Harvard University Press - ART

Dumbarton Oaks

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Edited by Gudrun Bühl
Dumbarton Oaks houses the extraordinary art collection begun by Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss. In this book the museum publishes the specialist collections in Byzantine and Pre-Columbian art, along with examples from the Blisses’ superb European collection, for the first time.
Paperback June 2008

Classic-Period Cultural Currents in Southern and Central Veracruz

Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Edited by Philip J. Arnold
Edited by Christopher A. Pool
This book explores the diverse traditions and dynamic interactions along the Mexican Gulf lowlands at the height of their cultural florescence. Best known for their elaborate ball game rituals and precocious inscriptions with long-count dates, these cultures served as a critical nexus between the civilizations of highland Mexico and the lowland Maya, influencing developments in both regions.
Hardcover May 2008

Studio Works 12

Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Edited by Paula Meijerink
Edited by Laura Miller
Edited by Martin Zogran
The aim of Studio Works is to capture the essential character of the design studio experience at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Studio Works 12 features outstanding GSD student work from school years 2005–2006 and 2006–2007, along with material documenting exhibitions, research seminars, and thesis projects.
Paperback May 2008

The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media

Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Walter Benjamin
Edited by Michael W. Jennings
Edited by Brigid Doherty
Edited by Thomas Y. Levin
Benjamin’s famous “Work of Art” essay sets out his boldest thoughts—on media and on culture in general. This book contains the second, and most daring, of the four versions of the “Work of Art” essay—the one that addresses the utopian developments of the modern media. The collection tracks Benjamin’s observations on the media as they are revealed in essays on the production and reception of art; on film, radio, and photography; and on the modern transformations of literature and painting.
Paperback May 2008

Decorated Book Papers

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Rosamond B. Loring
Edited by Hope Mayo
Decorated Book Papers, first published in 1942, remains one of the standard works on its subject. Loring, a collector and maker of decorated papers, explores the extensive history and use of decorated papers in the book arts. Appendices are devoted to the art of marbling, the preparation of paste papers, and a listing of some early makers of decorated paper.
Hardcover April 2008

Beginning with a Bang! From Confrontation to Intimacy

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Edited by Victoria Noorthoorn
Foreword by Susan Segal
Beginning with a Bang! features the shift between the explosive and experimental moment in the Argentine art scene of the 1960s, and the current scene emerging after the extreme crises in Argentina during the last 40 years. The exhibition catalogue brings together a historical section as well as information of performance-based actions and sound and video works by Argentine contemporary artists.
Paperback March 2008

Olympic Sculpture Park for the Seattle Art Museum

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Edited by Joan Busquets
Envisioned as a new urban model for sculpture parks, the Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park is located on the city’s last undeveloped waterfront property—a nine-acre industrial site sliced by train tracks and an arterial road. The park not only brings art outside the museum walls but also brings the park itself into the landscape of the city. This study offers an opportunity to take a fresh look at the city and explore some hypotheses about the wider meaning of an urban design project.
Paperback March 2008

Sappho in the Making

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Dimitrios Yatromanolakis
This book offers the first interdisciplinary and in-depth study of the cultural practices and ideological paradigms that conditioned the politics of the "reading" of Sappho's songs in the early and most pivotal stages of her reception. Yatromanolakis investigates visual representations and ancient texts in their synchronic and diachronic multilayeredness to trace the discursive nexuses that defined the making of "Sappho" in the late archaic, classical, and early Hellenistic periods.
Paperback March 2008

Niche

Sat, 1 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST

David Edwards
Jay Cantor
Photographs by Daniel Faust
Niche tells the story of an artist who meets a scientist and through the encounter makes a hypothesis: If the artist became a stem cell and then divided into a neuron, would he discover the meaning of intelligence? Edwards and Cantor introduce a new fiction genre—the novel catalogue—to coincide with the opening of the new art and design innovation center in Paris, Le Laboratoire. The novel catalogue fictionalizes the creative process of an exhibition season which opens with the artistic outcome of an experiment between Fabrice Hyber, a French artist, and Robert Langer of MIT.
Paperback March 2008

The Parthenon Sculptures

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST

Ian Jenkins
The Parthenon sculptures in the British Museum are unrivaled examples of classical Greek art, an inspiration to artists and writers since their creation in the fifth century BCE. A superb visual introduction to these wonders of antiquity, this book offers a photographic tour of the most famous of the surviving sculptures from ancient Greece, viewed within their cultural and art-historical context.
Hardcover February 2008

Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics, 52, Fall 2007

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST

Edited by Francesco Pellizzi
Res is a journal of anthropology and comparative aesthetics dedicated to the study of the object, in particular cult and belief objects and objects of art. The journal presents contributions by philosophers, art historians, archaeologists, critics, linguists, architects, artists, among others.
Paperback February 2008

The Art of Small Things

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST

John Mack
This richly illustrated book celebrates the art of the miniature, but also looks beyond it at the many aspects of "small worlds"--in particular, their capacity to evoke responses that far exceed their physical dimensions. Mack explores the talismanic, religious, or magical properties with which miniatures are often imbued. Considering a wide range of objects, he examines the use of the miniature form in various cultural contexts.
Hardcover January 2008

Artscience

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST

David Edwards
This book is an attempt to show how innovation in the "post-Google generation" is often catalyzed by those who cross a conventional line so firmly drawn between the arts and the sciences. Edwards describes how contemporary creators achieve breakthroughs in the arts and sciences by developing their ideas in an intermediate zone of human creativity where neither art nor science is easily defined.
Hardcover January 2008

Indian Art in Detail

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EST

A. L. Dallapiccola
The rich and diverse cultures of India are represented in exquisite detail in this book, which begins with a simple question: what is Indian art? Each thematically organized chapter delves into such topics as religion and myth, epics, festivals, courtly and village life, and the natural world. The gorgeous close-ups of paintings, textiles, and sculptures in metal, ivory, and wood illuminate the aesthetics and workmanship, as well as recurrent motifs that are distinctly Indian.
Hardcover November 2007

Master Drawings of the Italian Renaissance

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EST

Claire Van Cleave
A beautifully designed selection of the finest Italian Renaissance drawings from the British Museum, the Louvre and other French public collections, giving remarkable insight into the creative processes of some of the greatest artists in history.
Hardcover November 2007

The First Emperor

Thu, 1 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Edited by Jane Portal
Standing guard around the tomb of Qin Shihuangdi, the ranks of a terra-cotta army bear silent witness to the power of the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty, who unified China in 221 BCE. Six thousand warriors and horses make up the army, while chariots, a military guard, and a command post complete the host. A new look at one of the most spectacular finds in the annals of archaeology, this book also considers its historical and archaeological context, and the extensive research carried out since its discovery in 1974.
Hardcover November 2007

From Egypt to Babylon

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Paul Collins
For those who believe that globalization is a purely modern phenomenon, this book holds a startling and absorbing lesson. Readers are immersed in a world of exotic empires and states as they waxed and waned and interacted in a period of extraordinary internationalism—all before the rise of the Persian Empire.
Hardcover October 2007

Icons

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Robin Cormack
Byzantine and Russian Orthodox icons are perhaps the most enduring form of religious art ever developed--and one of the most mysterious. This book provides an accessible guide to their story and power. Illustrated mostly with Cretan, Greek, and Russian examples from the British Museum, which houses Britain's most important collection, the book examines icons in the context of the history of Christianity, as well as within the perspective of art history.
Hardcover September 2007