Art : Context and Criticism Book

Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
The Power of Images
Viewing Art as Language
Art and Its Codes
A Vocabulary Lesson
The Changing Face of Quality
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Making Amends
Plotting the Course
1 The Beginnings of Art
The Nature of Art
Making Images in the Paleolithic Age
Securing the Homefront: The Neolithic Age
Prehistoric and Primitive Cultures
Art and the Development of More Complex Societies
Summary
2 The Art of the Classical World
The Art and Ideas of Ancient Greece
The Origins of Greek Art: 1000 600 BC
Archaic Art: 600-480 BC
Classical Architecture and the Acropolis Complex
Classical Sculpture: 479-323 BC
Plato and Aristotle Look at Art
Late Classical and Hellenistic Art
The Transition to Rome
Augustus and the Empire
Roman Wall Painting
Summary
3 Art and Religion
The Jewish Tradition
The Christian Tradition
Islamic Art
Hinduism and the Cult of Images
Aspects of the Buddhist Art Tradition
Summary
4 Issues and Ideas in Renaissance Art
The Rise of Learning
Individuality and Humanism
Art Patronage and the High Renaissance
The "High" Renaissance in Rome
Art Criticism in the Renaissance: Vasari
Painting in Venice in the Sixteenth Century
North European Painting
Summary
5 Art, Issues, and Innovations in the Baroque Era "The Last Judgment" and Rome in 1541
Classicism versus Naturalism
The Art Criticism of Bellori
Baroque Architecture
The Influence of Rome
Dutch and Flemish Art
The Decline of the Baroque
Summary
6 Reason andRevolution
Versailles and the Decline of the Baroque
The Rococo
Moralizing Tones: Discourses on Art
The Birth of the Public Museum
The Neoclassical Artist
American Neoclassicism
Art and Man's Inhumanity to Man
Art and the Heroic: Romanticism
Summary
7 The Modern World and Its Art
The Ideological Ferment
Photography and Painting
The Artist at Mid-Century
Impressionism
The Art of Lithography
Nineteenth-Century Sculpture
The Liberation of Color
Of Steel and Skyscrapers
Nature in Flux
Summary
8 Art in Americas
Art in the Nomadic Communities
Early Civilizations
Two Worlds Collide
The Early African-American Experience
A Reverence for the Land
The Artist as Social Critic
Summary
9 Art In the Twentieth Century
Flatness as an Idea
Collage as an Idea
Rethinking Another Old Idea
Unlocking the Unconscious: Surrealism and Its Legacy
The Quest for a Purer Art
Modernism in Architecture
The Avant-Garde in America
The End of an Era
Summary
10 Contemporary Art, Issues, and Ideas
Prelude: Irony and The Decline of the Modern
Art after Pop: Some Considerations
The Rise of Postmodernism
Neo-Expressionism and the Return of the Figure
Women's Art and Feminist Criticism
Ethnicity and Revisionism
Some Closing Thoughts on Public Funding and Censorship
Conclusions All chapter summaries include suggested readings, pronunciation guide and glossary