"Every girl is unique, talented and lovable...Every girl is beautiful"--Book jacket.

From Andy Warhol's Brillo boxes to provocative dung-splattered madonnas, in today's art world many strange, even shocking, things are put on display. This often leads exasperated viewers to exclaim--is this really art? In this invaluable primer on aesthetics, Freeland explains why innovation and controversy are so highly valued in art, weaving together philosophy and art theory with many engrossing examples. Writing clearly and perceptively, she...

"In The Entanglement, philosopher Alva No�e explores the inseparability of life, art, and philosophy, and argues that we have radically underestimated the significance of this long recognized but underappreciated reality, what he refers to as the "entanglement." The core of The Entanglement is the idea that human existence is inextricably aesthetic and philosophical. In the first half of the book, No�e offers a detailed examination of pictures...

Farah Nayeri addresses the difficult questions plaguing the art world, from the bad habits of Old Masters, to the current grappling with identity politics.--

"On the Shoulders of Giants collects previously unpublished essays from the last fifteen years of Umberto Eco's life. With humor and erudition, one of the great contemporary thinkers takes on the roots of Western culture, the origin of language, the nature of beauty and ugliness, the imperfections of art, and the lure of mysteries"--

A collection of inspiring essays by the photographer Robert Adams, who advocates the meaningfulness of art in a disillusioned society. In Art Can Help, the internationally acclaimed American photographer Robert Adams (b. 1937) offers over two-dozen meditations on the purpose of art and the responsibility of the artist. In particular, Adams advocates art that evokes beauty without irony or sentimentality, art that "encourages us to gratitude and engagement,...

"Was it always like this? What if your self portrait was a collection of weird shapes? Have you ever felt like an abstract painting? Do you ever simultaneously wish and worry that the boundaries of your body will melt away and you'll become a magnificent horse? Becoming Horses is a book about squinting hard and looking from the right angle to find that everything around you sparkles--just a little--and the shapes of things are not firm but fuzzy....

"A tribute and practical guide to the art, philosophy, and rituals of fly fishing, by an expert, lifelong angler. Each chapter focuses on a specific place, fish, and skill. Few individuals have the visual acuity required to catch the nearly invisible bonefish of the Bahamas flats, or the patience to land the elusive Atlantic salmon, "the fish of a thousand casts," in eastern Canada. Pursuing these challenges, Coggins travels to one fishing paradise...