Ars longa, vita brevis. Art is eternal, but life is short. You want to be reading the best books on art? Browse through our expert recommendations to find the best books on art, architecture, design, illustration, and photography for your own library – or to give as a gift to an art lover. Five Books art interviews explore themes in the visual arts from ancient times to the present day with historians, curators, critics and practitioners. Our interviews range from engaging introductions — such as the Renaissance, Dutch Masters, Leonardo or Picasso – to specialist subjects – such as the Art Market, Drawing, or Figurative Painting Today. The Art pages at Five Books span everything from the canonical to the contemporary. Here you will find essential reference volumes in art history like the timeless Story of Art by E.H.Gobrich. But you can also consult cutting edge current references like the Whitechapel Gallery: Documents of Contemporary Art and musings from prominent curator Hans Ulrich Obrist on his essential reading list for understanding the art of the present. We have interviews with some of today's mega-galleries such as Hauser & Wirth and David Zwirner. And we also feature conversations with leading lights from storied institutions like the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the National Gallery in London. With Five Books, you can craft your own self-styled syllabus in art history. Browse the archive, or create your own lists of the best books in any art category close to your heart, to share with like-minded readers everywhere. Is there an arts subject that piques your interest that you don't see on the site? Let us know by getting in contact with the editorial team.
The best books on Drawing as Thought, recommended by Andrea Kantrowitz
Doodling is no mere pastime; drawing is a form of thinking. In fact, visuospatial reasoning underlies all thinking, as this selection of books about drawing from painter and scholar Andrea Kantrowitz shows us. Just pick up a pencil and draw!
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On the Sublime
by Longinus -
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A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful
by Edmund Burke -
3
Critique of the Power of Judgement
by Immanuel Kant -
4
The World as Will and Representation
by Arthur Schopenhauer -
5
The Sublime: A Study of Critical Theories in XVIII-Century England
by Samuel Monk
The best books on The Sublime, recommended by Robert Clewis
The best books on The Sublime, recommended by Robert Clewis
Whenever we go in search of rugged landscapes, thundering waterfalls or awesome vistas, we are in search of ‘the sublime’—an aesthetic quality that has been the subject of significant philosophical, artistic and psychological study. Here, philosopher Robert Clewis talks us through the landmark studies of the sublime, and makes some recommendations for those seeking introductory books on the subject.
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Great Women Painters
introduced by Alison M Gingeras -
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Point Break: Surfers and Waves
by Raymond Pettibon -
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Making Videogames: The Art of Creating Digital Worlds
by Alex Wiltshire & Duncan Harris -
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Building for Change: The Architecture of Creative Reuse
by Ruth Lang -
5
Judith Joy Ross: Photographs 1978–2015
edited by Joshua Chuang
The Best Art & Design Books of 2022, recommended by Romas Viesulas
The Best Art & Design Books of 2022, recommended by Romas Viesulas
Art shows were back in full force this year after several years of discontinuous viewing. Publishing kept pace, with many a new beautiful volume and rafts of revisionist art history to delve into. Here, Five Books art editor Romas Viesulas offers an overview of the best art and design books of 2022.
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This is Tomorrow: Twentieth-century Britain and its Artists
by Michael Bird -
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Ninth Street Women: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art
by Mary Gabriel -
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A History of Art History
by Christopher S. Wood -
4
Women, Art, and Society
by Whitney Chadwick -
5
Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s – Now
by Alex Farquharson & David A. Bailey
The best books on Art History, recommended by Charlotte Mullins
The best books on Art History, recommended by Charlotte Mullins
The critic Charlotte Mullins, author of A Little History of Art, recommends five books that have altered her understanding of art history. Too often, she argues, we have forgotten that our concept of the past is deeply influenced by the views of those who wrote about it first; these readable, well-researched books offer readers a fresh perspective.
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The Sleeve Should Be Illegal: & Other Reflections on Art at the Frick
by Adam Gopnik, Ian Wardropper & Michaelyn Mitchell -
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The Mirror and the Palette: Rebellion, Revolution, and Resilience: Five Hundred Years of Women's Self Portraits
by Jennifer Higgie -
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Non-Extractive Architecture: On Designing Without Depletion
by Space Caviar -
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What Artists Wear
by Charlie Porter -
5
Masterworks of Modern Photography 1900–1940: The Thomas Walther Collection at the Museum of Modern Art, New York
by Sarah Hermanson Meister
The Best Art Books of 2021, recommended by Romas Viesulas
The Best Art Books of 2021, recommended by Romas Viesulas
Which art, architecture, design and photography books have we added to our library in 2021? Romas Viesulas, art & architecture editor at Five Books, takes us through his personal choice of beautiful reference books to add visual and conceptual interest to any well-appointed bookshelf.
The Best Books for Graphic Designers, recommended by Linda Secondari
What does it take to be a good graphic designer in our media-saturated age? Linda Secondari, member of the Executive Board of the Graphic Artists Guild, gives us a glimpse of her reference library, five must-have volumes for every design aspirant and those whose work relies on effective visual communication. That she is a book designer by trade is, of course, grist to our mill here at Five Books.
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Catherine of Aragon: Henry's Spanish Queen
by Giles Tremlett -
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de Kooning: An American Master
by Annalyn Swan & Mark Stevens -
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El «Cuaderno italiano», 1770-1786: los orígenes del arte de Goya
by Jesús Urrea Fernández & Manuela B. Mena Marqués -
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Cartas a Martín Zapater
by Mercedes Águeda & Xavier de Salas -
5
The Peninsular War: A New History
by Charles Esdaile
The best books on Goya and the art of biography, recommended by Janis Tomlinson
The best books on Goya and the art of biography, recommended by Janis Tomlinson
The art of Francisco de Goya reflects the social and political chaos of Spain in his day, leaving later generations to read into his prolific work—by turns formal and bizarre, official and fantastic—many often contradictory interpretations. Art historian Janis Tomlinson recommends books that disentangle Goya from the retroactive projections of later admirers and situates him in his own time. We also consider what makes for a compelling biography.
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The Art Museum: From Boullee to Bilbao
by Andrew McClellan -
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A View from the Pacific: Re-Envisioning the Art Museum
by Michael Govan -
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Anti-Museum
by Adrian Franklin -
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Closed on Mondays: Behind the Scenes at the Museum
by Dinah Casson -
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Living Museums: Conversations with Leading Museum Directors
by Donatien Grau
Best Books on the Art Museum, recommended by Charles Saumarez Smith
Best Books on the Art Museum, recommended by Charles Saumarez Smith
How has the architecture, vision, financing and public role of art museums around the world been transformed in the last century? And what does the history of art museums presage for their future as contested sites of cultural significance in the context of the pandemic’s challenge to public gathering places? Charles Saumarez Smith, one of the UK’s leading museum figures, brings us five books that reveal both the historic, civic humanist mission of the art museum, and its antithesis in the face of twenty first century challenges.
The best books on The Art Market, recommended by Georgina Adam
Are the prices paid at auction for works of art a sign of the art world’s health? Or a warning of its imminent decline? Journalist and art market observer Georgina Adam discusses five books that cast light on an often shadowy market.
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The Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany
by Michael Baxandall -
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The Renaissance Print, 1470-1550
by David Landau & Peter Parshall -
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The Art of Arts
by Anita Albus -
4
Bosch and Bruegel: From Enemy Painting to Everyday Life
by Joseph Leo Koerner -
5
Into the White: The Renaissance Arctic and the End of the Image
by Christopher P. Heuer
The best books on Northern Renaissance, recommended by Christopher S. Wood
The best books on Northern Renaissance, recommended by Christopher S. Wood
The Renaissance had quite distinct manifestations in Northern Europe and Italy: if the Southern Renaissance was all about abundance and positivity, the dominant theme of the Northern Renaissance was negativity, says New York University Professor Christopher S. Wood. He recommends what to read to learn more about the Northern Renaissance, from Bosch’s fantasy bestiary of the demonic and the grotesque, to Bruegel’s comic and badly proportioned peasants.
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Designing Design
by Kenya Hara -
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The Laws of Simplicity (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life)
by John Maeda -
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Design: The Invention of Desire
by Jessica Helfand -
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Elements of Design: Rowena Reed Kostellow and the Structure of Visual Relationships
by Gail Greet Hannah -
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Super Normal: Sensations of the Ordinary
by Jasper Morrison & Naoto Fukasawa
The best books on Design, recommended by Kevin G. Bethune
The best books on Design, recommended by Kevin G. Bethune
When we think of design, we often think of objects, typefaces and graphic art. In fact, Kevin G. Bethune argues, design is an essential human activity that goes far beyond that to encompass designing institutions and social structures, a continuum that extends from the material world to our civic existence and the ways in which we collaborate to solve problems and achieve collective ends.
The best books on Architectural Icons, recommended by John Grindrod
John Grindrod, the author of books about the built environment Iconicon and Concretopia, reflects on the ingredients that add up to an architectural icon as he selects five books that explore how buildings might define an era or a particular place in time.
The best books on Understanding the Nude, recommended by Annebella Pollen
Nudity is not the same as the nude. Nor is nudity the same as nudism, but they tend to overlap quite a lot in people’s minds. Annebella Pollen, an authority on the many varied forms of British nudism in the twentieth century shares key influences on her own research to help us unpack (or undress?) the idea of nudity in western culture, showing the many ways in which nakedness can be a form of dress.
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The Routledge Companion to William Morris
by Florence Boos -
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William Morris
by Linda Parry -
3
International Arts and Crafts
by Karen Livingstone & Linda Parry -
4
Views of Albion: The Reception of British Art and Design in Central Europe, 1890 –1918
by Andrzej Szczerski -
5
National Style and the Nation-State: Design in Poland from the Vernacular Revival to the International Style
by David Crowley
The best books on The Arts and Crafts Movement, recommended by Julia Griffin
The best books on The Arts and Crafts Movement, recommended by Julia Griffin
Originating in 19th-century Britain, the Arts and Crafts movement was an international phenomenon extending across many media to Europe, America and Japan. Julia Griffin, who has examined its impact in Poland, tells us how it advanced notions of national identity and provided roots to modernism by establishing a sensitivity to materials, designs, and forms, a sensibility that is still with us today.
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Aby Warburg: Bilderatlas Mnemosyne
by Aby Warburg, edited by Roberto Ohrt and Axel Heil -
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Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly In League With The Night
by Andrea Schlieker, Elizabeth Alexander, Isabella Maidment & Lynette Yiadom-Boakye -
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Walker Evans: Starting from Scratch
by Svetlana Alpers -
4
Albers & Albers
by Nicholas Fox Weber -
5
Cairo Since 1900: An Architectural Guide
by Mohamed Elshahed
The Best Art Books of 2020, recommended by Romas Viesulas
The Best Art Books of 2020, recommended by Romas Viesulas
Which art, architecture and photography books have we added to our library in 2020? Romas Viesulas, art & architecture editor at Five Books, takes us through his personal choice of beautiful reference books and biographies to add visual and conceptual interest to any well-appointed bookshelf.
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Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism
by B. H. D. Buchloch, David Joselit, Hal Foster & Rosalind E. Krauss -
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Painting Today
by Tony Godfrey -
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Painting (Whitechapel: Documents of Contemporary Art)
by Terry R. Myers -
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Vitamin P2: New Perspectives in Painting
by Barry Schwabsky -
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Picturing People: The New State of the Art
by Charlotte Mullins
The best books on Figurative Painting Today, recommended by Julien Delagrange
The best books on Figurative Painting Today, recommended by Julien Delagrange
Collectors and curators have been clamouring for figurative art in recent years, as a generation of painters take a more traditional, representational approach to addressing major cultural themes in their work. But is figurative painting today merely a reactionary impulse, a kind of nostalgia for art that preceded modernism, postmodernism and the fragmentation in art-making that was ushered in by conceptual art? There is much more to it than that, argues painter and art historian Julien Delagrange.
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Emil and the Detectives
by Eileen Hall (translator) & Erich Kästner -
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Private View: The Lively World of British Art
by Antony Armstrong-Jones (Lord Snowdon), Bryan Robertson & John Russell -
3
A Free House!: Or, The Artist as Craftsman
by Walter Richard Sickert -
4
Memoirs of the Life of John Constable: Composed Chiefly of His Letters
by C.R. Leslie -
5
Nollekens and his Times: Comprehending A Life Of That Celebrated Sculptor, And Memoirs Of Several Contemporary Artists
The best books on Lucian Freud, recommended by William Feaver
The best books on Lucian Freud, recommended by William Feaver
Though ferociously private, Lucian Freud spoke about painting, the art world and his life and loves to his confidante and frequent collaborator, William Feaver, on the phone most weeks for many years. Feaver’s transcript forms the core of his definitive two-volume biography. He speaks with us about the best books for understanding the life and work of this renowned painter, and the very particular collaboration that led to this magisterial account of one of the finest painters of the last century.
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The Artist and His Critic Stripped Bare: Correspondence
by Marcel Duchamp & Robert Lebel -
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Worte Nicht in Giftige Buchstaben Einwickeln
by Lisa Wenger & Meret Oppenheim -
3
Diaries
by Eva Hesse -
4
Robert Voit: The Alphabet of New Plants
by Robert Voit -
5
Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian
by Hans Ulrich Obrist
The Best Books by Artists, recommended by Michaela Unterdörfer
The Best Books by Artists, recommended by Michaela Unterdörfer
Why should we read what visual artists have written? Michaela Unterdörfer, head of publishing for the art gallery Hauser & Wirth, argues that the visual and artistic language of artists makes archival material more immediate and compelling. Artists’ testimonies refer not only to physical archives but above all to the mental archives of artists, their cultural and historic inheritance, which books like these bring to life.
The best books on Minimalism, recommended by Kyle Chayka
In times of political or personal turmoil, there’s a tendency to seek solace in stripping back life to its bare essentials. Minimalist thought is threaded through Stoicism and Zen Buddhism; absence and space became major preoccupations of 1960s US art. Kyle Chayka, the art critic and author of The Longing for Less, recommends five books on the philosophy that underpins the present fad for minimalist self-help.
The best books on Andy Warhol, recommended by Blake Gopnik
Andy Warhol’s ubiquitous soup cans – and his willingness to play the naïf – eclipse the leading Pop Art figure’s depth, as Blake Gopnik reveals in his magisterial new biography. Here, Gopnik discusses five key books that offer crucial insight into Warhol the man.
The best books on Venice, recommended by Matthew Rice
Venice once ruled an empire that stretched across the eastern Mediterranean, but by the early modern period was already evolving into a city whose greatest claim to fame was as a tourist destination. Here Matthew Rice, author and illustrator of Venice: A Sketchbook Guide, recommends books to read about Venice and its history and architecture, as well as a couple of crime thrillers to read while you’re there.
The best books on Fashion for Kids, recommended by Eunice Olumide
Model, actress, presenter and author Eunice Olumide shares her pick of the best books for children about fashion and the values that underpin her career in the fashion industry.
The best books on Drawing and Painting, recommended by Juliette Aristides
Geniuses may only be born once a century or so, but great art gets made all the time. Some of it follows atelier methods inspired by an apprenticeship model that has been handed down through the centuries. Juliette Aristides, an artist at the forefront of the atelier revival movement, discusses five books that are ‘core curriculum’ for anyone who wants to learn how to paint and draw, and thereby explore the virtues of sustained attention and close observation that come with making representational art.
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The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso
by Dante Alighieri -
2
Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation
by E.H. Gombrich -
3
Leonardo da Vinci: i documenti e le testimonianze contemporanee
by Edoardo Villata -
4
The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci
by Jean Paul Richter -
5
Leonardo da Vinci
by Kenneth Clark
The best books on Leonardo da Vinci, recommended by Martin Kemp
The best books on Leonardo da Vinci, recommended by Martin Kemp
Every generation has its own Leonardo, and for many he remains a man of mystery. Martin Kemp, Emeritus Professor in Art History at Oxford and the author of the recently published Mona Lisa: The People and the Painting, helps us identify the non-mythical Leonardo. What might Leonardo be doing were he alive today, in our own digital age?
The best books on Rembrandt, recommended by Onno Blom
Though he left more self-portraits to posterity than practically any Old Master, there remains an air of mystery around Rembrandt the man—even on the 350th anniversary of his death. Piecing together the very few personal letters and documents left behind, Onno Blom has now reconstructed Rembrandt’s formative years in Young Rembrandt. Here he guides us through five of the most authoritative—and imaginative—accounts of the artist.
The Best Art History Books for Teenagers, recommended by John Harrison
Which are the best books to get a teenager excited about art history? We turned to veteran art history teacher John Harrison, formerly head of the art history department at Eton College, for his top five picks of the most illuminating and accessible books for getting a broad overview of the history of art.
The best books on John Ruskin, recommended by Michael Glover
As a believer in the humanising nature of proper work, the virtues of sustained attention and the value of aesthetics as the keystone to ideals for a truly prosperous society, John Ruskin’s abiding concerns are still very much with us today. On the bicentenary of this eminent Victorian’s birth, Michael Glover, author of the idiosyncratic Ruskin Dictionary, explains why we should still be reading Ruskin closely in the twenty first century.
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Bohemian Paris: Picasso, Modigliani, Matisse, and the Birth of Modern Art
by Dan Franck -
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Laughing Torso
by Nina Hamnett -
3
David Tennant and the Gargoyle Years
by Michael Luke -
4
The Surrender of Silence: A Memoir of Ironfoot Jack, King of the Bohemians
by Jack Rudolph Neave -
5
Francis Bacon’s Gilded Gutter Life
by Daniel Farson
The best books on Bohemian Living, recommended by Darren Coffield
The best books on Bohemian Living, recommended by Darren Coffield
The bohemian world of London and Paris in the 20th century was a fabled land, where people could go to get lost, reinvent themselves and live life as they wanted. Poverty, alcoholism and misery were often the frequent travelling companions on this journey but, Darren Coffield argues, these marginalised areas of society allowed for a freedom that is almost unimaginable in our own world. He picks the best books on bohemian living.
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City of Bits: Space, Place and the Infobahn
by William J. Mitchell -
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The Metapolis Dictionary of Advanced Architecture: City, Technology and Society in the Information Age
by Federico Soriano, Fernando Porras, José Morales, Manuel Gausa, Vicente Guallart & Willy Müller -
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Cities In Civilization
by Peter Hall -
4
The City of Tomorrow: Sensors, Networks, Hackers and the Future of Urban Life
by Carlo Ratti & Matthew Claudel -
5
Local Code: 3,659 Proposals about Data, Design and the Nature of Cities
by Nicholas de Monchaux
The best books on Future Cities, recommended by Davina Jackson
The best books on Future Cities, recommended by Davina Jackson
We are a city-dwelling species. Our urban existence creates both opportunities and challenges, as the recent pandemic has illustrated. One thing seems clear, however. Understanding the way we interact with our built environment is becoming an increasingly data-driven enterprise, as Davina Jackson argues compellingly in her book, Data Cities. Here, she shares the five books that best explain the technology behind the urban planning of the future.
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Municipal Dreams: The Rise and Fall of Council Housing
by John Boughton -
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Scheming: A Social History of Glasgow Council Housing, 1919-1956
by Sean Damer -
3
Scotland's Homes Fit for Heroes: Garden City Influences on the Development of Scottish Working Class Housing 1900 to 1939
by Lou Rosenburg -
4
State Housing in Britain
by Stephen Merrett -
5
Non-Traditional Houses: Identifying Non-Traditional Houses in the UK 1918-75
by Harry Harrison
Books on Social Housing in the UK, recommended by Mark Swenarton
Books on Social Housing in the UK, recommended by Mark Swenarton
How did the UK end up in a housing crisis? More than a century on from the 1919 Housing Act, a look back at the history of social housing with architectural historian Mark Swenarton provides some clues, and insights into the ennobling effect of architecture on peoples’ everyday lives.
The best books on Contemporary Art, recommended by Hans Ulrich Obrist
The co-director of the Serpentine Gallery, Hans Ulrich Obrist, says that to be contemporary means to come back to a present where we have never been.
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Still Life with Oysters and Lemon: On Objects and Intimacy
by Mark Doty -
2
The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age
by Simon Schama -
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Vermeer
by Lawrence Gowing -
4
Rembrandt's Enterprise: The Studio and the Market
by Svetlana Alpers -
5
Art of the Everyday: Dutch Painting and the Realist Novel
by Ruth Bernard Yeazell
The best books on The Dutch Masters, recommended by Adam Eaker
The best books on The Dutch Masters, recommended by Adam Eaker
The past may be a foreign country, but the world portrayed in the art of the Dutch Masters is not so very far from our own, says Adam Eaker of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. For a society that struggles with materialism and consumption, there are a lot of lessons to be learnt from the 17th century Golden Age.
The best books on Perfume, recommended by Denise Hamilton
The author guides us through the intoxicating world of the perfumer, from ancient Egypt to wartime Paris – and explains what Guerlain meant when he said his fragrances contained a whiff of his mistress’s bottom
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Turner: Imagination and Reality
by Lawrence Gowing -
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The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers
by T J Clark -
3
Literary Landscape: Turner and Constable
by Ronald Paulson -
4
Night Studio: A Memoir of Philip Guston
by Musa Mayer -
5
Neglected Genius: The Diaries of Benjamin Robert Haydon, 1808–1846
by Benjamin Robert Haydon
Andrew Graham-Dixon on His Favourite Art Books
Andrew Graham-Dixon on His Favourite Art Books
Art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon takes us through his favourite art books, one of which is the best thing he has ever read about art. He contends that Monet is a follower of Turner, reflects on how the purpose of history of art has changed, and introduces us to the diaries of an “astonishingly bad” painter which reveal him to be one of the nineteenth century’s greatest prose writers.
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Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy
by Michael Baxandall -
2
Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare
by Stephen Greenblatt -
3
Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance
by Lisa Jardine -
4
The Printing Press as an Agent of Change
by Elizabeth L Eisenstein -
5
The Reformation
by Diarmaid MacCulloch
The best books on The Renaissance, recommended by Jerry Brotton
The best books on The Renaissance, recommended by Jerry Brotton
A century-and-a-half ago the Swiss art historian, Jacob Burckhardt, popularized the idea of a ‘Renaissance’ in 14th century Italy. For most people, the term still conjures up works of art by the likes of Michelangelo or Leonardo. But there is much, much more to it than that. Professor of Renaissance studies, Jerry Brotton, picks the best books to read for a more complete understanding of the Renaissance.
The Best Fashion Biographies, recommended by Justine Picardie
Justine Picardie, editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar UK and author of Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life, chooses her favourite fashion biographies, and considers whether fashion and art are inextricably linked.
The best books on The Cult of Celebrity, recommended by Fred Inglis
Fred Inglis, Emeritus Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Sheffield, selects five books to help us understand the cult of celebrity, which is, as he puts it, “the public dramatisation of our best and worst feelings”.
The best books on The Lives of Artists, recommended by Maria Loh
We live in an age obsessed with self-image. Technology has made the ‘selfie’ a ubiquitous form of social currency. Renaissance means may have been very different, but celebrity artists in Medici Florence dealt with many of the issues relating to identity and authorship that we grapple with today. Maria Loh, author of Still Lives: Death, Desire, and the Portrait of the Old Master, talks to Five Books about the curated self.
The best books on Architecture and Aesthetics, recommended by Timothy Hyde
What’s at stake when we call a building beautiful or denounce it as ugly? MIT professor Timothy Hyde, author of Ugliness and Judgment, explores five books about the social, political and economic dimensions behind debates that often masquerade as arguments about style, but which deal with matters at the very heart of civil society.
The best books on Vermeer and Studio Method, recommended by Jane Jelley
Painting is not what it used to be. With materials and photography close to hand, it’s easy to forget the sheer labour involved in producing an Old Master canvas. What does studio method – the making of masterpieces – tell us about artistic genius, then and now? Painter Jane Jelley considers the question using Johannes Vermeer as her starting point.
The Best Italian Renaissance Books, recommended by Kenneth Bartlett
If you’re going to look at the past, you have to understand the people who were living there and see the world through their eyes, says historian and Renaissance specialist Kenneth Bartlett. He picks the best books written during the Italian Renaissance.
Kayla Rae Whitaker on Stories about Women Artists
Kayla Rae Whitaker composes an ode to ‘women who make things’, from wooden dolls to indie music, and post-modern triptychs to the best candy bar you’ll ever taste. These are tales about what happens when the muse becomes the artist
The best books on John Berger, recommended by Tom Overton
The biographer and editor of John Berger reveals how Berger’s self-characterisation as a storyteller is visible across the numerous genres he writes in.
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The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion
by Leo Steinberg -
2
Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art
by Michael Camille -
3
The Reformation of the Image
by Joseph Leo Koerner -
4
Early Medieval Bible Illumination and the Ashburnham Pentateuch
by Dorothy Verkerk -
5
Anachronic Renaissance
by Alexander Nagel & Christopher Wood
The best books on Reinterpreting Medieval Art, recommended by Marc Michael Epstein
The best books on Reinterpreting Medieval Art, recommended by Marc Michael Epstein
The professor of religion explains how medieval Jews and Christians collaborated. He recommends five books that have changed the way we look at medieval art.
Rachel Cohen on Writing About Art
Good writing about visual experience allows us to see things we otherwise wouldn’t, says Rachel Cohen. The author picks some of her own favourite books about art.
The best books on Typefaces, recommended by Simon Garfield
It used to be said that you could be parachuted into any country and know where you were from the typeface used on its road signs. The author of Just My Type tells us about the variety and meaning of different fonts.
The best books on Pop Art, recommended by Hal Foster
What is pop art? Why did it catch on, and what does it mean? And what about Warhol – was his work as superficial as he liked to say it was? The art professor answers all this and more
The best books on Inspiration for Writing and Art, recommended by Edmund de Waal
The author of The Hare with Amber Eyes, who is also a ceramic artist, tells us about books that have influenced both his careers, from the life of a celebrated potter to a collection of Japanese haiku
The best books on Picture Stories, recommended by Ben Katchor
Pictures operate in space, words in time, and the best stories are told with both, says the acclaimed American author and cartoonist, Ben Katchor. He tells us how visual narratives are making a deserved comeback.
The best books on Photography and Reality, recommended by Errol Morris
‘People learn how to read critically and think critically, but I don’t believe we learn how to see critically.’