Visual Arts: Subject Home

This guide to the history of Western art combines a comprehensive essay, outlining the development of the discipline and its major movements, with more than 300 detailed entries, organized alphabetically from Abstract Expressionism to Zeitgeist, on the movements, terminology, writers, bibliography and philosophy significant to the development of art history. Extensive bibliographical information and cross-references are included.

An indispensable guide for anyone keen to learn coloured pencil techniques, or for the experienced artist who would like to build on their existing skills. Filled with information on the basic characteristics and colour ranges of the main kinds of coloured pencil, and step-by-step visual demonstrations of key techniques from blending, blocking in and burning to sgraffito, stippling and impressing. The reader will not only discover how professional artists use imaginative and dynamic styles to interpret a wide range of subjects, but they will also be inspired by the 150-plus full-colour illustrations to create brilliant artworks of their own.

A beautiful new history of an evocative and enduring drawing technique From the Middle Ages to the present, master draftsmen have used the technique of metalpoint to create some of the most beautiful and technically accomplished drawings in the history of art. Drawing in Silver and Gold examines the history of this evocative medium, in which a metal stylus is used on a specially prepared surface to create lines of astonishing delicacy. This beautifully illustrated book examines the practice of metalpoint over six centuries, in the work of artists ranging from Leonardo, Dürer, and Rembrandt to Otto Dix and Jasper Johns. A team of authors--curators, conservators, scientists--address variations in technique across time and between different schools, incorporating new scientific analysis, revealing patterns of use, and providing a rare demonstration of the medium's range and versatility. They reappraise famous metalpoints of the Renaissance and shed new light on infrequently studied periods, such as the seventeenth century and the Victorian silverpoint revival. A new examination of an exquisite but not thoroughly understood medium, Drawing in Silver and Gold offers fresh interpretations of a practice central to the history of drawing and will serve as the most authoritative reference on metalpoints for years to come.

One of the world's most important collections of 20th century design, The Stewart Collection incorporates iconic furniture, ceramics, textiles, posters, graphic art, jewelry and everyday objects from the 1930s to today. This book presents items chronologically, highlighting contrasts and parallels between the works.

In the second installment of the Visual Century Collection, the political and artistic search for national identity is explored. Visual Century: South African Art is a four-volume publication that reappraises South African visual art of the 20th century from a postapartheid perspective. It is the only publication that provides an overview of a century of South African art, with in-depth discussion by leading art historians and reproduction of a large number of artworks, providing readers with fresh perspectives on complexities that still resonate today. The second volume in the Visual Century series discusses how, between the end of the Second World War and the Soweto Uprisings, South Africa was increasingly isolated from the international world by its policies of racial exclusion and extreme social engineering. The threats to the state of internal revolt and external pressure, posed within the broader contexts of decolonization and the Cold War, caused it to adopt severe measures, with significant consequences for the art of the period. This volume then addresses the fertile cultural ambivalences of this period. These include the relationship between Afrikaner nationalism and the emergence of an 'official' South African art, whose central role would come to be challenged by the steady increase in the number of modern black artists and new informal art centers. Also discussed is the impact of white patronage, the responses of migrant workers to rapid change, and artists' responses to the repressive political climate of apartheid, as well as to emerging black nationalism. The allure and impact of European and American art capitals and modernist discourse, for artists at 'home' and in exile, and not least the struggles of black and white artists to define an African identity, is also explored.