The art and architecture of Greece and Rome lie at the heart of the classical tradition of the western world and their legacy is so familiar as to have become commonplace. The legacy may appear simple, but the development of classical art in antiquity was complex and remarkably swift. It ran from near abstraction in eighth-century BC Greece, through years of observation and learning from the arts of the non-Greek world to the east and in Egypt, to the brilliance of the classical revolution of the fifth century, which revealed attitudes and styles undreamt of by other cultures. After Alexander the Great this became the art of an empire, readily learned by Rome and further developed according to the Romans' special character and needs until it provided the idiom for the imaging of Christianity. In this book the story of this pageant of the arts over some 1500 years is told by five leading scholars. Their aim has been to demonstrate how the arts served very different societies and patrons - tyrannies, democracies, empires; the roles and objectives of the artists; the way in which the classical style was disseminated far beyond the borders of the Greek and Roman world; but especially the splendour and quality of the arts themselves. And their method is to engage the interest of the reader by a rich succession of illustrations on to which the narrative is woven.

'The book is part of a series of introductory studies intended to bring the latest developments in art history to students and general readers. But it offers something new to the specialist reader too [...] the quantity of illustrations is impressive for such a slim and inexpensive book ...Classical Art is illuminating, playful, provocative, and often (literally) iconoclastic' -Times Higher Education Supplement

Explores the art of ancient Greece and its relationship to the world in which it was produced.

This book explores many issues raised by the range of ideas and images of the natural world in Western art since the Renaissance. The whole concept of landscape is examined as a representation of the relationship between the human and natural worlds. Featured artists include Claude, Freidrich, Turner, Cole and Ruisdael, and many different forms of landscape art are addressed, such as land art, painting, photography, garden design, panorama and cartography.

"Focuses primarliy on the social and historical context in which art was made and used"--Bibliographic essay (p. 326).

This authorative study covers the period from the eighth century BC, which witnessed the emergence of the Greek city-states, to the conquests of Alexander the Great and the establishment of the Greek monarchies some five centuries later.

This handbook explores key aspects of art and architecture in ancient Greece and Rome. Drawing on the perspectives of scholars of various generations, nationalities, and backgrounds, it discusses Greek and Roman ideas about art and architecture, as expressed in both texts and images, along with the production of art and architecture in the Greek and Roman world.