Rosie Dickins

Erika Langmuir

Tim Marlow

Mari Griffith

This sumptuous book covers every era of visual art from ancient to modern. It includes works from every major genre, from classical to cubist; focuses on every major theme, from still-life to society; and contains works by the world's most renowned and influential artists. This encyclopaedic title contains hundreds of gloriously reproduced works of art from the world's major collections, including the National Gallery in London. The superb illustrations are combined with authoritative, informative and fascinating text, which brings the paintings to life and also explains how to get the most out of looking at art. Key works, including the Arnolfini Portrait, Venus and Mars and Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, are explored in detail. Contains a timeline, biographical details about many major artists, and an extensive glossary that explains key terms clearly and precisely. Includes approved Internet links, which can be accessed through the Usborne Quicklinks website, and lead the reader to hundreds of more works of art in addition to the masterpieces included in this wonderful and exciting book.

The Usborne Book of Art

The images of children that abound in Western art do not simply mirror reality; they are imaginative constructs, representing childhood as a special stage of human life, or emblematic of the human condition itself. In a compelling book ranging widely across time, national boundaries, and genres from ancient Egyptian amulets to Picasso's Guernica, Erika Langmuir demonstrates that no historic period has a monopoly on the 'discovery of childhood'. Famous pictures by great artists, as well as barely known anonymous artefacts, illustrate not only Western society's perennially ambivalent attitudes to children, but also the many and varied functions that works of art have played throughout its history.

Imagining Childhood

What is still life? We are familiar with the objects portrayed but have difficulty explaining the essence of this popular art form. Erika Langmuir examines the special fascination of still life, and what distinguishes it from other categories of painting. She discusses its evolution from the trompe l’oeil wall paintings of antiquity, through its revival in the age of Caravaggio and Velázquez, and again in the works of Cézanne and Picasso. Originally published as Pocket Guide Still Life, this eloquent survey benefits from a wider format, new reproductions, and updated references.

Still Life

Neil MacGregor

Founded in 1824, the National Gallery houses a rich and comprehensive range of European painting from the Middle Ages to the 1920s. Among the works represented in this colorful and compact survey of the Gallery's collection are masterpieces by Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Edgar Degas, and Paul Cézanne, as well as some lesser-known delights. Located on Trafalgar Square, in the heart of London, the original Wilkins Building has recently been extended by the handsome new Sainsbury Wing, which contains some of the world's greatest paintings.

Treasures of the National Gallery, London

Making Masterpieces

In this text, Neil MacGregor engages with images of Christ wherever they may be found throughout the world. Through them he follows not only the life of Christ, but also the development of Christian culture since His birth.

Erika Langmuir

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