1000 Paintings of Genius

Download or read book 1000 Paintings of Genius written by Victoria Charles and published by Parkstone International. This book was released on 2014-11-24 with total page 1275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the early Renaissance through Baroque and Romanticism to Cubism, Surrealism, and Pop, these canonical works of Western Art span eight centuries and a vast range of subjects. Here are the sacred and the scandalous, the minimalist and the opulent, the groundbreaking and the conventional. There are paintings that captured the feeling of an era and those that signaled the beginning of a new one. Works of art that were immediately recognised for their genius, and others that were at first met with resistance. All have stood the test of time and in their own ways contribute to the dialectic on what makes a painting great, how notions of art have changed, to what degree art reflects reality, and to what degree it alters it. Brought together, these great works illuminate the changing preoccupations and insights of our ancestors, and give us pause to consider which paintings from our own era will ultimately join the canon.