Art History For Dummies
, by Wilder, Jesse Bryant
- ISBN: 9781119868668 | 1119868661
- Cover: Paperback
- Copyright: 4/19/2022
Ready to discover the fascinating world of art history? Let’s (Van) Gogh!
Fine art might seem intimidating at first. But with the right guide, anyone can learn to appreciate and understand the stimulating and beautiful work of history’s greatest painters, sculptors, and architects. In Art History For Dummies, we’ll take you on a journey through fine art from all eras, from Cave Art to the Colosseum, and from Michelangelo to Picasso and the modern masters. Along the way, you’ll learn about how history has influenced art, and vice versa.
This updated edition includes:
- Brand new material on a wider array of renowned female artists
- Explorations of the Harlem Renaissance, American Impressionism, and the Precisionists
- Discussions of art in the 20th and 21st centuries, including Dadaism, Constructivism, Surrealism, and today’s eclectic art scene
Is there an exhibition in your town you want to see? Prep before going with Art History For Dummies and show your friends what an Art Smartie you are.
An unbeatable reference for anyone looking to build a foundational understanding of art in a historical context, Art History For Dummies is your personal companion that makes fine art even finer!
Jesse Bryant Wilder is the founder, publisher, and editor of NEXUS, a series of interdisciplinary textbooks used in high schools around the country. He has written several textbooks on art and art history and was an art critic for The Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com.
Introduction 1
About This Book 1
Foolish Assumptions 2
Icons Used in This Book 2
Beyond the Book 2
Where to Go from Here 3
Part 1: Getting Started with Art History 5
Chapter 1: Art Tour through the Ages 7
Connecting Art Divisions and Culture 8
It’s Ancient History, So Why Dig It Up? 8
Mesopotamian period (3500 bc–500 bc) and Egyptian period (3100 bc–332 bc) 9
Ancient Greek period (c 850 bc–323 bc) and Hellenistic period (323 bc–32 bc) 9
Roman period (300 bc–ad 476) 9
Did the Art World Crash When Rome Fell, or Did It Just Switch Directions? 10
Byzantine period (ad 500–ad 1453) 10
Islamic period (seventh century+) 10
Medieval period (500–1400) 10
High Renaissance (1495–1520) and Mannerism (1530–1580) 10
Baroque period (1600–1750) and Rococo period (1715–1760s) 11
In the Machine Age, Where Did Art Get Its Power? 11
Neoclassicism (1765–1830) 11
Romanticism (late 1700s–early 1800s) 11
The Modern World and the Shattered Mirror 12
Responding to modern pressures 12
Conceptualizing the craft 13
Expressing mixed-up times 13
Chapter 2: Why People Make Art and What It All Means 15
Focusing on the Artist’s Purpose 15
Recording religion, ritual, and mythology 15
Promoting politics and propaganda 16
When I say jump: Art made for patrons 16
Following a personal vision 17
Detecting Design 17
Perceiving pattern 17
Rolling with the rhythm 17
Weighing the balance 17
Looking for contrast 18
Examining emphasis 18
Decoding Meaning 19
The ABCs of visual narrative 19
Sorting symbols 19
Chapter 3: The Major Artistic Movements 21
Distinguishing an Art Period from a Movement 21
Tracking Major 19th-Century Art Movements 22
Realism (1840s–1880s) 22
Impressionism (1869–late 1880s) 22
Post-Impressionism (1886–1892) 22
Moving Off the Rails in the 20th Century 23
Fauvism and Expressionism 23
Cubism, Futurism, Dada, and Surrealism 24
Abstract Expressionism (1946–1950s) 25
Pop Art (1960s) 25
Conceptual art, performance art, and feminist art (late 1960s–1970s) 25
Postmodernism (1970–) 25
Part 2: From Caves to Colosseum: Ancient Art 27
Chapter 4: Magical Hunters and Psychedelic Cave Artists 29
Cool Cave Art or Paleolithic Painting: Why Keep It a Secret? 30
Hunting on a wall 31
Psychedelic shamans with paintbrushes 31
Flirting with Fertility Goddesses 32
Dominoes for Druids: Stonehenge, Menhirs, and Neolithic Architecture 33
Living in the New Stone Age: Çatalhöyük, Göbekli Tepe, and Skara Brae 33
Cracking the mystery of the megaliths and menhirs 34
Chapter 5: Fickle Gods, Warrior Art, and the Birth of Writing: Mesopotamian Art 37
Climbing toward the Clouds: Sumerian Architecture 38
Zigzagging to Heaven: Ziggurats 38
The Tower of Babel 39
The Eyes Have It: Scoping Out Sumerian Sculpture 39
Worshipping graven images 40
Stare-down with God: Statuettes from Abu Temple 40
Playing Puabi’s Lyre 41
Unraveling the Standard of Ur 42
Stalking Stone Warriors: Akkadian Art 43
Stamped in Stone: Hammurabi’s Code 43
Unlocking Assyrian Art 44
Babylon Has a Baby: New Babylon 45
Chapter 6: One Foot in the Tomb: Ancient Egyptian Art 47
Ancient Egypt 101 48
Segmenting the Egyptian periods 48
Thanking the Nile 49
The Art of a Unified Egypt 49
Depicting the unification 49
Noting art as history in the Palette of Narmer 50
The Egyptian Style: Proportion and Orientation 51
Excavating Old Kingdom Architecture 52
Early mastabas and step pyramids 52
Turning to stone 53
Making the architecture great 53
Spending life preparing for death 54
The In-Between Period and Middle Kingdom Realism 55
New Kingdom Art 56
Hatshepsut: A female phenom 56
Akhenaten and Egyptian family values 56
Raiding King Tut’s tomb treasures 58
Admiring the world’s most beautiful dead woman’s tomb 59
Decoding Books of the Dead 59
Too-big-to-forget sculpture 61
Chapter 7: Greek Art, the Olympian Ego, and the Inventors of the Modern World 63
Mingling with the Minoans: Snake Goddesses, Minotaurs, and Bull Jumpers 64
Greek Sculpture: Stark Symmetry to a Delicate Balance 66
Kouros to Kritios Boy 66
Golden Age sculptors: Myron, Polykleitos, and Phidias 68
Fourth-century sculpture 70
Figuring Out Greek Vase Painting 71
Cool stick figures: The geometric style 71
Black-figure and red-figure techniques 72
Rummaging through Ruins: Greek Architecture 73
Greece without Borders: Hellenism 76
Sculpting passion and struggle 76
Honoring the classical in a new world 77
Chapter 8: Etruscan and Roman Art: It’s All Greek to Me! 79
The Mysterious Etruscans 79
Temple to tomb: Greek influence 79
Smiles in stone: The eternally happy Etruscans 80
Infusing Art with Roman Influence 80
Linking the territory that was Rome 82
Art as mirror: Roman realism and
Republican sculptural portraits 82
Progressing on to propaganda 83
Shirking idealism for authenticity 84
Realism in painting 85
Roman mosaics 86
Revealing Roman Architecture: A Marriage of Style and Engineering 87
Temple of Portunus 87
Maison Carrée 88
Roman aqueducts 88
The Colosseum 88
The Pantheon 90
Part 3: Art after the Fall of Rome: ad 500–ad 1760 93
Chapter 9: The Graven Image: Early Christian, Byzantine, and Islamic Art 95
The Rise and Fall of Constantinople 95
Christianizing Rome 96
After the fall: Divisions and schisms 96
Early Christian Art in the West 96
Rejecting paganism 97
Drawing on Roman art and culture 97
Byzantine Art Meets Imperial Splendor 98
Justinian and Early Byzantine architecture 98
Amazing mosaics: Puzzle art 100
San Vitale: Justinian and Theodora mosaics 101
The mosaics of St Mark’s Basilica, Venice, Italy (Middle Byzantine) 103
Icons and iconoclasm 103
Islamic Art: Architectural Pathways to God 106
The Mosque of Córdoba 107
The dazzling Alhambra 109
A temple of love: The Taj Mahal 110
Chapter 10: Mystics, Marauders, and Manuscripts: Medieval Art 113
Irish Light: Illuminated Manuscripts 114
A unique Christian mission 114
Browsing the Book of Kells, Lindisfarne Gospels, and other manuscripts 114
Drolleries and the fun style 116
Charlemagne: King of His Own Renaissance 117
Weaving and Unweaving the Battle of Hastings: The Bayeux Tapestry 117
Providing a battle blueprint 117
Portraying everyday life in medieval England and France 118
Peddling political propaganda 119
Making border crossings 119
Romanesque Architecture: Churches That Squat 120
St Sernin 120
Durham Cathedral 121
Romanesque Sculpture 122
Nightmares in stone: Romanesque relief 123
Roman sculpture revival 123
Relics and Reliquaries: Miraculous Leftovers 123
Gothic Grandeur: Churches That Soar 125
Building a church-and-state alliance 125
Bigger and brighter 125
Making something new from old parts 126
Finishing touches and voilà! 127
Expanding the Gothic dream 127
Stained-Glass Storytelling 127
Gothic Sculpture 128
Italian Gothic 129
Gothic Painting: Cimabue, Duccio, and Giotto 130
Cimabue 130
Duccio 132
Giotto 133
Tracking the Lady and the Unicorn: The Mystical Tapestries of Cluny 134
Themes of love and desire? 134
Themes with religious connotation? 135
The questions remain 136
Chapter 11: Born-Again Culture: The Early and High Renaissance 137
The Early Renaissance in Central Italy 138
The Great Door Contest: Brunelleschi versus Ghiberti — And the winner is! 138
The Duomo of Florence 139
Vanishing points and perspective 140
Sandro Botticelli: A garden-variety Venus 144
Donatello: Putting statues back on their feet 145
The High Renaissance 146
Reviving self-respect 146
Elevating humanity in art 147
Leonardo da Vinci: Renaissance man 147
Leonardo’s techniques 147
Leonardo’s greatest works 148
Michelangelo: The main man 150
Michelangelo’s greatest works 152
Raphael: The prince of painters 153
Chapter 12: Venetian Renaissance, Late Gothic, and the Renaissance in the North 157
A Gondola Ride through the Venetian Renaissance 158
First stop, Bellini 158
A shortcut to Mantegna and Giorgione 160
Dürer’s Venice vacations 161
Touring the 16th century with Titian 162
The Venice of Veronese 164
Tintoretto and Renaissance ego 165
La Tintoretta: Marietta Robusti 166
Palladio: The king of classicism 167
Late Gothic: Northern Naturalism 168
Jan van Eyck: The Late Gothic ace 168
Rogier van der Weyden: Front and center 169
Northern Exposure: The Renaissance in the Netherlands and Germany 172
Decoding Bosch 172
Deciphering the dark symbolism of Grünewald 174
Dining with Bruegel the Elder 175
Chapter 13: Art That’ll Stretch Your Neck: Mannerism 177
Detecting the Non-Rules of Mannerism 177
Pontormo: Front and Center 178
Bronzino’s Background Symbols and Scene Layering 179
Parmigianino: He’s Not a Cheese! 180
Contrasting proportions and balance 181
A surreal feel 181
Arcimboldo: À la Carte Art 182
Sofonisba Anguissola (1532–1625): Invading Art History’s Guys’ Club 183
Finding a place in the Spanish court 183
Rubbing elbows with the court painters 184
El Greco: Stretched to the Limit 185
Evolving a unique Mannerist style 185
Drawing inspiration from mysticism 185
How unappreciated was El Greco? 186
Lavinia Fontana: The First Professional Female Painter 187
Applying a rich education and broad network 187
Supplying the missing female storyline 187
Endowing Jesus with more humanity 188
Finding Your Footing in Giulio Romano’s Palazzo Te 189
Architectural surprises outside 190
An inside to die for 190
Chapter 14: When the Renaissance Went Baroque 193
Baroque Origin, Purpose, and Style 194
Annibale Carracci: Heavenly Ceilings 194
Shedding Light on the Subject: Caravaggio and His Followers 195
Elements of Caravaggio style 195
Caravaggio style applied 196
Orazio Gentileschi: Baroque’s gentle side, more or less 197
Shadow and light dramas: Artemisia Gentileschi 197
Elisabetta Sirani and an Art School for Women 199
Sirani’s notable career 199
Portraying brave and capable women 200
The Ecstasy and the Ecstasy: Bernini Sculpture 202
Embracing Baroque Architecture 203
Maderno and the launch of Baroque architecture 203
Bernini: Transforming St Peter’s Basilica 203
Baroque style migrates northward 204
Fischer: Harmonizing Baroque style 204
Dutch and Flemish Realism 205
Rubens: Fleshy, flashy, and holy 206
Rembrandt: Self-portraits and life in the shadows 207
Laughing with Hals 209
Bold Strokes: Judith Leyster 209
Vermeer: Musicians, maids, and girls with pearls 212
French Flourish and Baroque Light Shows 213
Poussin the Perfect 213
Candlelit reverie and Georges de La Tour 213
Versailles: Architecture as propaganda and the Sun King 214
In the Limelight with Caravaggio: The Spanish Golden Age 215
Ribera and Zurbarán: In the shadow of Caravaggio 215
Velázquez: Kings and princesses 216
Chapter 15: Going Loco with Rococo 219
What You Get in Rococo Art 220
Breaking with Baroque: Antoine Watteau 221
Fragonard and Boucher: Lush, Lusty, and Lavish 222
François Boucher 222
Jean-Honoré Fragonard 222
Flying High: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo 223
Rococo Lite: The Movement in England 223
William Hogarth 224
Thomas Gainsborough 224
Sir Joshua Reynolds 226
Part 4: The Industrial Revolution Revs Up Art’s Evolution: 1760–1900 229
Chapter 16: All Roads Lead Back to Rome and Greece: Neoclassical Art 231
When Philosophers and Artists Join Forces 232
The promotion of reason 232
Enlightened views and political progress 232
Angelica Kauffman: The Queen of Neoclassicism 233
Focusing on women and brother- or sisterhood 233
Not everyone loved the depictions 235
Jacques-Louis David: The King of Neoclassicism 235
Grand, formal, and retro 236
Propagandist for all sides 237
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres: The Prince of Neoclassical Portraiture 238
Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun: Portraitist of the Queen and Fashion Setter 239
Illustrating fashion trends 240
Fleeing for her life 241
Adélaïde Labille-Guiard: From Ideal to Real and Royals to Revolutionaries 241
Starting with socially acceptable miniatures 242
Graduating to sizeable self-portraiture 242
Working with the Revolutionaries 243
Canova and Houdon: Greek Grace and Neoclassical Sculpture 243
Antonio Canova: Ace 18th-century sculptor 243
Jean-Antoine Houdon: In living stone 244
Chapter 17: Romanticism: Reaching Within and Acting Out 247
Kissing Isn’t Romantic, but Having a Heart Is 247
Romancing independence 248
Romancing spirituality 248
Romancing the wild 249
Far Out with William Blake and Henry Fuseli: Personal Mythologies 249
Unifying body and soul 249
Drawing on imagination 250
Inside Out: Caspar David Friedrich 251
The Revolutionary French Romantics: Gericault and Delacroix 252
Théodore Gericault 252
Eugène Delacroix 253
Francisco Goya and the Grotesque 255
J. M. W. Turner Sets the Skies on Fire 257
Rebels with a Cause 260
Courbet and Daumier: Painting Peasants and Urban Blight 261
Gustave Courbet 261
Honoré Daumier: Guts and grit 262
The Barbizon School and the Great Outdoors 263
Jean-François Millet: The noble peasants 263
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot: From naked truth to dressed-up reality 264
Rosa Bonheur: From a Horse Fair to Buffalo Bill 265
Portraying the Paris horse fair 266
Gaining world-wide renown 267
Keeping It Real in America 267
Along came Thomas Cole 267
Westward ho! with Albert Bierstadt 269
George Catlin, painter of western Indian tribes 271
Edmonia Lewis 272
Navigating sun, storm, and sea with Winslow Homer 272
Boating through America with Thomas Eakins 273
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: Medieval Visions and Painting Literature 273
Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Leader of the Pre-Raphaelites 274
Marie Spartali Stillman: From model to artist 275
John Everett Millais and soft-spoken symbolism 276
The Ten: America’s First Art Movement 276
Celebrating the leisure class 277
Creating art for art’s sake 278
Ashcan Artists: Capturing the Grit of Urban Life 278
Presenting the urban underbelly 278
Illustrating the rough life 279
Chapter 19: First Impressions: Impressionism 281
M & M: Manet and Monet 282
Édouard Manet: Breaking the rules 283
Claude Monet: From patches to flecks 284
Pretty Women and Painted Ladies: Renoir and Degas 286
Impressionists and the movement’s midlife crisis 287
Pretty as a picture: Pierre-Auguste Renoir 287
The dancers of Edgar Degas 288
Cassatt, Morisot, and Other Female Impressionists 289
Mary Cassatt 290
Berthe Morisot 291
Eva Gonzalès 292
American Impressionism 293
William Merritt Chase: An Impressionist with Realist ties 293
Frieseke in the Giverny American Art Colony 294
Jane Peterson 295
Chapter 20: Making Their Own Impression: The Post-Impressionists 297
You’ve Got a Point: Pointillism, Georges-Pierre Seurat and Paul Signac 297
Observing the science of color 297
Applying the science of color 298
Red-Light Art: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 299
Tracking the “Noble Savage”: Paul Gauguin 300
Brittany paintings 301
Tahiti paintings 302
Gauguin’s influence 302
Painting Energy: Vincent van Gogh 303
Trading the ministry for art 303
Expanding artistic energy 303
Painting while confined 304
Love Cast in Stone: Rodin and Claudel 304
Auguste Rodin 305
Camille Claudel 306
The Mask behind the Face: James Ensor 306
The Hills Are Alive with Geometry: Paul Cézanne 308
Art Nouveau: Curves, Swirls, and Asymmetry 309
Art Nouveau: Not a painting style 309
Making functionality pretty 310
Fairy-Tale Fancies and the Sandcastle Cathedral of Barcelona: Antoni Gaudí 310
Part 5: Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Art 313
Chapter 21: From Fauvism to Expressionism 315
Fauvism: Colors Fighting like Animals 315
Henri Matisse 316
André Derain 317
Maurice de Vlaminck 317
German Expressionism: Form Based on Feeling 318
Die Brücke and World War I 318
Der Blaue Reiter 321
Austrian Expressionism: From Dream to Nightmare 324
Gustav Klimt and his languorous ladies 325
Egon Schiele: Turning the self inside out 325
Oskar Kokoschka: Dark dreams and interior storms 326
Chapter 22: Cubist Puzzles and Finding the Fast Lane with the Futurists 329
Cubism: All Views At Once 329
Pablo Picasso 330
Analytic Cubism: Breaking things apart 332
Synthetic Cubism: Gluing things together 332
Fernand Léger: Cubism for the commoner 333
Futurism: Art That Broke the Speed Limit 333
Umberto Boccioni 335
Gino Severini 335
Precisionism: Geometry as Art 336
The Harlem Renaissance and the Jazz Age 338
Chapter 23: Nonobjective Art: Dada, Surrealism, and Abstract Expressionism 343
Suprematism: Kazimir Malevich’s Reinvention of Space 343
The path to Suprematism 344
Reinventing the world in shape and color 344
Constructivism: Showing Off Your Skeleton 345
Tatlin’s Tower 346
A dance between time and space: Naum Gabo 346
Piet Mondrian and the De Stijl Movement 347
Dada Turns the World on Its Head 347
Dada, the ground floor, and Cabaret Voltaire 348
Dada: Influencee and influencer 348
Marcel Duchamp: Nudes, urinals, and hat racks 349
Hans (Jean) Arp: In and out of Dadaland 350
Surrealism and Disjointed Dreams 351
Max Ernst and his alter ego, Loplop 351
Salvador Dalí: Melting clocks, dreamscapes, and ants 352
René Magritte: Help, my head’s on backwards! 354
Dissecting Frida Kahlo 354
Joan Miro 356
My House Is a Machine: Modernist Architecture 357
Frank Lloyd Wright: Bringing the outside in 357
Bauhaus boxes: Walter Gropius 359
Le Corbusier: Machines for living and Notre-Dame du Haut 359
Abstract Expressionism: Fireworks on Canvas 361
Arshile Gorky 361
Jackson Pollock: Flick, fling, drip, splash, swirl — action painting 362
Lee Krasner: Almost patterns 363
Willem de Kooning 364
Chapter 24: Anything-Goes Art: Fab Fifties and Psychedelic Sixties 365
Artsy Cartoons: Pop Art 365
The many faces of Andy Warhol 366
Blam! Comic books on canvas: Roy Lichtenstein 367
Fantastic Realism 368
Ernst Fuchs: The father of the Fantastic Realists 368
Hundertwasser: Organic architecture and art 369
Louise Nevelson: Picking up the Trash and Assemblage 370
Louise Bourgeois: Sexualized sculpture 371
Less-Is-More Art: Rothko, Newman, Stella, Frankenthaler, and Others 372
Color Fields of dreams: Rothko and Newman 372
Helen Frankenthaler 373
Minimalism, more or less 373
Photorealism 374
Richard Estes: Always in focus 374
Clinical close-ups: Chuck Close 375
Helen Hardin: Native American Futurism 375
Performance Art and Installations 376
Fluxus: Intersections of the arts 376
Joseph Beuys: Fanning out from Fluxus 377
Carolee Schneemann: Body art and breaking taboos 378
Chapter 25: Photography: From Science to Art 381
The Birth of Photography 381
Transitioning from Science to Art 382
An early attempt to “artify” photography 383
Focusing on documentary photography 384
Alfred Stieglitz: Reliving the Moment 384
Recognition for photography as high art 385
Picturesque pictures 385
Henri Cartier-Bresson’s uncanny eye 386
From painting to photography 386
Stealth and the “Decisive Moment” 386
Group f/64: Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, and Ansel Adams 387
Dorothea Lange: Depression to Dust Bowl 388
Margaret Bourke-White: From Industrial Beauty to Political Statements 389
Photographing for Fortune 389
Photographing for Life 389
Fast-Forward: The Next Generation 391
Chapter 26: The New World: Postmodern Art 393
From Modern Pyramids to Titanium Twists: Postmodern Architecture 393
Viva Las Vegas! 394
Chestnut Hill: Case in point 394
Philip Johnson and urban furniture 395
The prismatic architecture of I M Pei 395
Deconstructivist architecture of Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, and Zaha Hadid 396
Making It or Faking It? Postmodern Photography and Painting 399
Cindy Sherman: Morphing herself 399
Gerhard Richter: Reading between the layers 400
Installation Art and Earth Art 401
Judy Chicago: A dinner table you can’t sit at 401
It’s a wrap: Christo and Jeanne-Claude 402
Robert Smithson and earth art: Can you dig it? 403
Glow-in-the-Dark Bunnies and Living, Genetic Art 404
Part 6: The Part of Tens 407
Chapter 27: Ten Must-See Art Museums 409
The Louvre (Paris) 409
The Uffizi (Florence) 410
The Vatican Museums (Rome) 410
The National Gallery (London) 410
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC) 410
The Prado (Madrid) 411
The National Gallery of Art (D.C.) 411
The Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam) 411
British Museum (London) 412
The Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna) 412
Chapter 28: Ten Great Books by Ten Great Artists 413
On Painting, by Leonardo da Vinci 413
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, by Giorgio Vasari 413
Complete Poems and Selected Letters of Michelangelo 414
The Journal of Eugène Delacroix 414
Van Gogh’s Letters 414
Rodin on Art, by Paul Gsell 414
Der Blaue Reiter Almanac, edited by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc 414
Concerning the Spiritual in Art, by Wassily Kandinsky 415
The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait 415
Hundertwasser Architecture: For a More Human Architecture in Harmony with Nature, by Friedensreich Hundertwasser 415
And Others 415
Index 417
What is included with this book?
The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.
The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.
Please wait while the item is added to your bag...
