Janson's History of Art: The Western Tradition

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Prentice Hall, 2011 - Art - 1152 pages

For courses in the History of Art.

Rewritten and reorganized, this new edition weaves together the most recent scholarship, the most current thinking in art history, and the most innovative online supplements, including digital art library. Experience the new Janson and re-experience the history of art.

Long established as the classic and seminal introduction to art of the Western world, the Eighth Edition of Janson's History of Art is groundbreaking. When Harry Abrams first published the History of Art in 1962, John F. Kennedy occupied the White House, and Andy Warhol was an emerging artist. Janson offered his readers a strong focus on Western art, an important consideration of technique and style, and a clear point of view. The History of Art, said Janson, was not just a stringing together of historically significant objects, but the writing of a story about their interconnections, a history of styles and of stylistic change. Janson's text focused on the visual and technical characteristics of the objects he discussed, often in extraordinarily eloquent language. Janson's History of Art helped to establish the canon of art history for many generations of scholars.

The new Eighth Edition, although revised to remain current with new discoveries and scholarship, continues to follow Janson's lead in important ways: It is limited to the Western tradition, with a chapter on Islamic art and its relationship to Western art. It keeps the focus of the discussion on the object, its manufacture, and its visual character. It considers the contribution of the artist as an important part of the analysis. This edition maintains an organization along the lines established by Janson, with separate chapters on the Northern European Renaissance, the Italian Renaissance, the High Renaissance, and Baroque art, with stylistic divisions for key periods of the modern era. Also embedded in this edition is the narrative of how art has changed over time in the cultures that Europe has claimed as its patrimony.

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Contents

The Early Renaissance
15
xix
33
IRANIAN
41
Copyright

16 other sections not shown

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About the author (2011)

Horst Waldemar Janson was born on October 4, 1913 in St. Petersburg, Russia. He studied at the University of Munich and the University of Hamburg. He came to the U.S. and finished his Ph. D at Harvard University in 1942. He is a scholar of art history known for his book History of Art which was published in 1962. He taught at Worcester Art Museum and the University of Iowa. He authored two award winning books Apes and the Ape Lore in the Middle Ages and The Renaissance and Sculpture of Donatello. He died on September 30, 1982.

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