In this book, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann chronicles more than three hundred years of painting, sculpture, and architecture in Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Ukraine, Lithuania and western parts of the Russian Federation. Massive in scale, the book is highly accessible and lavishly illustrated. The readability of the text and the entirely new insights it provides into three hundred years of Central European history make this a vital introduction to one of the least understood periods in the history of art.

In this book, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann chronicles more than three hundred years of painting, sculpture, and architecture in Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Ukraine, Lithuania and western parts of the Russian Federation. Massive in scale, the book is highly accessible and lavishly illustrated. The readability of the text and the entirely new insights it provides into three hundred years of Central European history make this a vital introduction to one of the least understood periods in the history of art.

Art history traditionally classifies works of art by country as well as period, but often political borders and cultural boundaries are highly complex and fluid. Questions of identity, policy, and exchange make it difficult to determine the "place" of art, and often the art itself results from these conflicts of geography and culture. Addressing an important approach to art history, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann's book offers essays that focus on the intricacies of accounting for the geographical dimension of art history during the early modern period in Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Toward a Geography of Art presents a historical overview of these complexities, debates contemporary concerns, and completes its exploration with a diverse collection of case studies. Employing the author's expertise in a variety of fields, the book delves into critical issues such as transculturation of indigenous traditions, mestizaje, the artistic metropolis, artistic diffusion, transfer, circulation, subversion, and center and periphery. What results is a foundational study that establishes the geography of art as a subject and forces us to reconsider assumptions about the place of art that underlie the longstanding narratives of art history.

"Kaufmann situates Maulbertsch as a fresco painter at a time of transition to easel painting, a colorist at a time when color was not fully appreciated by contemporary observers, and an interpreter of religious themes at a time when secular subjects were becoming more popular. Although he has been dismissed as an eccentric by previous scholars, Kaufmann's analysis shows Maulbertsch involved in the intellectual and aesthetic issues of his day."--BOOK JACKET.

Twenty-eight years ago I went to England for a three-month visit and rest. What I found changed my life." So begins this memoir by one of America's best-known landscape architects, Laurie Olin. Raised in a frontier town in Alaska, trained in Seattle and New York, Olin found himself dissatisfied with his job as an urban architect and accepted an invitation to England to take a respite from work. What he found, in abundance, was the serendipity of a human environment built over time to respond to the land's own character and to the people who lived and worked there. For Olin, the English countryside was a palimpsest of the most eloquent and moving sort, yet whose manifestation was of ordinary buildings meant to shelter their inhabitants and further their work. With evocative language and exquisite line drawings, the author takes us back to his introduction to the scenes of English country towns, their ancient universities, meandering waterways, and dramatic cloudscapes racing in from the Atlantic. He limns the geologic histories found within the rock, the near-forgotten histories of place-names, and the recent histories of train lines and auto routes. Comparing the growth of building in the English countryside, Olin draws some sobering conclusions about our modern lifestyle and its increasing separation from the landscape. As much a plea for saving the modern American landscape as it is a passionate exploration of what makes the English landscape so characteristically English, Across the Open Field is "an affectionate ramble through real places of lasting worth.

Home to an extraordinary collection of treasured masterworks, including the famed Unicorn Tapestries, The Cloisters is devoted to the art and architecture of medieval Europe. This splendid new guide, published to celebrate The Cloisters' seventy-fifth anniversary, richly illustrates and describes the most important highlights of its collection, from paintings, illuminated manuscripts, and exquisitely carved ivories to its monumental architecture evocative of the grand religious spaces and domestic interiors of the Middle Ages. The Cloisters remains a testament to design innovation—a New York City landmark with sweeping views of the Hudson River—featuring original elements of Romanesque and Gothic architecture dating from the 12th through the 15th century. Three of the structures enclose beautiful gardens cultivated with species known from tapestries, medieval herbals, and other historic sources. These exotic spaces, the art masterpieces, and the fragrant plants offer visitors an oasis of serenity and inspiration. This book both encapsulates and enhances that experience.