Honour Hugh, Fleming John. The Visual Arts: A History

Prentice-Hall, 1984. — 654 p.This richly illustrated book, with 345
plates in full color and 607 in
monochrome, including plans and
maps, provides an up-to-date history of
the visual arts from the ice-age to the
present day—from statuettes carved in
eastern Europe some 30,000 years ago
to a building in Portland, Oregon,
begun in 1980. It covers painting,
mosaic, drawing, printmaking,
sculpture and architecture. Coins,
textiles, pottery, enamels, and gold and
silver are also included. The scope is
world-wide, embracing the arts of Asia,
Africa, the Americas and the Pacific
Islands as well as Europe. The temples
of India and south-east Asia, the
landscape paintings of China, the
religious and secular arts of Japan,
Islamic architecture, the sculpture of
pre-Columbian America, of Africa and
Melanesia are all set in the same
chronological framework. As a result,
some modern European ideas about art
and its purpose and meaning are
questioned, especially those about its
'progress' and its being intended
primarily for aesthetic enjoyment.
While helping to intensify the
enjoyment that can be derived from
works of art, this book shows how they
can deepen our insight into ourselves
and others, sharpen our awareness of
our own and other religious beliefs,
enlarge our comprehension of
alternative and often alien ways of life.
It presents the history of art not simply
as the study of beautiful objects but as
an essential part of the history of the
human race. In this respect THE
VISUAL ARTS: A HISTORY offers
to the general reader and student alike
an extraordinary insight into the
history of the human race.