In the rapidly changing world of the early Middle Ages, depictions of the cosmos represented a consistent point of reference across the three dominant states – the Frankish, Byzantine, and Islamic Empires. As these empires diverged from their Greco-R...

This volume presents for the first time the fundamental artistic circumstances from 1900 onward that led to the emergence of nonobjective art. For example, on the surface there are no obvious connections between the Formkunst (art of form) of Vienna...

The Mogao grottoes in northwestern China, located near the town of Dunhuang on the fabled Silk Road, constitute one of the world's most significant sites of Buddhist art. In some five hundred caves carved into rock cliffs at the edge of the Gobi dese...

There was a time when museums might have been regarded as rather forbidding and austere centres of learning, but today they are more likely to position themselves firmly within the tourism and leisure industry with all manner of food, fun and family...

Rising from humble origins as Turkic tribesman, the powerful and culturally prolific Seljuqs – a dynastic tribe whose reach extended from Central Asia to the eastern Mediterranean – dominated the Islamic world from the 11th to the 14th century. This...

Reflecting on the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War, this notable book brings together a range of media and perspectives that show how the conflict has been recorded and remembered over time. Fifteen essays written by leading scholars in a v...

Anyone writing about a work of art needs to establish at the outset how much it has changed since it was first made. This simple, informative and pracrical book, full of fascinating and revelatory photography, will take the reader through both the te...

This book offers a revised and expanded look at a world-renowned artistic treasure and its conversation. The Mogao grottoes in China, situated near the town of Dunhuang on the fabled Silk Road, constitute one of the world's most significant sites of...

Alberto Giacometti's 1934 Cube stands apart for many as atypical of the Swiss artist, the only abstract sculptural work in a wide oeuvre that otherwise had as its objective the exploration of reality. With "The Cube and the Face", renowned French...

This beautiful book reveals the fascinating history of the cabinet of curiosities belonging to the Cobbe family, who created it around 1750 at Newbridge House (Co. Dublin) and developed it over the following century. Now housed at Hatchlands Park, Su...