Cultural History

"Narrative Wisdom and African Arts" explores how historical and contemporary African arts make visible narratives rooted in collective and individual memory and knowledge. Historical works made by artists across sub-Saharan Africa during the thirteenth to twentieth centuries dialogue with contemporary works by African artists working around the globe.

Over one thousand years old, the Buddhist monastery complex of Tabo with its exquisitely preserved works of art ranks among the most fascinating cultural and historical treasures of mankind. The new edition of this richly illustrated volume shows the beauty of  these legendary sanctuaries for the first time in the highest digital resolution and describes in detail the entire gamut of Western Tibetan artistic styles.

Green-Wood, founded in 1838, was a leader in the Rural Cemetery movement in America. Its 478 acres encompass magnificent grounds, grand architecture and world-class statuary. Throughout four seasons, Bethany Eden Jacobson’s book captures the spirit of this verdant, history-drenched pastoral cemetery.

This publication examines the Japanese artistic understanding of China from the late 1600s, Japan’s period of seclusion, to its age of modernization after the mid-nineteenth century. The volume focuses on the ways Japanese painters from the late 1600s to the twentieth century pictured China, both as a real place and an imagined promised land. It features three essays by renowned Japanese art historians in addition to more than fifty catalogue entries highlighting unusual artworks ...

This publication examines the Japanese artistic understanding of China from the late 1600s, Japan’s period of seclusion, to its age of modernization after the mid-nineteenth century. The volume focuses on the ways Japanese painters from the late 1600s to the twentieth century pictured China, both as a real place and an imagined promised land. It features three essays by renowned Japanese art historians in addition to more than fifty catalogue entries highlighting unusual artworks ...

Dazzling mosaic pictures made of glittering shards of light-reflecting coloured glass embellish Rome’s oldest churches and tell an enduring story of beauty, faith, and artistry across a thousand years. This book brings these little-known masterpieces to life while exploring their meaning, historical context and spiritual power.

How do artists ensure that their works will still be known in later centuries? How do they reach a public in distant places? In around 1600 the answer was: via prints. Through their exceptional works and marketing strategies in this medium, Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617) and Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) earned international and lasting success.

Sensuous, bold and topical – this volume with its varied illustrations studies the entire spectrum of Jewish ideas about sexuality. In doing so it examines widely-held and contradictory stereotypes, according to which Jewish tradition either supports sexuality or restricts it through stringent regulations.

"The Portland Vase", an ancient Roman glass cameo amphora held in the British Museum, has been a global brand that has resonated with makers, collectors and consumers for centuries, replicated and reinterpreted countless times.

"The Portland Vase", an ancient Roman glass cameo amphora held in the British Museum, has been a global brand that has resonated with makers, collectors and consumers for centuries, replicated and reinterpreted countless times.