Full Description
First published in 1951 Arnold Hausers commanding work presents an account of the development and meaning of art from its origins in the Stone Age through to the Film Age. Exploring the interaction between art and society, Hauser effectively details social and historical movements and sketches the frameworks in which visual art is produced.
This new edition provides an excellent introduction to the work of Arnold Hauser. In his general introduction to The Social History of Art, Jonathan Harris asseses the importance of the work for contemporary art history and visual culture. In addition, an introduction to each volume provides a synopsis of Hausers narrative and serves as a critical guide to the text, identifying major themes, trends and arguments.
Contents
List of illustrations, General introduction, Introduction to volume I, I. Prehistoric times, 1. Old Stone Age: magic and naturalism, 2. New Stone Age: animism and geometrism, 3. The artist as magician and priest: art as a profession and domestic craft, II. Ancient-Oriental urban cultures, 1. Static and dynamic elements in Ancient-Oriental art, 2. The status of the artist and the organization of artistic production, 3. The stereotyping of art in the Middle Kingdom, 4. Naturalism in the age of Akhenaton, 5. Mesopotamia, 6. Crete, III. Greece and Rome, 1. The heroic and the Homeric ages, 2. The archaic style and art at the courts of the Tyrants, 3. Classical art and democracy, 4. The age of enlightenment in Greece, 5. The Hellenistic age, 6. The Empire and the end of the ancient world, 7. Poets and artists in the ancient world, IV. The Middle Ages, 1. The spirituality of early Christian art, 2. The artistic style of Byzantine Caesaropapism, 3. Causes and consequences of iconoclasm, 4. Art from the age of the migrations to the Carolingian Renaissance, 5. The epic poets and their public, 6. The organization of artistic production in the monasteries, 7. Feudalism and the Romanesque style, 8. The romanticism of court chivalry, 9. The dualism of Gothic art, 10. Lodge and guild, 11. The middle-class art of the late Gothic period, Notes, Index
