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Monday, October 6, 2008

Essential art history texts for budding historians


On September 29, TimesOnline (UK) ran a list of art history texts considered basic needs for students of the discipline -- without comment. Obviously, they are awaiting those, which should make future reading interesting.
Oddly enough, a title in the list was a feataure of my childhood -- the Vitruvius study of architecture. I see that the text is now available online,at the Perseus site, but what I pored over for many hours was the wonderful illustrations.

From Berger's Ways of Seeing

Baxandall, Michael, Painting and experience in fifteenth century Italy : a primer in the social history of pictorial style, Oxford University Press,1988

Berger, John, Ways of Seeing, Penguin Books Ltd, 1990

Burke, Peter, The Renaissance, Macmillan, 1997

Clark, T.J., Farewell to an idea : episodes from a history of modernism, Yale University Press, c1999

Collings, Matthew, This Is Modern Art, Phoenix, 2000

Fernie, Eric, Art history and its methods : a critical anthology, Phaidon,1995

Gombrich, Ernst, The story of art, Phaidon, 1995

Harrison, Charles, and Paul Wood, Art in theory, 1815-1900 : an anthology of changing ideas, Blackwell, 1998 & Art in theory, 1900-2000 : an anthology of changing ideas, Blackwell, 2003

Honour, Hugh & Fleming, John A., World History of Art, 2002, Laurence King Publishing 2005 (7th ed.)

Panofsky, Erwin, Iconography and Iconology: An Introduction to the Study of Renaissance Art (1939); Meaning in the Visual Arts, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books

Pointon, Marcia, History of art : a students' handbook, Routledge, 1994

Preziosi, Donald, The art of art history : a critical anthology, Oxford University Press, 1998

Nelson, Robert and Schiff, Richard, Critical terms for art history, University of Chicago Press, 2003

Harris, Jonathan, The new art history : a critical introduction, Routledge,2001

Rubin, Patricia Lee, Giorgio Vasari : art and history, Yale UniversityPress, c1995

Sylvester, David, Interviews with Francis Bacon, Thames & Hudson Ltd., 1987; About Modern Art: Critical Essays 1948-2000, Pimlico, 2002

Tavernor, Robert, Palladio and Palladianism, Thames and Hudson, c1991

Vasari, Giorgio, Lives of the Artists, A selection, translated by George Bull, Penguin Books, 1987

Vitruvius, Marcus, Ten Books on Architecture, Harvard University Press, 1914

Watkin, David, A History of Western Architecture, Laurence King Publishing, 2005

Welch, Evelyn, Art in Renaissance Italy, 1350-1500, Oxford University Press, 2000

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