Key Writers on Art: From Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century offers a unique and authoritative guide to theories of art from Ancient Greece to the end of the Victorian era; written by an international panel of expert contributors. Arranged chronologically to provide an historical framework; the 43 entries analyze the ideas of key philosophers; historians; art historians; art critics; artists and social scientists; including Plato; Aquinas; Alberti; Michelangelo; de Piles; Burke; Schiller; Winckelmann; Kant; Hegel; Burckhardt; Marx; Tolstoy; Taine; Baudelaire; Nietzsche; Ruskin; Pater; Wouml;lfflin and Riegl.Each entry includes:* a critical essay* a short biography* a bibliography listing both primary and secondary textsUnique in its range and accessibly written; this book; together with its companion volume Key Writers on Art: The Twentieth Century; provides an invaluable guide for students as well as general readers with an interest in art history; aesthetics and visual culture.
#852278 in eBooks 2005-08-18 2005-08-18File Name: B000OI174G
Review
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful. a spectacular collection of architectural doxaBy Saul BoulschettAlthough I am an architect and profess the mysteries of my profession; I seldom review architecture books only because most are tedious and pretentious -- same thing; really. But here I will make an exception since this book IS an exception.There can be no better review of this wonderful book than the Table of Contents itself: go check it out yourself: youll see an amazing array of authors culled from the last 810 years spouting off their opinions about what they think makes for Architecture as an art. And thats what makes this book so terrific. After all; what a thing like Architecture is; is defined not by its "essence" or "substance" but by how it is perceived to be; and by how people struggled; in its name; to make something worth looking at and talking about.The authors 25+ pages of introduction is the best overview of the history of (Western) Architecture Ive ever read. History in the best sense of the word: by registering all the major problems that affected; determined; and altered Architecture INTO its modernity. It is a feat in itself that he could pull something like that off.Every original document is introduced by the authors in a paragrapgh or two; and then is allowed to speak as it once spoke when it was first published. Some of the problems that once thrilled and annoyed the best architectural minds may now come off seeming either quaint; incomprehensible; or even mysterious. But no matter how distant some of these problems may appear today; you can see for yourself two things: One; architects of the past entertained bigger ideas than architects do today; Two; that architects of the past did not suffer from the kind of disease of the soul that seems to be par for the course in posturing as an "avant-garde."Highly recommended for all students of Architecture who; for want of maturity of architectural understanding; like to insist that the Bilbao Guggenheim; or the Berlin Jewish Museum is on par with say; the Duomo in Milano.