The art book / contributors, Caroline Bugler, Ann Kramer, Marcus Weeks, Maud Whatley, Iain Zaczek

Includes bibliographical references (pages 350-351) and index

[I.] Prehistoric and ancient art : This is actual woman: Woman of Willendorf -- We are a species still in transition: cave art at Altamira -- History is a graveyard of aristocracies: Prince Rahotep and his wife Nofret -- Bronzeware inf China records the spiritual core of Chinese civilization: Chinese bronze ritual vessel -- Fine, compact, and strong, like intelligence: Chinese jade ornament -- A channel for the universal soul: Assyrian lion hunt reliefs -- Certain ideal beauties of nature exist only in the intellect: Riace bronzes -- This work should be considered superior to any other: Laoco��n and his sons -- Stylized form and spiritual beauty have become recognized features of the Buddha-image: standing Buddha from Gandhara -- The most monumental and awe-inspiring visible expression of his authority: Marcus Aurelius -- The face of Teotihuac��n: Teotihuac��n mask -- A new type of figural composition: sarcophagus of Junius Bassus -- Dressed to establish their eternal presence among the divine: mosaics of Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora -- [II.] The medieval world : It is not an impure idol, it is a pious memorial: reliquary of Theuderic -- The work of angelic rather than human skill: Book of Kells -- A clear symbol of Christ truly human and truly dead on the cross: Gero Crucifix -- Your edifice unravels the mystery of the faithful: Mihrab, Great Mosque of C��rdoba -- It is a story shaped by purpose: the Bayeux Tapestry -- The finished statues simply walked to the stated destinations: Easter Island statues -- Life and death, the beginning and the end: Nio temple guardians -- Let there be light: stained-glass windows, Chartres Cathedral -- A strong classical spirit motivates its forms: Pisa Baptistery pulpit / Nicola Pisano -- Every painting is a voyage into a sacred harbor Renunciation of worldly goods, Bardi Chapel / Giotto -- O Holy Mother of God grant peace to Siena and life to Duccio who has painted you thus: Maest�� / Duccio di Buoninsegna -- Why should I worry if it shows likeness or not: Wind among the trees on the riverbank / Ni Zan -- An elegant and enigmatic masterpiece: the Wilton Diptych -- [III.] Renaissance and mannerism : To me was conceded the palm of victory: Sacrifice of Isaac / Lorenzo Ghiberti -- Icons are in colors what the scriptures are in words: Holy Trinity / Masaccio -- The man who transformed the mere binding of pigments with oil into oil painting: The Arnolfini portrait / Jan van Eyck -- By two wings is man lifted above earthly things, even by simplicity and purity: Descent from the cross / Rogier van der Wayden -- A elegantly compact image of the subject's proclaimed virtues: Cecilia Gonzaga medal / Pisanello -- The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding: Pallas and the centaur / Sandro Botticelli -- The eye makes fewer mistakes than the mind: studies for The Virgin and Child with St. Anne / Leonard da Vinci -- Terrifying visions of the horrors of doomsday: The four horsemen of the apocalypse / Albrecht D��rer -- A nightmare cast within the female form: Goddess Coatlicue -- The master of the monstrous ... the discoverer of the unconscious: The garden of earthly delights / Hieronymus Bosch -- A painter must compensate the natural deficiencies of his art: The miraculous draught of fishes cartoon / Raphael -- By sculpture I mean that which is done by subtracting: Young slave / Michelangelo -- A prince's mistress who basks in the warmth of her own flesh: Venus of Urbino / Titian -- His majesty could not satiate his eyes with gazing upon it: Salt cellar / Benvenuto Cellini -- Benvenuto Cellini could not have cast them better: Benin bronzes -- Rarely had landscape been given such pride of place as subject matter: Hunters in the snow / Pieter Bruegel the Elder -- Perfection is to imitate the face of mankind / Young man among roses / Nicholas Hilliard -- Like his imperial mentor, Basawan created as naturally as the wind blows: Akbar's adventures with the elephant Hawa'i in 1951 / Basawan

[IV.] Baroque and neoclassicism : Darkness gave him light: The supper at Emmaus / Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio -- Through paintings or other representations the people are instructed: Christ of Clemency / Juan Mart��nez Monta����s -- I have never lacked courage to undertake any design, however vast in size: A lion hunt / Peter Paul Rubens -- The valor of the vanquished makes the glory of the victor: The surrender of Breda / Diego Vel��zquez -- If this is divine love, I know it: Ecstasy of St. Teresa / Gianlorenzo Bernini -- My nature constrains me to seek and to love well-ordered things: the Holy Family of the steps / Nicolas Poussin -- Life etches itself onto our faces as we grow older, showing our violence, excesses or kindnesses: Self-portrait with two circles / Rembrandt -- The calm sunshine of the heart: Landscape with Ascanius shooting stag of Sylvia / Claude -- He is every inch a king: Louis XIV / Hyacinthe Rigaud -- How gladly we accept this gift of sensuous pleasure!: Pilgrimage to the Isle of Cythera / Jean-Antoine Watteau -- Other pictures we see, Hogarth's we read: A rake's progress: the lev��e / William Hogarth -- I have therefore drawn these ruins with all possible exquisiteness: The Colosseum / Giovanni Battista Piranesi -- His are is that of the theater with a stage that is deliberately elevated above us: Apollo and the continents / Giambattista Tiepolo -- The spirit of the Industrial Revolution: An iron forge / Joseph Wright -- He hope to ward away the spirits that invaded his mind: Bad-tempered man / Franz Xaver Messerschmidt -- A light in the storm of revolution: Death of Marat / Jacques-Louis David -- A very inchanting piece of ruin, nature has now made it her own: Tintern Abby / Joseph Mallord William Turner -- Noble simplicity and calm grandeur: tomb of Maria Christian of Austria / Antonio Canova -- [V.] Romanticism to symbolism : The sleep of reason produces monsters: The disasters of war / Francisco de Goya -- A mode for defining the presumed cultural inferiority of the Islamic Orient: Grande odalisque / Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres -- I have to stay alone in order to fully contemplate and feel nature: The wanderer above the sea of fog / Caspar David Friedrich -- I have no love of reasonable painting: The death of Sardanapalus / Eug��ne Delacroix -- From today, painting is dead: Boulevard du Temple / Louis-Jacques-Mand�� Daguerre -- Observe nature, what other teacher do you need?: Lion crushing a serpent / Antoine-Louis Barye -- There should be a moral in every work of art: Greek slave / Hiram Powers -- There's scarcely a novice who fails to solicit the honors of the exhibition: The Romans of the decadence / Thomas Couture -- Show me an angel and I will paint one: A burial at Ornans / Gustave Courbet -- One can almost hear the crack of thunder: Sudden shower over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake / Utagawa Hiroshige -- I would like to paint as a bird sings: Women in the garden / Claude Monet -- Subject matter has nothing to do with the harmony of color: Nocturne in black and gold: the falling rocket / James Abbott McNeill Whistler -- A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art / Sunday on La Grande Jatte / Georges Seurat -- Seeks to clothe the idea in a perceptible form: The dance of life / Edvard Munch -- [VI.] The modern age : A temple consecrated to the cult of Beethoven: The Beethoven frieze / Gustave Klimt -- A pot of paint has been flung in the face of the public: Woman with a hat / Henri Matisse -- An agonizing restlessness drove me out onto the streets day and night: Street, Dresden / Ernst Ludwig Kirchner -- The senses deform, the mind forms: Accordionist / Pablo Picasso -- Universal dynamism must be rendered in painting as a dynamic sensation: States of mind: those who go / Umberto Boccioni -- Color exerts a direct influence upon the soul: Composition VI / Wassily Kandinsky -- Use Rembrandt as an ironing board!: Bicycle wheel / Marcel Duchamp -- If that's art, hereafter I'm a bricklayer: Bird in space / Constantin Brancusi -- Hand-painted dream photographs: The persistence of memory / Salvador Dal�� -- Each material has its own individual qualities: Recumbent figure / Henry Moore -- Every good painter paints what he is : Autumn rhythm / Jackson Pollack -- Real art is lurking where you don't expect it: The cow with the subtile nose / Jean Dubuffet -- I take a clich�� and try to organize its forms to make it monumental: Whaam! / Roy Lichtenstein -- Actual works of art are little more than historical curiosities: One and three chairs / Joseph Kosuth -- One's mind and the earth are in a constant state of erosion: Spiral jetty / Robert Smithson -- Art is the science of freedom: I like America and America likes me / Joseph Beuys -- We're all educated to be frightened of female power: The dinner party / Judy Chicago -- I shall never tire of representing her: Maman / Louise Bourgeois -- Change is the creative impulse: The clock / Christian Marclay

Explores the ideas behind one hundred iconic works of art while examining their historical context