Books on Art History Free Online

The New York Metropolitan Museum of Art is offering “Five Decades of Met Publications on Art History” free on their website!  The options are endless, with topic spanning from Asian Art – Chinese to European Art, Oceanic Art and more.  It’s really an amazing opportunity to do some great reading and learn more about the world and cultures around you!  

I can’t wait to dive in!

CHECK IT OUT

 

“14,000 Latvians Form Human Chain to Deliver Books to New Library”

by Sarah Dougherty via “Global Post“

 

 

“On Saturday, about 14,000 people in Latvia’s capital formed a human chain of book lovers to kick off Riga’s year as a 2014 European Capital of Culture. The crowd braved icy temperatures to pass library books — by hand — from the old National Library to the new building 1.2 miles (2 km) away. As you can see from this video, there was much dancing and rejoicing:

According to the AFP, Saturday’s event recalled 1989 Baltic Way, a peaceful demonstration by citizens of the Baltics to demand independence from the Soviet Union. On Aug. 23, 1989, some 2 million people joined hands to create a massive human chain. They stretched 370 miles (600 km) and linked the Baltic capitals of Vilnius (Lithuania), Riga (Latvia) and Tallinn (Estonia). Within two years, all three countries were independent. . . . .”

“Brian Sewell’s Essential Art Books of 2013”

by Brian Sewell via “London Evening Standard“

“Is your Raphael authentic? Who was Alan Sorrell? And which British painter-architect deserves to be up there with Palladio? The answers are in this year’s essential art books, chosen and reviewed by Brian Sewell . . . .”

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You can buy his recommended books in the United States here:

• Pliny and the Artistic Culture of the Italian Renaissance
• Michelangelo: His Epic Life 

• Alan Sorrell: The Life and Works of an English Neo-Romantic Artist 

• The Renaissance and the Ottoman World 
• Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century
• William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain 
• Late Raphael
• Nordic Art: The Modern Breakthrough 1860-1920
• The Letters of Paul Cézanne 
• Magritte: The Mystery of the Ordinary, 1926-1938
• Paul Nash: Landscape and the Life of Objects
• Anselm Kiefer Studios
• David Hockney: A Bigger Exhibition
• Matisse: The Chapel at Venice
• Palazzo Te: Giulio Romano’s Masterwork in Mantua

Any books you would recommend? Leave the title in the Comments.

My personal favorites revolved mostly around Asian Art, including:

The Chinese Art Book, by Colin Mackenzie, et al. 

Masterpieces of Chinese Painting 700-1900, by Hongxing Zhang.

Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation’s Treasures from the Nazis, by Robert Edsel