For undergraduate courses in Art Appreciation, Humanities, and Studio Art.
This stimulating, fascinating and concise introduction to art, designed to stand alone or supplement courses in
Art Appreciation, the Humanities and Studio Arts classes, contains a series of chapters covering a range of topics
that will provide students with a basis for approaching art and enjoying it. The text serves to dispel some of
the preconceptions students have about the visual arts--assumptions they might make about a work based on their
own experience. This text assumes no background in the arts, but does assume an interest in learning more about
how to view art.
Comprehensive coverage--Features eight chapters on different aspects of the visual arts.
Allows students to examine themes, controversies, non-Western and Western art, formal elements of style, and
basics such as perspective and technique.
Unique perspectives on art.
Enables students to examine art through various lenses such as iconography, Marxism, feminism, semiotics, and
various controversies that surround art.
Over 132 illustrations--Features a range of examples from ancient to contemporary.
Stimulates students' interest, and encourages a deeper exploration of the subject.
Clear, concise language--Requires no previous knowledge of the arts.
Helps show students how pervasive the visual arts are in all our lives.
Table of Contents
1. The Appeal of Art.
2. The Aims of Art.
Decorating the Environment. Recording the Past. Religious Art. Political Art. Images that Heal, Destroy, Protect
and Warn Advertising Images.
3. Style and the Formal Elements of Art.
Line and Shape. Sculpure: David by Donatello and by Bernini. Painting: Castagno's David. Color. Light and Dark.
Texture. Space and Shape as Context and Illusion. Linear Perspective. Eastern Perspective Systems. Architecture
as Form and Function.
4. Artists at Work: Convention and Training.
The Aesthetic Context: Convention. The Cultural Context: How Artists Learn. The Cult of Bohemia and the Artists
as Rebel. The Artists as Individual: Jackson Pollock.
5. Themes of Art.
The Divine Circle. The Circle as a Sign of Burial. The Column. The Iconographic Theme.
6. Art In and Out of Context.
Narrative Context. Architectural Context. The Museum as Context. The Archaeological Dig as Museum and Context.
The Natural Context. The Urban Context: Site, Politics, Economics, and Christo and Jeanne-Claude.
7. Approaches to Art.
Formalism. Iconography. Marxism. Feminism. Semiotics. Biography and Autobiography. Psychoanalysis.
