An Introduction to Art

At once engaging, personal, and analytical, this book provides the intellectual resources for the critical understanding of art.

An Introduction to Art by Charles Harrison offers an original, clear, and wide-ranging introduction to the arts of painting and sculpture, principal artistic print media, and the visual arts of modernism and post-modernism. Covering the entire history of art, from Paleolithic cave painting to contemporary art, it provides foundational guidance on the basic character and techniques of different art forms, the various genres of painting in the Western tradition, and the techniques of sculpture as practiced over several millennia and across a wide range of cultures.

Throughout the book, Harrison discusses the relative priorities of aesthetic appreciation and historical inquiry, emphasising the importance of combining the two approaches. Written in a style that is at once graceful, engaging, and personal, as well as analytical and exact, this illuminating book offers an impassioned and timely defence of the importance and value of firsthand encounters with works of art, whether in museums or in their original locations.