Titres dans Histoire et critique de l'art

In a secret meeting in 1981, a master thief named Louis Royce gave career gangster Ralph Rossetti the tip of a lifetime. As a kid, Royce had visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and made a habit of sneaking in at night to find a good place to sleep. He knew the Museum's security was lax, and he gave this information to a boss of the Boston criminal underworld. It took years before the Museum was hit. But when it finally happened, it quickly became one of the most infamous art heists in history.

Sheridan Morley writes: "When my father died at eighty-four on the morning of Derby Day 1992 (one of the few he ever missed), he and I had been together for just over fifty years. In the immediate aftermath of his sudden death, I knew two things; how much I would always miss the sheer joy of his company, and how much I wanted to write about him, if only to explain to myself and my children the life and career of the last great Boulevardier of his or any other time."

In Art as Information Ecology, Jason A. Hoelscher offers not only an information theory of art but an aesthetic theory of information. Applying close readings of the information theories of Claude Shannon and Gilbert Simondon to 1960s American art, Hoelscher proposes that art is information in its aesthetic or indeterminate mode—information oriented less toward answers and resolvability than toward questions, irresolvability, and sustained difference. In this way, art constitutes information that remains in formation---a difference that makes a difference that keeps on differencing.

Andrés Amorós, uno de los escritores y críticos taurinos más reconocidos, realiza en este ensayo un recorrido riguroso por la historia de la fiesta, desde los orígenes del toro como protagonista de ceremonias y celebraciones, hasta la evolución del festejo durante los siglos XX y XXI.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Heist: Art, Ambition, and Unsolved Mystery (1990) offers a gripping deep dive into the events of that night and the decades-long investigation that followed. Author James G. Edwards II masterfully blends true crime with art history, exploring how a single robbery devastated a cultural institution, shook the art world, and fueled countless theories—from mob connections to inside jobs.

The Biennale Book: Ten Foundations of Contemporary Art explores ten of the world’s most influential biennales, revealing how these exhibitions became the places where art, politics, and society meet. From Venice’s historic pavilions to Berlin’s radical experiments, from Gwangju’s democratic spirit to Sharjah’s postcolonial conversations, each chapter uncovers the stories, tensions, and breakthroughs that reshaped how we see art today. A global tour through Venice, São Paulo, Berlin, Havana, Istanbul, Sharjah, Sydney, Gwangju, Liverpool, and New York.

On February 12, 1994, just as the Winter Olympics opened in Lillehammer, Norway’s most famous artwork—Edvard Munch’s The Scream—was stolen in under 60 seconds from the National Gallery in Oslo. The culprits? A group of masked men with alleged ties to a modern-day Templar revivalist movement, combining ideology, symbolism, and street-level criminal precision.

Reacting to the tumultuous crises of the twentieth century, especially the horrors of World War I, avant-garde artists and writers sought to destroy art by transforming it into the substance of everyday life. Following the evolution of these revolutionary groups, How to Be Avant-Garde charts its pioneers and radical ideas.

What is art? A mere imitation of life or something far greater—an act of creation that reveals the soul of the universe? Ralph Waldo Emerson, the philosopher-poet of American transcendentalism, elevates art beyond the canvas, beyond words, beyond form itself. In this essay, he explores the divine spark within creativity, arguing that true art is not bound by technique or tradition but flows from the spirit of the artist, a force both mysterious and essential.

A sweeping and intellectually rigorous work of literary criticism that moves the field forward, from one of the preeminent public scholars “[Said’s] book is relaxed and discursive, original, immensely learned, fluently written.”―John Bayley, The New York Times Book Review Edward W. Said...

Un breve, delicioso e imprescindible tratado lleno de sugerentes ideas para comprender qué es el arte, qué utilidad puede tener para nosotros, cómo creamos, cómo el arte abre mundos y cómo puede transformarnos para imaginar un futuro diferente. Podríamos decir que el arte es uno de los principales atributos del ser humano, como el lenguaje. Es fácil entender por qué el lenguaje es universal, pero no parece ser tan sencillo imaginar que el arte también lo es. El arte es una forma de hacer que los sentimientos sucedan.

Wie funktioniert Kreativität? Wie hängen Psyche, unser Gehirn und das Talent zu Künstlerischem zusammen? Mit dem Besteck des Neurologen seziert Mario de la Piedra Walter die Kulturgeschichte und zeigt, was es braucht, damit ein Kunstwerk in die Welt kommt. Ob Dostojewski, Frida Kahlo oder Kandinsky – oft sind neurologische Besonderheiten oder Ausprägungen Voraussetzung für herausragende Kunst.

Uma reveladora jornada pela vida e a obra de 31 artistas geniais que compartilham uma qualidade essencial: o olhar. Frida Kahlo nos ajuda a ver através da dor. Rembrandt dá uma aula sobre autopercepção. David Hockney abre nossos olhos para a luminosidade da natureza. Jean-Michel Basquiat nos tira da inércia para que possamos ver a realidade em toda a sua complexidade selvagem.

Con la obra que tiene entre sus manos conocerá la «Ocultura» que rodea a la historia del arte. A través de estas páginas, el autor presenta una serie de temas apasionantes, con interesantes datos, diversos misterios y teorías que giran en torno a ellos, así como algunas de sus posibles teorías. Todo ello con la finalidad de que el lector encuentre respuestas; pero, sobre todo, para que comience a formularse ciertas preguntas.

Artists are expert lookers: they have learned to pay attention. The rest of us spend most of our time on autopilot, rushing from place to place, our overfamiliarity blinding us to the marvelous, life-affirming phenomena of our world. But that doesn't have to be the case. In his inimitable engaging style, Will Gompertz takes us into the minds of artists—from contemporary stars to old masters, the well-known to the lesser-so, and from around the world—to show us how to look and experience the world with their heightened awareness.

An informative, fun and rather charming essay on the nature and history of one of life’s most desirable assets, Charm, by renowned culture and design critic, Stephen Bayley. Aiming to wound, a schoolmaster wrote on future design-guru Stephen Bayley’s last ever school report “Charm alone...

Juan Valera defendía que el arte es desinteresado. Empeñado en atacar tanto a los románticos como a los naturalistas, nunca se adscribió a ningún movimiento esteticista, como el simbolismo, que bajo la insignia de l'art pour l'art, intentaba renovar las tendencias artísticas en el cambio de siglo.

The British Isles hold a unique position in the history of art, a place where local traditions fuse with international ideas. At once isolated by coastal boundaries, yet also part of larger networks of diverse peoples, these islands have always benefited from a dual perspective.

The story of the making, loss, and recovery of some of the greatest treasures of antiquity, raising questions about ancient mosaic art and its creation, the work of archaeology, and museum practice. In 1932, after years of fundraising and flurries of letters back and forth, an archaeological...

Il nostro corpo racconta molte cose se può manifestarsi con libertà. I pantaloni con cui Marlene Dietrich arrivò a Parigi nel 1930 fecero gridare allo scandalo perché non solo parlavano di una sessualità dominatrice, ma di una donna che attingeva agli stereotipi del potere maschile diventando una vampira di energie invece che una donatrice devota. Il seno turgido che sbocciava dall'abito di Marilyn Monroe mentre cantava al suo amante "Happy Birthday, Mr. President", alludeva a una seduzione di nuovo conio, ribelle alle convenzioni del matrimonio, della ragion di Stato e della donna per bene.