30,000 ]thirty thousand[ years of art : the story of human creativity across time and space
Starred Review. This enormous, extraordinary collection brings together 1000 high-quality color illustrations, showcasing the evolution of creative arts over diverse cultures from prehistoric to modern times. Arranged chronologically, each piece is given its own page and a condensed summary of its provenance, key features and cultural context. Book-ended by a ritual "lion man" figurine from 28,000 B.C. found in a cave in southern Germany, and an as-yet-unfinished environmental sculpture by American artist James Turrell )materials: "Extinct volcano and light"(, it also contains two time-lines, one covering major movements in the 13 cultures represented )Mesopotamia, Iran and the Arabian Peninsula; Anatolia and the Eastern Mediterranean; Egypt and Africa; Europe; North America; Central America and the Caribbean; South America; Oceania; Japan; Korea; China; Southeast Asia; and Central Asia( and another comprised of a 28 page horizontal index that sets each piece against major world events. A 10-page glossary and comprehensive index completes this invaluable resource. Ably capturing the ancient and insuppressible creative drive of the human spirit and the sweep of history, this is a book art-lovers and cultural anthropologists-scholars and laypeople alike-are guaranteed to cherish.
"30,000 Years of Art" presents 1000 great works of art from all periods and regions in the world, arranged in chronological order for a general readership. Breaking through the usual geographical and cultural boundaries of art history, it celebrates the vast range of human artistry across time and space. Each work is accompanied by key caption information )date, title, place of origin, style or culture, medium, dimensions etc.(, and a short text providing more information and explaining the art historical context. The book presents art in a way different from other art history compendia, revealing the huge diversity, or in many cases similarity, of man's artistic achievements through time and around the globe. Ordered chronologically, the resulting timeline of works leads to compelling browsing: surprising juxtapositions offer intellectual pleasure and a sense of wonder and discovery. The selection of works from across the world, arranged in the sequence in which they were made, take the reader on a global and historical journey, as a Chinese Shang urn stands next to a Mycenaean vase, and Michelangelo's Slave is followed by a contemporaneous male sculpture from Nigeria.The chronological arrangement responds to such questions as where does the earliest art appear? What were artists creating in China or Africa while Rembrandt was painting self-portraits in Leyden? How were similar subjects - equestrian themes, landscapes, religious scenes - manipulated by artists in Aztec Mexico and Medieval Europe? Although the sequence of works in the book is strictly chronological, the selection of entries for an individual culture comprises an abbreviated history of the art of that people. Thus, while artworks from ancient Greece or the European Renaissance or pre-Columbian Americas are interspersed with contemporaneous works created in Africa, India or Japan, an extraction of the Greek or Renaissance or American works could stand alone as an essential abridgement of the finest art of that period or culture.
London ; New York
Phaidon
2007
1063 p. : ill. )chiefly col.( ; 31 cm.
Includes index.
ISBN: 9780714847894
R
1
، Art -- History.
N
5300
.
A14
T45
2007
NO
TI
TI thirty thousand years of art : the story of human creativity across time and space.