History & Criticism

First published in 1973, this is a study of the force of photographic images, which are continually inserted between experience and reality....

In 2010, the BBC and the British Museum embarked on an ambitious project: to tell the story of 2,000,000 years of human history using 100 objects selected from the museum's vast and renowned collection. Presented by the British Museum's then director Neil MacGregor, each episode focuses on a...

An eminent psychologist offers a major new theory of human cognition: movement, not language, is the foundation of thought....

Plutarchs's (46-120 A.D.) epic chronicle of the lives of great Grecians and Romans....

Art & Fear explores the way art gets made, the reasons it often doesn't get made, and the nature of the difficulties that cause so many artists to give up along the way....

Forty essays on history, art, and literature to lift your mind and spirit. Guy Davenport serves as the listener's guide through history and literature.

This audiobook narrated by best-selling author Mary Beard explores how images of Roman autocrats have influenced art, culture, and the representation of power....

A former New York Times Paris bureau chief explores the Louvre, offering an intimate journey of discovery and revelation.

Charlotte Mullins brings art to life through the stories of those who created it and, importantly, reframes who is included in the narrative to create a more diverse and exciting landscape of art....

From Neil MacGregor, the author of A History of the World in 100 Objects, this is a view of Germany like no other. For the past 140 years, Germany has been the central power in continental Europe. Thirty years ago, a new German state came into being. How much do we really understand this new...

We have all seen, whether live, in photographs or on postcards, some of Claude Monet's legendary water lily paintings....

'Less is more': Everywhere we hear the mantra. Marie Kondo and other decluttering gurus promise that shedding our stuff will solve our problems....

Take a tour through the wilder side of art history and discover true tales of murder, forgery, trickery, and great art—featuring jaw-dropping profiles of Da Vinci, Dali, and more...

The central argument of Chromophobia is that a chromophobic impulse—a fear of corruption or contamination through color—lurks within much Western cultural and intellectual thought.

From the acclaimed biographer and author of Balzac's Omelette comes an engaging new work on the life of "the father of Impressionism" and the role his Jewish background played in his artistic creativity....

Surrealist painter Salvador Dalí eccentrically presents his ideas of painting, judging good or bad the prominent figures in the history of art, and expounding on 50 "secrets" that cover topics like the movements of types of brushes....

Five women revolutionize the modern art world in postwar America in this "gratifying, generous, and lush" true story from a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist (Jennifer Szalai, New York Times). Set amid the most turbulent social and political period of modern times, Ninth Street...

What is art? Why do we value images of saints, kings, goddesses, battles, landscapes or cities from eras of history utterly remote from ourselves....

Have your sense of art history overturned and your eyes opened to many artforms often ignored or dismissed. From the Cornish coast to Manhattan, Nigeria to Japan, this is the history of art as it's never been told before....

Brought to you by Penguin. 'For anyone who has enjoyed The Cultural Tutor on X, this book will be more of the same delight. Expect nuggets of insight and wisdom, wrapped in the author's trademark warmth and wit' Alain de Botton Who does the Mona Lisa actually depict? Why do we still look to the...

Master Italian sculptor, goldsmith, and writer Benvenuto Cellini is best remembered for his magnificent autobiography....

Today's computers are composing music that sounds "more Bach than Bach", turning photographs into paintings in the style of Van Gogh's Starry Night, and even writing screenplays. But are computers truly creative - or are they merely tools? Find out more....

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss 25 explorations of the visual arts, including artistic and architectural styles, historic movements, notable artworks and visual artists. Radio 4's In Our Time has established itself at the pinnacle of essential conversation on a wide range of subjects from...

Keith Haring is synonymous with the downtown New York art scene of the 1980's. His artwork-with its simple, bold lines and dynamic figures in motion-filtered in to the world's consciousness and is still instantly recognizable, twenty years after his death. This Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition...

In this Very Short Introduction audiobook, the renowned philosopher Roger Scruton explores the concept of beauty, asking what makes an object beautiful and examining how we can compare differing judgments of beauty when it is evident all around us that our tastes vary so widely....

Leer a mano trata de la percepción, algo que no atañe solo a la vista: las obras de arte y los edificios poseen cualidades táctiles, que influyen, hasta de forma inconsciente, en las sensaciones que nos producen. También es un «elogio de la lentitud» aplicado a las artes y a la arquitectura, una defensa del ritmo pausado que se precisa tanto para crear algo como para contemplarlo y comprenderlo. Las artes y los oficios conllevan experiencias que nos conforman como humanos. Crear y producir no son lo mismo.

The British Isles hold a unique position in the history of art, a place where local traditions fuse with international ideas. At once isolated by coastal boundaries, yet also part of larger networks of diverse peoples, these islands have always benefited from a dual perspective.

Connecting to your own authentic core will fill you and your work with strength and relevance. To those engaged in making art, an authentic voice is the most crucial yet most difficult ability to come by. Why does so much conspire to hide what is ultimately the closest, simplest thing of all? Creative Authenticity outlines 16 principles that will help you peel back the fears, misconceptions, "shoulds" and confusion around courageous creative expression.

古代末期から中世にかけて，ヨーロッパでは，石やガラスのかけらを使ったモザイクが床や壁に作られた．ローマ帝国の版図を実感させる絵から，聖堂を訪れ救済を求める人々を見守ったイエス像まで，「永遠の絵」は今も私たちの心を捉えて離すことはない．

Andrés Amorós, uno de los escritores y críticos taurinos más reconocidos, realiza en este ensayo un recorrido riguroso por la historia de la fiesta, desde los orígenes del toro como protagonista de ceremonias y celebraciones, hasta la evolución del festejo durante los siglos XX y XXI.