In the century since Gerrit Rietveld’s iconic application of primary colours to a wooden chair, the use of colour in home furnishings has developed its own rich history. Departing from the hu...
A Chronology of Film presents a fresh perspective on the medium by taking a purely chronological approach to its history, tracing the complex links between technical innovations, social changes and...
A Chronology of Photography presents a fresh perspective on the medium by taking a purely chronological approach to its history, tracing the complex links between technological innovations, social ...
An authoritative and concise history of witchcraft from the ancient world up to the present day. Witchcraft has always been a fluid and intriguing belief system that has enchanted and sometimes ter...
What makes great art great? Why do some works pulse in the imagination generation after generation, century after century? From Botticelli’s Birth of Venus to Picasso’s Guer...
What is worse than Nero? What is better than Nero’s Baths?’ – so wrote the poet Martial in the first century AD, demonstrating the power that buildings have on public consciousnes...
Act now to avert calamity!This expertly curated compilation of step-by-step survival advice, drawn from more than 100 years of official documentation from around the world, demonstrates...
Global awareness of climate change is increasing, and the scientific evidence is incontrovertible: an environmental crisis is upon us. Art and Climate Change presents an overview of ecologically co...
Artists' Film is the first alternative history of the moving image, chronicling artists’ ever-evolving fascination with filmmaking from the early twentieth century to now.From ear...
Atlantis, the island continent that vanished under the sea, is one of the most haunting themes of legend. It has preoccupied thinkers for more than two thousand years, from Plato to Rudolf Steiner....
Bauhaus Goes West is the story of cultural and artistic exchange between Germany and the West over a period of seventy years. It presents a view of the influential Bauhaus school in relation to the...
The aesthetic of our contemporary environment, including everything from housing developments to furniture and websites, is partly the result of a school of art and design founded in Germany in 191...
Body art is the most intimate art form, linking the self, the senses, and the social and political. Today, in almost any major city worldwide, you will encounter tattoos, piercings, henna painting ...
Caribbean Art presents and discusses the diverse, fascinating and highly accomplished work of Caribbean artists, whether indigenous or from the diaspora, popular or ‘high’ culture, rura...
Focusing on a carefully curated selection of Catholic art and artefacts, this book explains the meaning of the iconography and the mystic power of the faith's ritual objects. A wealth of often hidd...
Did you know that the Egyptians created the first synthetic colour; or that the noblest purple comes from a predatory sea snail? Throughout history, artist pigments have been made from deadly metal...
The complex phenomenon of colour has received detailed attention from the perspectives of physics, chemistry, physiology, psychology, linguistics and philosophy. However, the people who work most c...
A plain speaking, jargon-free account of contemporary art that identifies key themes and approaches, providing the reader with a clear understanding of the contexts in which art is being made today...
Painting is a continually expanding and evolving medium. The radical changes that have taken place since the 1960s and 1970s – including the shift from modernism to postmodernism – have...
Numerology has fascinated people since ancient times, from Egypt to the Roman Empire, India and Scandinavia. Numbers are a universal language that can help make sense of the seemingly chaotic world...