Ocean State Libraries

"A fresh look at the wider issues of design and industrial culture throughout Europe, Scandinavia, North America, and the Far East ... In the history which emerges design is clearly seen for what it is: the powerful and complex expression of aesthetic, social, economic, political, and technological forces."--Jacket.

"Evelyn Welch presents a fresh picture of Italian art between the 'Black Death' in the mid-fourteenth century and the French invasions at the end of the fifteenth. In it, Florence is no longer the only important centre of artistic activity but takes its place alongside other equally interesting and varied cities of the Italian peninsula. Oil paintings are examined alongside frescos, tapestries, sculptures in bronze and marble, manuscript illuminations,...

"Taking a critical view of such conventional categorizations as the 'Rococo', the 'Neo-Classical', and the 'Romantic', Matthew Craske creates a totally new and vivid picture of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century art in Europe. He engages with crucial thematic issues such as changes in 'taste' and 'manners' and the impact of enlightenment notions of progress. At the same time he goes well beyond the usual geographical limits of surveys to take...