Art Essentials Set: Art History

Taschen's Art Essentials are easily digestible books written by notable curators and arts writers. This set combines key titles in Art History offered as one bundle.

This set includes:

1. Art Essentials: Impressionism

ISBN 9780500294369

This book traces Impressionism's origins to its spread to America and Australia. Ralph Skea shows how Impressionist artists transformed everyday subject matter. Daringly using colour and rapid brushstrokes, the Impressionists worked out of doors, creating paintings that captured the transient effects of light and feeling. Impressionism's initial shock factor gradually gave way to widespread acceptance, but only now can we appreciate how profound its influence has been on modern art. 

2. Art Essentials: Modern Art

ISBN 9780500293225

Modern Art takes the reader through individual movements from Impressionism to Conceptual Art, situating these within five broader chronological themes. Starting with Impressionism in 1860, Dempsey proceeds through the essentials of Modernism, the post-war New Disorder and beyond. The material is arranged with great care to lead the reader through over seventy essential topics of modern art in a practical and easy-to-navigate structure. Each boldly designed feature includes a clear definition of the theme, a list of key artists, features, media and collections, and expertly curated illustrations with explanatory captions. A reference section includes a useful glossary of modern art terms, an easy-to-navigate timeline and suggestions for further reading. 

3. Art Essentials: Abstract Art

ISBN 9780500295755

A lively introduction that tells the evolving story of abstract art, tracing its history from the early 1900s up to the present day. Emerging out of western movements such as Cubism and Expressionism, abstract art quickly became a global phenomenon, changing the face of modern and contemporary art. Stephanie Straine weaves accounts of well-known pioneers with fascinating insights into lesser-known ground-breakers from across the world. 

4. Art Essentials: Pop Art

ISBN 9780500293584

With its bold colours, flashy imagery and ironic spirit, Pop Art trespasses the traditional boundaries separating high from low culture. Flavia Frigeri introduces us to a movement that focuses on everyday objects, from its beginnings in the post-war consumerism of America and Britain to its fascinating rise on a global scale in the 1960s. The work of well-known artists, such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Hamilton and Peter Blake, is set in dialogue with that of Japanese Ushio Shinohara, Venezuelan Marisol and Argentinian Marta Minujín, among others.

5. Art Essentials: Surrealism

ISBN 9780500294345

This book introduces the movement’s key figures and their works. Includes a glossary of terms and a chronology. A good resource for anyone interested in learning about this influential of art movement. Surrealism was launched as a literary and artistic movement by Andre Breton in 1924, and by the time of his death in 1966 had become one of the most popular art movements of the 20th century.

6. Art Essentials: Global Art

ISBN 9780500295243

Global Art introduces some of the most significant art movements of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries that have challenged the status quo. Featuring fifty artistic developments from every continent, this volume covers movements born of decolonization, marginalization, and conflict. Ranging from the Saqqakhaneh artists of Iran to the Stridentists of Mexico, Experimental Workshop of Japan to America’s AfriCOBRA, it chronicles groups that have empowered and given voice to their members.