The print items below are available at the SOVA Library.
Art History: the Key Concepts by
Art History: The Key Concepts is a systematic, reliable and accessible reference guide to the disciplines of art history and visual culture. Containing entries on over 200 terms integral to the historical and theoretical study of art, design and culture in general, it is an indispensable source of knowledge for all students, scholars and teachers. Covering the development, present status and future direction of art history, entries span a wide variety of terms and concepts such as abstract expressionism, epoch, hybridity, semiology and zeitgeist. Key features include: a user-friendly A-Z format fully cross-referenced entries suggestions for further reading. Engaging and insightful, as well as easy to follow and use, Art History: The Key Concepts builds a radical intellectual synthesis for understanding and teaching art, art history and visual culture.
Art in the Modern Era by
"Art in the modern era has come to be defined by its styles, schools, and movements. This guide to three hundred movements from 1860 to the present is without peer - it is the key to understanding more than a century of dynamic change in Western painting, sculpture, architecture, and design." "Who, where, when, how, and why? - these are the essential questions answered in the one hundred main entries that make up the heart of the book. Presented chronologically, the subjects range from Impressionism in the nineteenth century to Earth Art, Sound Art, and Internet Art in the twenty-first. The entries examine the context and evolution of each movement - the claims of the artists' manifestos, the drama of the exhibitions, the judgments of the critics, and the delight, or outrage, of the public. Two hundred supplementary entries provide fully cross-referenced summaries of other essential styles and movements, tracing intriguing patterns of influence and development. The foldout illustrated time line shows the evolution of the art of this period at a glance, providing a thorough overview of the entire era." "Listings of major international collections and suggestions for further reading are given for all the main entries, and the comprehensive index features more than one thousand artists, architects, designers, impresarios, critics, collectors, and champions of modern art, linking the styles, schools, and movements with the people who made them happen." "Whether for reference, fresh exploration, or pure pleasure, this is a supremely valuable resource for anyone interested in art and artists in the modern age."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
The Design Encyclopedia by
The Museum of Modern Art Design Encyclopedia is the most comprehensive design reference guide to date. Compiled over the last 15 years by Mel Byars, in consultation with an international team of design experts, The Encyclopedia sets out to provide the factual framework of a discipline whose own historical accounting of itself is still relatively young. (By way of contrast, art history has existed as a scholarly discipline for over two centuries, and has produced a fairly comprehensive record of itself in that time period.) Only once before has a similarly comprehensive overview of the history of design been attempted--in 1994, also by Mel Byars. The Encyclopedia is about design, of course, but these days "design" seems to encompass almost everything, from magazine layouts and sweatshirts to animatronic flower gardens and heart pumps, not to mention the more abstract "information design." Here, however, design is considered only in its concrete application to functional objects, thus crossing with craft, decorative arts, and industrial design, but distinguishing itself from fine art and theory. The result is 832 pages covering the last 130 years in the history of the design of furniture, lighting, fabrics, ceramics, glassware, metalware, objects in a range of other materials, and mechanical, electrical and electronic appliances, as well as automobiles and some inventions. There are separate entries for designers and craftspeople, design studios, consortiums and partnerships, noteworthy manufacturers, significant historical periods and styles, and materials. Entries, 3,600 in all, are self-contained and organized alphabetically, and include cross-references. Information is an amalgamation of data gathered from a vast number of primary and secondary sources. With over 700 full-color illustrations, most of which are drawn from the MoMA collection, the remainder from Quittenbaum Kunstauktionen in Munich and Hamburg or directly from designers or manufacturers, this publication is an invaluable, definitive compendium of the world of design over the last century and a half.
A Dictionary of Cultural and Critical Theory by
This is an authoritative and accessible guide to modern ideas in the broad interdisciplinary fields of cultural and critical theory that have developed from interactions among different modern traditions of thought.
Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses by
For more than 60,000 years, people have worshipped deities of the sun, sky and sea, as well as creator gods. This book provides access to more than 2,500 of these religious figures, from ancient Sumerian gods through to the modern Haitian deities. New features include cross-references and comprehensive indexes.
Dictionary of Native American Mythology by
Passed down from generation to generation, the myths and rituals of Native Americans form a rich religious and cultural base from which all members of each society can create and maintain a sense of community, physical and emotional health, identity, family, and self. Such traditions, handed down through stories and rites, stand as the lifeblood of every Native American culture.This thoroughly illustrated and carefully researched guide explores the amazing array of mythical beasts, heroic humans, and nurturing spirits that make up the fascinating spectrum of Native American mythology. With over one thousand alphabetically arranged entries, representing over one hundreddifferent Native American cultures, readers can quickly explore the meaning of hundreds of elements of Native lore--from names, phrases, and symbols, to images, motifs, and themes. Accompanying essays take a closer look at other issues related to the origin, development, and perpetuation of NativeAmerican mythology, such as the Christian influence on myth, varying mythology between tribes, storytelling, and more. We learn about such mythical creatures as Apotamkin of the Maliseet-Passamaquoddy tribe of the Southeast (a bogey monster with long hair and huge teeth who, through the fear hegenerates, keeps small children from straying onto thin, newly frozen ice in the winter and unguarded beaches in the summer), ritual healing ceremonials such as the Southwestern Navajo's Uglyway ceremony (a ceremony to remove and protect against the forces of chaos and disorder that give rise toillness), and the Marau ceremony of the Hopi Indians of the Southeast (a complex ceremony concerned with rain, the ripening of corn, and the fertility of women, as well as rites of initiating new members into the society). This compelling volume honors the richness of the beliefs and values of themany peoples of native North America, from northern Mexico to the Artic Circle. In addition, a complete bibliography of primary sources and secondary sources points the way to further research, making this the perfect reference for anyone interested in the mythical history of America's originalinhabitants.
The Grove Dictionary of Art. From Expressionism to Post-Modernism: Styles and Movements in 20th-century Western Art by
The Grove Dictionary of Art, the award-winning 34-volume set that was launched to critical acclaim in 1996, represents the knowledge of more than 6,800 of the world's leading scholars. It is now the preeminent reference resource for the visual arts. The new GroveART series makes this comprehensive and authoritative art scholarship accessible and affordable to all audiences for the first time. Complete with a multipage color plate section as well as extensive black and white images throughout, each volume in the series will focus on one particularly popular area or period of art history. Broad enough to appeal to the general reader, but thorough enough for the art historian, each book will reflect the depth and excellence of coverage that brought such acclaim to The Grove Dictionary of Art. This century has witnessed an explosion in the number of art movements and schools that have emerged and contemporary artists breaking traditional boundaries. In more than 350 essays, the most popular movements -- Surrealism, Expressionism, and Pop Art -- are discussed alongside recent experiments in new media like video art and environmental art.
The Oxford Companion to Aboriginal Art and Culture by
This unique publication will provide a wide-ranging and intellectually challenging reference to indigenous Australian art, covering documented archaeologically traditions, art styles of the early contact period and the nineteenth century, and the development of the remarkably diversecontemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art practices that have attracted so much attention in recent years. The Companion will draw upon much original research on art and culture in remote Aboriginal communities, and on the emergence of Aboriginal art in urban institutions, markets, andexhibitions. Academics, graduates, and general readers will find concise and authoritative analysis on specific topics and regional traditions, unavailable even in specialist databases. Distinguished indigenous and non-indigenous scholars have been commissioned to write on individuals, artistictraditions, and historical shifts. The Companion will address more fully than any previous book important regional variations and historical developments in relation to colonial occupation and white Australian society over time. The Companion's primary emphasis is upon visual art, though surveyentries on indigenous literature, theatre, and music among other areas provide a wider context.Essays, 'boxes' and 'voices' will be commissioned from well-established and emerging indigenous and non-indigenous writers. The presence of key historical figures such as Oodgeroo Noonucal and Kevin Gilbert will be heard through excerpts from previously published material or the use of archivalsources made available for the first time.The visual component in the Companion is not viewed as simply an adjunct to or illustration of the written text, but is seen to be vitally important to its rationale. Visuality has contributed to the growing critical acclaim and widespread popularity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artnationally and internationally. Therefore extensive illustrations in colour and in black and white will be included to not only offer a critical understanding of objects and events but to acknowledge the key role visuality plays in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. The 400illustrations will be extensively captioned and some of the entries will be read as visual storyboards, equally as important as the essays. Complementing this focus on visuality, there will be additional reference material: maps, diagrams, chronologies providing a comprehensive listing of the majorexhibitions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, locally and oveseas and guides to further reading.
The Oxford Companion to World Mythology by
Cave paintings at Lascaux, France and Altamira, Spain, fraught with expression thousands of years later; point to an early human desire to form a cultural identity. In the Oxford Companion to World Mythology, David Leeming explores the role of mythology, or myth-logic, in history anddetermines that the dreams of specific cultures add up to a larger collective story of humanity. Stopping short of attempting to be all-inclusive, this fascinating volume will nonetheless be comprehensive, opening with an introduction exploring the nature and dimensions of myth and proposing adefinition as a universal language. Briefly dipping into the ways our understanding of myth has changed from Aristotle and Plato to modern scholars such as Joseph Campbell, the introduction loosely places the concept in its present context and precedes articles on influential mythologists andmythological approaches that appear later in the Companion.The main body of Leeming's work consists of A-Z entries covering all aspects of mythology, including substantial essays on the world's major mythological traditions (Greek, Native American, Indian, Japanese, Sumerian, Egyptian), mythological types and motifs (Descent to the Underworld, the Hero,the Trickster, Creation, the Quest), mythological figures (Odysseus, Zeus, Osiris, Spider Woman, and Inanna) as well as numerous interrelated subjects such as fairly tales and legends. The Companion also locates myth in our lives today, relating it to language patterns, psychology, religion,politics, art, and gender attitudes. Many of the better-known and more significant myths are vividly retold in this volume that will be illustrated with maps, more than 70 black and white images, and eight pages of color highlighting the central role art has often played in the transmission andperpetuation of myth. Following the entries, a rich section of appendices will include family trees of the major pantheons, equivalency charts for the gods of Greece and Rome, Babylon and Sumer, as well as other traditions, an extensive bibliography, and an index.
The Queer Encyclopedia of the Visual Arts by
120 b/w Illustrations, bibliography and indexes. The editors of glbtq.com present a comprehensive work showcasing the enormous contribution of gay, lesbian, transgender and queer artists to painting, drawing, photography, printmaking, sculpture and architecture. International in scope, the volume contains over 200 detailed entries written by some of the most accomplished scholars in their fields. Included are profiles of significant artists; overviews of artistic eras and movements; and articles discussing subjects such as the representation of androgyny and AIDS.