The fact that Paul Klee (1879-1940) consistently intertwined the visual and the verbal in his art has long fascinated commentators from Walter Benjamin to Michel Foucault. However, the questions it prompts have never been satisfactorily answered – un...

This innovative history of British art museums begins in the early 19th century. The National Gallery and the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum) in London may have been at the center of activity, but museums in cities such a...

This book features a crystalline new translation of one of art history's most influential works-published on its one-hundredth anniversary. "Principles of Art History" by Heinrich Wolfflin (1864-1945), a revolutionary attempt to construct a science o...

Medieval prayer books held not only the devotions and meditations of Christianity, but also housed, slipped between pages, sundry notes, reminders, and ephemera, such as pilgrims' badges, sworn oaths, and small painted images. Many of these last item...

This beautifully illustrated, delightfully informative collection of 100 of the world's most significant paintings covers nearly every period, culture, and style. What makes the Book of Kells such an extraordinary example of the illuminated manuscri...

The act of including bystanders within the scene of an artwork has marked an important shift in the ways artists addressed the beholder, as well as a significant transformation of the relationship between images and their viewership. In such works, t...

In "The Pilgrim's Bowl", Swiss poet Philippe Jaccottet meditates on the work of Italian artist Giorgio Morandi and its power to evoke a complexity of emotions and astonishment. Jaccottet examines Morandi's ascetic still lifes, contrasting his artisti...

"Painting in Latin America, 1550-1820: From Conquest to Independence" surveys the diverse styles, subjects and iconography of painting in Latin America between the 16th and 19th centuries. While European art forms were widely disseminated, copied and...

In 1440, on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, Florence unexpectedly defeated Milanese forces near the town of Anghiari in eastern Tuscany. Nicholas Eckstein reveals the impact of this celebrated victory on Florentine public life and how it could ha...

In 1832, the Norwegian painter Peder Balke (1804-1887) traveled to the far north of Norway to the dramatic coastline of the North Cape. The experience was so profound that he built his career painting isolated Arctic Circle seascapes. His pictures we...