, along with popular culture and Gothic and fantasy elements, have altered the face of this haunting, sometimes disturbing and challenging art form. A wide range of big-eyed works is featured, and essays by the artists reveal how they came to develop and create their particular visions. As big-eye and fantasy art collide and fuse in a remarkable resurgence, this spectacular and captivating book demonstrates why masterpieces by the leading practitioners of the moment are once again stealing the hearts of the masses.

Ornament, the art of decorative patterning, includes some of the most spectacular creations of human imagination and skill. Although the fashion for unadorned form pushed ornament to the margins of Western taste in the twentieth century, an ornamental revival is now under way. This book introduces the global panorama of ornament and will be of value to crafts people, collectors, and students of art history. Trilling's approach is both visual and historical. With over 200 illustrations, he presents the dazzling variety of ornament so that the reader can appreciate both its inherent form and the role it has played in everything from the monumental architecture of Mycenaean Greece to the inlaid vessels of Zhou Dynasty China, from the bronze mirrors of Early Celtic Britain to the carved and woven ornament of the Indians of Alaska and British Columbia. The characteristics of individual styles are balanced against their evolution and interaction from the Paleolithic Age to the present day. Special attention is paid to patterns that migrate across large stretches of space and time, showing how ornament becomes a record of cultural interaction through trade, conquest, and the spread of religions. Finally, Trilling explores the fate of ornament since the beginning of modernism in the early twentieth century. Modernism actually nurtured a vibrant and original ornamental style of its own, one so different from traditional ornament that its true nature went virtually unrecognized. Ornament in the postmodern era is open to any number of possible innovations, combining the modernist legacy with forms and principles from the world of traditional ornament. 50 color and 175 b/w illustrations.

The automobile has long been a symbol of status, power, and autonomy, and ever since King Tut rolled through Egypt on his golden-wheeled chariot, artists and drivers have dreamed up mobile masterpieces. A striking photographic tribute and social history, Road Show navigates a path across high and low art, showing how people around the world are transforming their vehicles into stunning folk art, obsessive collections, social commentary, and visionary performances. In this fascinating showcase, we see how Henry Ford's motto, “Any color as long as it's black,

A collection of artfully decorated postcards with secrets anonymously written on them by people from all over the world and sent to the founder of PostSecret, a community art project that evolved into a website.

Gathers together essays on video art, covering such aspects as its history, and its relationship to the media, fine arts, and culture