Nominated for the Turner Prize in 2011, George Shaw (b. 1966) is one of Britain's leading contemporary painters, best known for his painstakingly detailed, luminous, and often elegiac representations of the British suburban landscape. Beautifully des...

Beginning in 1800, "Looking at Men" explores how the modern male body was forged through the intimately linked professions of art and medicine, which deployed muscular models and martial arts to renew the beau id al. This ideal of the virile body der...

A celebration of contemporary art by self-taught Black Southern artists. This book examines the art-historical significance of a major group of self-taught artists from the American South. "My Soul Has Grown Deep" features works by Black painters an...

One of the greatest American painters of the 19th century, Winslow Homer (1836-1910) also maintained a deep engagement with photography throughout his career. Focusing on the important, yet often-overlooked, role that photography played in Homer's ar...

Known as the master of French Romanticism for his energetic paintings, Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) was also a consummate draftsman. This handsome book, one of the few to explore this topic in depth, provides new insight into Delacroix's drawing prac...

The first scholarly monograph to focus on the inception of the Italian Renaissance nude, this lively study subverts the idea that the nude in this period was a triumph of classical revival. Looking again at familiar (even overly familiar) images by a...

This study is the first to examine the relationship between art and violence in 15th-century Florence, exposing the underbelly of a period more often celebrated for enlightened and progressive ideas. Renaissance Florentines were constantly subjected...

Living in the region between the Lubudi and Kasai rivers in south central Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Luluwa people are known for their elaborately carved male and female figure sculptures, masks, and decorative arts. Constantine Petridis d...

During the early modern period in Japan, peace and prosperity allowed elite and popular arts and culture to flourish in Edo (Tokyo) and Kyoto. The historic first showing outside Japan of It? Jakuchu's thirty-scroll series titled Colorful Realm of Liv...

The turn of the 20th century witnessed a surge in the creation and popularity of nocturnes and night landscapes in American art. In this original and thought-provoking book, Helene Valance investigates why artists and viewers of the era were so capti...