"Jerry Saltz is one of our most-watched writers about art and artists, and a passionate champion of the importance of art in our shared cultural life. Since the 1990s he has been an indispensable cultural voice: witty and provocative, he has attracted contemporary readers to fine art as few critics have. An early champion of forgotten and overlooked women artists, he has also celebrated the pioneering work of African American, LGBTQ+, and other long-marginalized...

"An award-winning journalist obsessed with obsession, Bianca Bosker's existence was upended when she wandered into the art world-and couldn't look away. Intrigued by artists who hyperventilate around their favorite colors and art fiends who max out credit cards to show hunks of metal they think can change the world, Bosker grew fixated on understanding why art matters and how she-or any of us-could engage with it more deeply. In Get the Picture, Bosker...

"A short, accesible critical guide to visual culture-what it means to look and see; how the visual impacts our lives, our era, our understandings of each other, and even how it is changing our brains"-- As if John Berger's Ways of Seeing was re-written for the 21st century, Alexis L. Boylan crafts a guide for navigating the complexities of visual culture in this concise introduction. The visual surrounds us, some of it invited, most of it not. In...

"A powerful reflection on the universal art museum, considering the values critical to its history and anticipating its evolving place in our cultural future. Art museums have played a vital role in our culture, drawing on Enlightenment ideals in shaping ideas, advancing learning, fostering community, and providing spaces of beauty and permanence. In this thoughtful and often personal volume, Daniel H. Weiss contemplates the idea of the universal...

"Set amid the glimmering lakes and disappearing forests of the United States in the 1830s, The Forest: A Fable of America in the 1830s imagines how individuals at the time experienced their lives. Part truth, part fiction, this book follows painters, poets, enslaved individuals, farmers, and artisans through various settings. Some, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Nat Turner, Thomas Cole, and Edgar Allan Poe, are well-known; others are not. All are creators...

"What do Hieronymus Bosch, the Roman cult of Antinous, and the peach emoji all have in common? But of course, butts, of course! Divided into six categories of keisters, this humorous history book takes you on a whirlwind tour of the finest rear ends in museums around the world, from the lusciously rendered bottoms of Renaissance painting to the abstract curves of contemporary art. Heritage scholars and art educators Mark Small and Jack Shoulder pair...

"More Americans visit art museums annually than attend all major-league sporting events. Yet many come away dissatisfied, because art rarely yields itself to the few seconds most viewers spend on individual works. In a culture of distraction, Slow Art models ways to extend and enrich acts of looking. This study defines a new aesthetic field crossing centuries and mediums, including video, photography, land and installation art, painting, performance,...

"From prehistoric Mexico to modern Istanbul, Mary Beard looks beyond the familiar canon of Western imagery to explore the history of art, religion, and humanity. Conceived as a gorgeously illustrated accompaniment to "How Do We Look" and "The Eye of Faith," the famed Civilisations shows on PBS, renowned classicist Mary Beard has created this elegant volume on how we have looked at art. Focusing in Part I on the Olmec heads of early Mesoamerica, the...