Looking for books about art history? Browse through our expert recommendations to find the best books on art history to give as a gift to an art lover—or for your own library. 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 to specialist subjects — such as the Dutch Masters, the art history for teens, Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance, reinterpreting medieval art— to in-depth explorations of more personal themes and inspirations. Our most recommended art history books are Ways of Seeing and The Lives of the Artists. For a survey of the entire field, there's A World History of Art by Hugh Honour and John Fleming, which "holds the field as the most comprehensive as well as the most intelligent survey of the whole of the world’s history of art," according to art historian John Harrison.
Our archive covers a vast array of subjects, extending well beyond the bestseller lists. In contrast to other online reviews, Five Books content is timeless and our contributors authoritative – these truly are the best books on everything.
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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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Albrecht Dürer
by Jeffrey Ashcroft -
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Dürer
by Jeffrey Chipps Smith -
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The Moment of Self-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art
by Joseph Leo Koerner -
4
The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution
by Pamela Smith -
5
Perfection’s Therapy: An Essay on Albrecht Dürer’s Melencolia I
by Mitchell B. Merback
The best books on Albrecht Dürer, recommended by Ulinka Rublack
The best books on Albrecht Dürer, recommended by Ulinka Rublack
Albrecht Dürer was the archetype of the Renaissance man, but also the prototypical artist-merchant, and very much a man of the world, says historian Ulinka Rublack. Dürer’s self-portraits, particularly the Christ-like image from 1500, have branded him as art history’s ultimate narcissist, but this is a view that does justice to neither his work nor to the complex and conflicted creative individual that he was, she says. She recommends books on Dürer’s Renaissance that reveal a much more nuanced artist and a richer sense of the times in which he lived and created.
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.
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The Four Books on Architecture (I quattro libri dell'architettura)
by Andrea Palladio -
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Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism
by Rudolf Wittkower -
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Architect and Engineer
by Andrew Saint -
4
Modern Architecture Since 1900
by William Curtis -
5
Life in the English Country House
by Mark Girouard
The best books on Architectural History, recommended by Dan Cruickshank
The best books on Architectural History, recommended by Dan Cruickshank
Art historian and TV presenter Dan Cruickshank explains the beauty of Palladian proportions, takes us on a tour of some key English country houses and describes the poetry of Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation in Marseilles. He recommends the best books on ‘architectural history’
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Modern Life & Modern Subjects: British Art in the Early Twentieth Century
by Lisa Tickner -
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A Paradise Lost: The Neo-Romantic Imagination in Britain 1935-55
by David Alan Mellor -
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Francis Bacon
by John Russell -
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David Hockney By David Hockney
by David Hockney -
5
Richard Smith Artworks 1956-2016
by Alex Massouras, Chris Stephens, David Alan Mellor & Martin Harrison
The best books on Modern British Painting, recommended by Chris Stephens
The best books on Modern British Painting, recommended by Chris Stephens
Artists the world over interpreted Modernism in very distinctive ways, explains the expert curator Chris Stephens. In Britain, painters like David Hockney and Francis Bacon worked in transatlantic dialogue with their contemporaries in the US, producing “English-accented echoes.” Here, Stephens selects five of the best books on Modern British painting that illuminate its place within a global movement.
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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On the Sublime
by Longinus -
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A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful
by Edmund Burke -
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Critique of the Power of Judgement
by Immanuel Kant -
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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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The Routledge Companion to William Morris
by Florence Boos -
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William Morris
by Linda Parry -
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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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Bohemian Paris: Picasso, Modigliani, Matisse, and the Birth of Modern Art
by Dan Franck -
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Laughing Torso
by Nina Hamnett -
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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 -
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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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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 -
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Diaries
by Eva Hesse -
4
Robert Voit: The Alphabet of New Plants
by Robert Voit -
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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.