"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...

The art market has been booming. Museum attendance is surging. More people than ever call themselves artists. Contemporary art has become a mass entertainment, a luxury good, a job description, and, for some, a kind of alternative religion.In a series of beautifully paced narratives, Sarah Thornton investigates the drama of a Christie's auction, the workings in Takashi Murakami's studios, the elite at the Basel Art Fair, the eccentricities of Artforum...

This book guides readers through a select series of masterpieces of Western art, from cave paintings to sharks in formaldehyde --

"A new collection of essays on literary and cinematic themes"--

"In turns beloved and reviled, twentieth century art, painter, filmmaker, and designer Salvador Dalí set Europe and the United States ablaze with his uncompromising genius, sexual sadism, and flirtations with megalomania. His shocking behavior and work frequently alienated critics; his views were so outrageous, even prominent Surrealists tried to ostracize him. Still, every morning he experienced "an exquisite joy--the joy of being Salvador Dalí,"...

Stories of Black artists who drew -- mostly covertly behind the scenes -- superhero, horror, and romance comics in the early years of the industry. The life stories of each man's personal struggles and triumphs are represented as they broke through into a world formerly occupied only by whites. Using primary source material from World War II-era Black newspapers and magazines, this book profiles pioneers like E.C. Stoner, a descendant of a person...

Describes a new way of looking at familiar masterpieces, suggesting that the works of art can be useful, relevant--and even therapeutic.

"Formally fractured and yet gleefully alive and whole, E. E. Cummings's groundbreaking modernist poetry expanded the boundaries of language. In A Miscellany, originally released in a limited run in 1958, Cummings lent his delightfully original voice to "a cluster of epigrams," forty-nine essays, a poem, and three speeches from an unfinished play. Seven years later, George J. Firmage-- editor of much of Cummings's work, including Complete Poems-- broadened...