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Art Theory Books
Showing 1-50 of 4,344
Ways of Seeing (Paperback)
by (shelved 115 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.95 — 457,427 ratings — published 1972
On Photography (Paperback)
by (shelved 56 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.86 — 59,908 ratings — published 1973
The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media (Paperback)
by (shelved 48 times as art-theory)
avg rating 4.08 — 25,729 ratings — published 1936
Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (Hardcover)
by (shelved 47 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.99 — 80,902 ratings — published 1980
Interaction of Color (Paperback)
by (shelved 37 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.90 — 16,838 ratings — published 1963
Concerning the Spiritual in Art (Paperback)
by (shelved 36 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.83 — 95,644 ratings — published 1912
Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Paperback)
by (shelved 32 times as art-theory)
avg rating 4.05 — 6,284 ratings — published 1960
The Story of Art (Hardcover)
by (shelved 28 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.96 — 482,013 ratings — published 1950
Art in Theory, 1900–2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas (Paperback)
by (shelved 27 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.98 — 10,426 ratings — published 1993
Relational Aesthetics (Paperback)
by (shelved 26 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.68 — 1,287 ratings — published 1998
Art and Fear (Paperback)
by (shelved 26 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.77 — 109,525 ratings — published 1994
After the End of Art (Paperback)
by (shelved 25 times as art-theory)
avg rating 4.02 — 1,073 ratings — published 1997
About Looking (Paperback)
by (shelved 25 times as art-theory)
avg rating 4.08 — 9,578 ratings — published 1980
The Society of the Spectacle (Paperback)
by (shelved 23 times as art-theory)
avg rating 4.03 — 24,507 ratings — published 1967
The Return of the Real: Art and Theory at the End of the Century (Paperback)
by (shelved 20 times as art-theory)
avg rating 4.04 — 540 ratings — published 1996
Illuminations: Essays and Reflections (Paperback)
by (shelved 20 times as art-theory)
avg rating 4.29 — 12,744 ratings — published 1955
Duty Free Art: Art in the Age of Planetary Civil War (Hardcover)
by (shelved 18 times as art-theory)
avg rating 4.11 — 852 ratings — published 2017
Art as Experience (Paperback)
by (shelved 17 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.94 — 5,882 ratings — published 1934
Against Interpretation and Other Essays (Paperback)
by (shelved 17 times as art-theory)
avg rating 4.14 — 10,994 ratings — published 1966
Regarding the Pain of Others (Paperback)
by (shelved 16 times as art-theory)
avg rating 4.10 — 24,596 ratings — published 2003
The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths (Paperback)
by (shelved 16 times as art-theory)
avg rating 4.08 — 779 ratings — published 1985
The Art Spirit (Paperback)
by (shelved 15 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.86 — 28,540 ratings — published 1929
The Shock of the New (Paperback)
by (shelved 15 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.74 — 37,336 ratings — published 1980
The Anti-aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture (Paperback)
by (shelved 15 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.97 — 1,287 ratings — published 1983
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (Paperback)
by (shelved 15 times as art-theory)
avg rating 4.00 — 135,020 ratings — published 1993
Aesthetic Theory (Paperback)
by (shelved 15 times as art-theory)
avg rating 4.14 — 2,641 ratings — published 1970
The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity (Paperback)
by (shelved 14 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.96 — 124,988 ratings — published 2002
Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye (Paperback)
by (shelved 14 times as art-theory)
avg rating 4.07 — 4,041 ratings — published 1954
The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (Paperback)
by (shelved 14 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.88 — 389,371 ratings — published 1979
Art and Culture: Critical Essays (Paperback)
by (shelved 14 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.87 — 583 ratings — published 1961
Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space (Paperback)
by (shelved 13 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.95 — 647 ratings — published 1985
On Painting (Paperback)
by (shelved 13 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.87 — 1,334 ratings — published 1435
The Theater and Its Double (Paperback)
by (shelved 13 times as art-theory)
avg rating 4.14 — 4,961 ratings — published 1938
Notes on ‘Camp’ (Paperback)
by (shelved 12 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.97 — 10,392 ratings — published 1964
Design as Art (Paperback)
by (shelved 12 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.96 — 5,304 ratings — published 1966
Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative (Paperback)
by (shelved 12 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.97 — 352,917 ratings — published 2012
On Ugliness (Hardcover)
by (shelved 12 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.88 — 19,408 ratings — published 2007
History of Beauty (Paperback)
by (shelved 12 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.82 — 69,510 ratings — published 2004
The Poetics of Space (Paperback)
by (shelved 12 times as art-theory)
avg rating 4.18 — 11,666 ratings — published 1957
Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter (Paperback)
by (shelved 11 times as art-theory)
avg rating 4.06 — 21,895 ratings — published 2010
Art Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Paperback)
by (shelved 11 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.59 — 615 ratings — published 2003
Mythologies (Paperback)
by (shelved 11 times as art-theory)
avg rating 4.08 — 17,699 ratings — published 1957
In Praise of Shadows (Paperback)
by (shelved 11 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.99 — 33,286 ratings — published 1933
What Art Is (Hardcover)
by (shelved 10 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.67 — 961 ratings — published 2013
Seven Days in the Art World (Paperback)
by (shelved 10 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.61 — 73,363 ratings — published 2008
Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings (California Studies in the History of Art) (Volume 35)
by (shelved 10 times as art-theory)
avg rating 4.14 — 1,245 ratings — published 1995
Art Power (Hardcover)
by (shelved 10 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.97 — 227 ratings — published 2008
The Future of the Image (Hardcover)
by (shelved 10 times as art-theory)
avg rating 3.74 — 567 ratings — published 2003
The Culture Industry (Paperback)
by (shelved 10 times as art-theory)
avg rating 4.05 — 5,927 ratings — published 1944
Installation Art (Paperback)
by (shelved 10 times as art-theory)
avg rating 4.09 — 231 ratings — published 2005
“Spontaneity, intuition, happenstance, instinct, and even occasional dumb luck are often valued highly by artists, but only insofar as these things can be utilized to serve a larger, deliberative vision. All art is intentional, not incidental, and therefore art does not happen by accident, even if artists are willing to exploit accidents.”
―
―
“It is always as it was between Achilles and Homer: one person has the experience, the sensation, the other describes it. A real writer only gives words to the affects and experiences of others; he is an artist in divining a great deal from the little that he has felt. Artist are by no means people of great passion, but they frequently present themselves as such, unconsciously sensing that others give greater credence to the passions they portray if the artist's own life testifies to his experience in this area. We need only let ourselves go, not control ourselves, give free play to our wrath or our desire, and the whole world immediately cries: how passionate he is! But there really is something significant in a deeply gnawing passion that consumes and often swallows up an individual: whoever experiences this surely does not describe it in dramas, music, or novels. Artists are frequently unbridled individuals, insofar, that is, as they are not artists: but that is something different.”
― Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits
― Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits
