The Painted World From Illumination to Abstraction

This lively, well-illustrated alternative history of painting reexamines the accepted ideas about fine art painting. It broadens the scope of painting from works on paper and canvas to include painted ceramics, stained glass. textiles. This history of Western painting is often reduced to the story of a tiny elite bunch of easel pictures, composed exclusively of old masters and avant-garde works. Three-dimensional objects, watercolors, miniatures, icons, and non-Western works, as well as modern paintings that are no longer perceived as "cutting edge," relate uneasily to this twin canon of old and modern masters. This new, richly illustrated account seeks to redress the balance by exploring the wider history of painting and including a broad range of painted works (often excluded as belonging to the realm of applied or decorative art) from stained glass to painted ceramics, furniture, textiles, and items of costume.