Art Theory: An Historical Introduction

Indispensable reading for both art lovers and students, Art Theory: An Historical Introduction explores Western thought about art from ancient times to the post-modern period.

Wide-ranging and exceptionally balanced in its analysis, Art Theory: An Historical Introduction relates theory to the practice as well as to the intellectual and cultural-historical currents of each period.

This new edition expands the original to include more indepth coverage of contemporary art, and contains a newly updated bibliography and suggestions for further reading. Six chapters cover the major periods of Western art history: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the early modern period (Renaissance and Baroque), the Enlightenment, the nineteenth century, early twentieth-century modernism, and postmodernism. Art Theory: An Historical Introduction is geared to the needs of the general reader and beginning students.

Robert Williams is Professor of Art History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of Art Theory and Culture in Sixteenth-century Italy: From Techne to Metatechne.