How did artists progress from Egyptian sculptures to a work such as Frishmuth's The Vine, or from cave paintings to LeRolle's The Organ Rehearsal? To find out, we focus on innovations that gave the artist who created them - and all those who followed - greater power to make viewers stop, look, and think about their works.
These two jargon-free books are a great introduction or refresher for anyone interested in art or art history. The broadest goal is to help you find more subjects, styles, and periods that intrigue you and appeal to you - that present the world the way you think it can and ought to be. Because what's the point of looking at art, if not for moments like that? The time you spend reading Innovators in Sculpture and Innovators in Painting is a small investment for a possibly huge return: more art to love, more art that reflects your values and sense of life.
The ideal readers for Innovators in Sculpture and Innovators in Painting are intellectually curious and love to integrate knowledge. They admire individuals who use their minds to the utmost, in whatever field of endeavor. More specific audiences include:
- Museum visitors who want a framework for the art they're seeing.
- Teachers and students who want an overview before diving into details of specific periods or artists.
- Sculptors, painters, and graphic artists who want a big-picture view of the development of the expressive means available to them.
- Friends of art enthusiasts who want to share the excitement but need a foothold to get started.
Why these books are unique
This is the introduction to art that you've been waiting for it you're curious about its history but are daunted by thousand-page art-history tomes and two-semester courses that cover the art of every major civilization worldwide. Innovators in Sculpture and Innovators in Painting are unique because they're short enough to digest easily and because they provide a framework not only for looking at all periods of Western sculpture and painting, but for reading detailed works on whatever period or style catches your fancy. There are no other works like this for sculpture and painting, although I've seen them for disciplines such as geology and computer development.
Durante, Dianne L.: - "At age five, I won my first writing award: a three-foot-long fire truck with an ear-splitting siren. I've been addicted to writing ever since. Today I'm an independent researcher, freelance writer, and lecturer. The challenge of figuring out how ideas and facts fit together, and then sharing what I know with others, clearly and concisely - that's what makes me leap out of bed in the morning.Janson's *History of Art*, lent to me by a high-school art teacher, was my first clue that art was more than the rock-star posters and garden gnomes that I saw in Catawissa, Pennsylvania, and that history wasn't just a series of names, dates, and statistics. Soon afterwards I read Ayn Rand's fiction and nonfiction works, and discovered that art and history - as well as politics, ethics, science, and all fields of human knowledge - are integrated by philosophy. My approach to studying art is based on Rand's *The Romantic Manifesto*. (See my review of it on Amazon.) As an art historian I'm a passionate amateur, and I write for other passionate amateurs. I love looking at art, and thinking about art, and helping other people have a blast looking at it, too. *Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide* (New York University Press, 2007), which includes 54 sculptures, was described by Sam Roberts in the *New York Times* as "a perfect walking-tour accompaniment to help New Yorkers and visitors find, identify and better appreciate statues famous and obscure" (1/28/2007). Every week I issue four art-related recommendations to my supporters, which have been collected in *Starry Solitudes* (poetry) and *Sunny Sundays* (painting, sculpture, architecture, literature, and more).In 2022 I published Timeline 1900-2021, whose subtitle sums up my fascination with history and culture: "Events Worldwide, US Politics & Culture, Economics, Science & Technology, Books, Visual Arts, Architecture, Film, TV, & Music." I've also published a series of books on Alexander Hamilton, most recently *Financial Programs of Alexander Hamilton.* My book on the Reynolds Affair earned me the designation "National Hamilton Advocate" from the Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society.For a complete list of my writings, visit http: //diannedurantewriter.com/books-essays."
