Art & Art History: Books & Articles

An entertaining and lively guide to rediscovering the pleasure in art How to Enjoy Art: A Guide for Everyone provides the tools to understand and enjoy works of art. Debunking the pervasive idea that specialist knowledge is required to understand and appreciate art, instead How to Enjoy Art focuses on experience and pleasure, demonstrating how anyone can find value and enjoyment in art. Examples from around the world and throughout art history--from works by Fra Angelico and Berthe Morisot to Kazuo Shiraga and Kara Walker--are used to demonstrate how a handful of core strategies and skills can help enhance the experience of viewing art works. With these skills, anyone can encounter any work of art--regardless of media, artist or period--and find some resonance with their own experiences. How to Enjoy Art encourages us to rediscover the fundamental pleasure in viewing art.

A tour through the Yale University Art Gallery's holdings of American art, one of the most exceptional museum collections of its kind This volume presents an engaging selection of highlights and introduces readers to the richness and diversity of the Yale University Art Gallery's holdings of American art. An introductory essay outlines pivotal moments in the three-hundred-year history of collecting, exhibiting, and teaching with American art at Yale and commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Friends of American Arts at Yale, whose support continues to ensure the excellence of the collection. The more than one hundred object entries that follow create a narrative that charts the multiplicity of experiences and accomplishments of artists and artisans living and working in North America--from the earliest days of European settlement to the present. Among the catalogued objects are works by some of the best-known names in American art as well as recent acquisitions and masterpieces that represent diverse American identities. A dazzling range of media is displayed, including paintings and sculpture, medals, prints and drawings, photographs, jewelry, furniture, and decorative arts. Each object is illustrated with a full-page image and is accompanied by a one-page discussion that focuses on its contribution to the history of American art.     Distributed for the Yale University Art Gallery

A study of a private collection of European porcelain and the history of porcelain more broadly. Brittle Beauty presents a superlative private collection of European porcelain--radical, rare, and in many cases, unique pieces assembled over thirty years. Lavishly illustrated and insightfully researched, the book showcases eighty vessels and sculptures and includes accounts of their patrons and former owners, many as eccentric as the works themselves. One striking attribute of porcelain is its reflective glaze. Mirror-like in a wider sense, Brittle Beauty: Reflections on 18th Century European Porcelain examines the context in which this porcelain was created--including cultural, political, topographical, and ceremonial aspects. It also looks at related materials such as silver, textiles, and glass. The 18th century was the golden age of porcelain in Europe, which had previously been dependent on precious imports from the Far East. The discovery of the formula for hard-paste porcelain in Dresden in 1709 inspired the establishment of manufactories throughout the Continent and became a symbol of Enlightenment culture for every princely court. Featuring essays from several eminent scholars, this book features essays from several eminent scholars. It also showcases a wealth of stunning imagery from Sylvain Deleu, who expertly photographed the pieces, many for the first time.