Combining a guide for the Museum visitor with scholarly discussions of all objects on display, this catalogue provides background on the society, history, technology, and commerce of the Etruscan and Faliscan cultures from the ninth through the first centuries B.C. Several groups of material illustrate social, historical, and technological phenomena currently at the forefront of scholarly debate and study, such as the crucial period of the turnover from Iron Age hut villages to the fully urbanized princely Etruscan cities, the development and extent of ancient literacy, and the position of women and children in ancient societies. Many special objects seldom found or generally inaccessible in the United States include Faliscan tomb groups, Etruscan inscriptions, helmets, and trade goods. The catalogue presents and analyzes objects of warfare, weaving, animals, religious beliefs, architectural and terracotta roofing ornaments, Etruscan bronze-working for utensils, weapons, and artwork, and fine, generic portraiture. It discusses the symbolic meaning of such objects deposited in tombs as a chariot buried with a Faliscan lady at Narce, a senator's folding stool buried in a later tomb at Chiusi, and a pair of horse bits with the teeth of a chariot team still adhering to them where the teeth fell when sacrificed for a funeral in the fifth-century necropolis at Tarquinia—much later than the horse sacrifice was previously known in Etruria.

This collection of essays, which derive from a symposium held at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2005, tells the story of how medieval art was collected by both individuals and institutions in the American Midwest. This book will appeal to both medievalists and scholars of nineteenth- and twentieth century American history. In addition, it will also appeal to scholars who are interested in museum studies and the history of collecting. The essays in the first section, “Collecting and Displaying Medieval Art,” consider the formation of medieval art collections at influential cultural institutions in three of the most important centers of industry and culture in the Midwest: Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland. The second section, “Medieval Art as Inspiration and Education,” examines the motives of both private donors and museum professionals in forming collections and establishing period rooms and cloistered spaces at museums in Toledo, Kansas City, and St. Louis, among others. At the opposite end of the spectrum was a new trend in curatorial practice, beginning in the 1930s, that favored the dismantling of period rooms and espoused displaying historical works of art in more distinctly modern settings, a theme that pervades section three, “Medieval Art and Modernism.” An essay on medieval art in Midwestern university art museums and another one that considers the impact of works from medieval collections in special exhibitions serve as a remarkable coda to the rest of the volume. Two appendices follow this, one that provides an overview of medieval art collections in Midwestern university museums and another which provides a biographical sketch of prominent dealers of medieval art from 1900-1950.

The photograph found a home in the book before it won for itself a place on the gallery wall. Only a few years after the birth of photography, the publication of Henry Fox Talbot's "The Pencil of Nature" heralded a new genre in the history of the book, one in which the photograph was the primary vehicle of expression and communication, or stood in equal if sometimes conflicted partnership with the written word. In this book, practicing photographers and writers across several fields of scholarship share a range of fresh approaches to reading the photobook, developing new ways of understanding how meaning is shaped by an image's interaction with its text and context and engaging with the visual, tactile and interactive experience of the photobook in all its dimensions. Through close studies of individual works, the photobook from fetishised objet d'art to cheaply-printed booklet is explored and its unique creative and cultural contributions celebrated.

Many pieces of important artwork, including Miro's 'Personnages Oiseaux' and Rembrandt's 'Head of Christ', are displayed not in famous museums or galleries, but in the collections of academic institutions. Intended to assist art lovers in planning more productive and enjoyable excursions, this guide provides essential information on the art on display at over 730 colleges and universities. Listings are organised by state, city, and academic institution and include practical information (parking, hours, fees) as well as detailed descriptions of holdings, exhibitions, and facilities for each school. Also included are museum locator maps and a fully cross-referenced index.

This richly illustrated book provides an unsurpassed overview of Islamic art and architecture from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries, a time of the formation of a new artistic culture and its first, medieval, flowering in the vast area from the Atlantic to India. Inspired by Ettinghausen and Grabar’s original text, this book has been completely rewritten and updated to take into account recent information and methodological advances. The volume focuses special attention on the development of numerous regional centers of art in Spain, North Africa, Egypt, Syria, Anatolia, Iraq, and Yemen, as well as the western and northeastern provinces of Iran. It traces the cultural and artistic evolution of such centers in the seminal early Islamic period and examines the wealth of different ways of creating a beautiful environment. The book approaches the arts with new classifications of architecture and architectural decoration, the art of the object, and the art of the book. With many new illustrations, often in color, this volume broadens the picture of Islamic artistic production and discusses objects in a wide range of media, including textiles, ceramics, metal, and wood. The book incorporates extensive accounts of the cultural contexts of the arts and defines the originality of each period. A final chapter explores the impact of Islamic art on the creativity of non-Muslims within the Islamic realm and in areas surrounding the Muslim world.