An authoritative, concise guide to the history, principles and theories behind Western paintings. Easy to dip into, easy to carry when you visit a gallery and refreshingly simple to navigate, this book provides the background and context for the most popular paintings and painters from 1400 to the present. It is divided thematically into genre chapters (still lifes, nudes etc.) and the paintings are arranged chronologically in each chapter. The book is also filled with cross references to help the reader make comparisons both as to genres and across centuries.

Art History: The Basics is a concise and accessible introduction for the general reader and the undergraduate approaching the history of art for the first time at college or university.

It will give you answers to questions like:

What is art and art history?

What are the main methodologies used to understand art?

How have ideas about form, sex and gender shaped representation?

What connects art with psychoanalysis, semiotics and Marxism?

How are globalization and postmodernism changing art and art history?