by Nancy Frazier (1999)
"The Penguin Concise Dictionary of Art History presents a new perspective on art history. In keeping with today's students, who are interested in more than just the details of connoisseurship and provenance, it takes an interdisciplinary approach, drawing upon literature, history, psychology, geography, economics, and other areas to set important artistic advances in a cultural context. With more than 1500 entries, ranging in length from 150 to 600 words, this is a concise yet highly readable work.". "It also differs from similar references, which tend to be Eurocentric, by giving relatively more space to American art, artists, and architects; to the work of women artists; to sometimes controversial post-modern ideas; and to the words of the artists themselves, quoted in most of the major entries."--BOOK JACKET.
Mark D. Fullerton
"Combining the latest archaeological discoveries with new scholarly methods, Fullerton presents a history of Greek art and the idea of the classical through a range of media and materials, including Archaic statues from the Aegean islands, the gold and ivory of Macedonia, to the great Hellenistic monuments of the Greek east."--Jacket.
Carlos G. Vélez-Ibáñez
The U.S.-Mexico border region is home to anthropologist Carlos Velez-Ibanez. Into these pages he pours nearly half a century of searching and finding answers to the Mexican experience in the southwestern United States. He describes and analyzes the process, as generation upon generation of Mexicans moved north and attempted to create an identity or "sense of cultural space and place." In today's border fences he also sees barriers to how Mexicans understand themselves and how they are fundamentally understood. From prehistory to the present, Velez-Ibanez traces the intense "bumping" among Native Americans, Spaniards, and Mexicans, as Mesoamerican population and ideas moved northward. He demonstrates how "cultural glue" is constantly replenished through strong family ties that reach across both sides of the border. The author describes ways in which Mexicans have resisted and accommodated the dominant culture by creating communities and by forming labor unions, voluntary associations, and cultural movements. He analyzes "the distribution of sadness," or overrepresenation of Mexicans in poverty, crime, illnes, and war, and shows how that sadness is balanced by creative expressions of literature and art, especially mural art, in the ongoing search for space and place. Here is a book for the nineties and beyond, a book the relates to NAFTA, to complex questions of immigration, and to the expanding population of Mexicans in the U.S.-Mexico border region and other parts of the country. An important new volume for social science, humanities, and Latin American scholars, Border Visions will also attract general readers for its robust narrative and autobiographical edge. For all readers, the book points to new ways of seeing borders, whether they are visible walls of brick and stone or less visible, infinitely more powerful barriers of the mind.
essays by Dave Hickey and Naomi Vine
"Peter Alexander: In This Light is the first full-scale monograph on this artist, who for over three decades has been an active force in shaping the art and culture of California. The book includes work spanning Alexander's entire career to date, from the cast resin sculptures of the late 1960s to the recent Las Vegas paintings. Essays by art critic Dave Hickey and by Orange County Museum of Art Director Naomi Vine probe the central issues raised by Alexander in his work: the problems surrounding the concept of beauty in making art today. Vine examines the suspect nature of beauty in art in our time, while Hickey discusses the supreme challenge of attempting to create art in paradise.". "In addition to the critical essays, extensive documentation details the career of Peter Alexander, not only illuminating Alexander's life but shedding light on a time in California art when the Light and Space movement was emerging as an important, innovative, and distinctly West Coast approach to art-making."--BOOK JACKET.
Anthony S. Mercatante
Who is Osiris? Which god was invoked by common folk to bring good luck? Who is the patron of childbirth? Such questions are answered in this updated and comprehensive dictionary of Egyptian mythology. This fascinating volume has alphabetically arranged entries on all the major gods, goddesses, myths, and themes of Egyptian mythology. In addition, there are entries on such topics as amulets, mummies, and pyramids; a chronology of Egyptian dynasties; a detailed introduction; and a complete annotated bibliography. Fifty pen-and-ink drawings by the author capture the spirit of ancient Egyptian art.