John Berger's Ways of Seeing is one of the most stimulating and the most influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the Sunday Times critic commented: "This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures." By now he has.

"The influence of the series and the book . . . was enormous . . . It opened up for general attention...
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Rosamond Bernier has lived an unusually full life--remarkable for its vividness and diversity of experience--and she has known many (one is tempted to say all) of the greatest artists and composers of the twentieth century.

In Some of My Lives, Bernier has made a kind of literary scrapbook from an extraordinary array of writings, ranging from diary entries to her many contributions to the art journal L'OEIL, which she cofounded in 1955. The result is a multifaceted self-portrait of a life informed and surrounded by the arts.

Through the stories of her encounters wi...
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"How almost true they sometimes almost ring " Samuel Beckett's character rues his words. "How wanting in inanity " A person could almost understand them Why taunt and flout us, as Beckett's writing does? Why discourage us from seeing, as Mark Rothko's paintings often can? Why immobilize and daze us, as Alain Resnais's films sometimes will? Why, Leo Bersani and Ulysse Dutoit ask, would three acknowledged masters of their media make work deliberately opaque and inhospitable to an audience? This book shows us how such crippling moves may signal a profoundly original--and profoundly anti-moder...
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Superlatives tend to fail in describing Joan Blaeu's Atlas Maior--that being said, it stands as one of the most extravagant feats in the history of mapmaking. The original Latin edition, completed in 1665, was the largest and most expensive book to be published during the 17th century. Its 594 maps appearing across 11 volumes spanned Arctica, Africa, Asia, Europe, and America. Ambitious in scale and artistry, it is included in the Canon of Dutch History, an official survey of 50 individuals, creations, or events that chart the most important historical developments of the Netherlands.

Order and Disorder looks at the cross-cultural context and collaborative nature of Aligheiero Boetti's iconic artworks. The original, often large-scale works in his series Mappe (Maps), Tutto (Everything), and "squared word" were created in needle and thread by women in Afghanistan and in Pakistani refugee camps following the Soviet invasion in 1979, under the direction of Boetti (1940-1994).

Photographs of the artworks and of Afghan women embroidering them are accompanied by examples of embroidered garments and textiles made by Afghanistan's diverse peoples. Such items reveal ...
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