Sixth Form Recommended Reading

What Art Is by Arthur C. Danto

A lively meditation on the nature of art by one of America's most celebrated art critics what is it to be a work of art? Renowned author and critic Arthur C. Danto addresses this fundamental, complex question. Part philosophical monograph and part memoiristic meditation, What Art Is challenges the popular interpretation that art is an indefinable concept, instead bringing to light the properties that constitute universal meaning. Danto argues that despite varied approaches, a work of art is always defined by two essential criteria: meaning and embodiment, as well as one additional criterion contributed by the viewer: interpretation.

The Art Book Edited by Georgina Palffy

Embark on a grand tour of art history with this guide to the story of art with the big ideas and themes behind the world's most important artistic movements, artworks, and artists. The Art Book explores the more than 80 of the world's most ground breaking artworks by history's most influential painters, sculptors, and artists with stunning visuals and insightful quotations. Discover key artworks and artists from across the globe, stretching from the prehistoric Altamira cave paintings and Chinese jade carvings to more impressionism, symbolism, cubism, and pop art.

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1000 Symbols by Rowena & Rupert Shepherd

Symbols are often identified as an international language but that language is far from universal. Different symbols can mean radically different things in different contexts - a cross, a crane or a swastika could each have a distinct meaning for a Buddhist, an art historian or a student of the occult, for example, and none of those meanings would be quite the same. 1000 Symbols offers the reader a full explanation: an introductory alphabetical index is followed by groupings of related symbols, everyone with an extended definition of its history and its cross-cultural meanings.