Author Description

Based on the highly praised Oxford Dictionary of Art which the London Sunday Times called "the best and most inclusive single volume available," The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists is an authoritative and up-to-date guide to Western art from Ancient Greece to the present day. It offers over two thousand entries on painting, sculpture, and the graphic arts, covering not only artists and their work, but also patrons and dealers, collectors and writers, materials and techniques, and museums and galleries.Written in clear, lively prose, this invaluable reference maintains a careful balance between fact and appraisal. In its pages, we encounter artists ranging from Polyclitus of Argos to Leonardo da Vinci, from Grandma Moses to Mary Cassatt, and from Max Beckmann to Andy Warhol; periods and movements including the Classical period, the Renaissance, the Ancients, Impressionism, the Ash-can School, and Cubism; and techniques and styles such as encaustic painting, encarnado, lithography, cabinet painting, and blot drawing.For this abridgement, Ian Chilvers has retained all of the essential features of the original while adding new entries and eliminating the more peripheral articles. By presenting the information in a pithier format, he is able to focus more sharply on Western and Western-inspired art. The dictionary also provides a very helpful cross-referencing system for names, art media, styles, and terms. Art enthusiasts of every kind will find this entirely reliable and highly readable volume indispensable.