Optional Preliminary Reading List

BA History of Art
Please find below a short list of texts which may be interesting for you to read before your course
begins in September. Please rest assured that we do not expect you to read these texts before you
begin they are simply given for your interest, as we find some students like to have the option of
reading a few texts over the summer. There is no compulsory reading in preparation for your first
year.
William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White. The Elements of Style (any recent edition).
Lynne Truss. Eats, Shoots and Leaves: the Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (London, 2003).
J. M. Roberts. The Penguin History of Europe (Harmondsworth, 2004).
Norman Davies. Europe: A History (London, 1997).
Olwen Hufton. The Prospect before Her: A History of Women in Western Europe 1500-1800 (London,
1998).
H. Honour and J. Fleming. A World History of Art (London, 2005).
M. Beard and J. Henderson. Classics. A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 1995).
M. Beard and J. Henderson. Classical Art: From Greece to Rome (Oxford, 2001).
M. Camille. Gothic Art (London, 1966).
M. Camille. Image on the Edge. The Margins of Medieval Art (London, 1992)
M. Baxandall. Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of
nd
Pictorial Style, 2 ed., (Oxford, 1988).
Dunkerton, Foister, Gordon, and Penny. Giotto to Drer: Early Renaissance Painting in the National
Gallery, London, (New Haven, 1991).
D. Howard. Venice and the East. The Impact of the Islamic World on Venetian
Architecture 1100-1500 (New Haven and London, 2000).
th

S. Alpers. The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the 17 Century (Chicago, 1983)
S. McTighe. The Imaginary Everyday: Genre Paintings and Prints in Italy and France, 1580-1670
(Pittsburgh, 2010)
T. Crow. Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Paris (New Haven and London, 1985)
D. Solkin. Painting for Money (New Haven and London, 1993)
*J. House et al, Impressionism for England: Samuel Courtauld as Patron and Collector, exhibition
catalogue (London, Courtauld Institute, 1994), inc. essay Impressionism and its Contexts.
Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991, Michael Joseph, London
1994.
Clement Greenberg, The Collected Essays and Criticism. Volume 1, Perceptions and Judgements,
1939-1944, ed. John OBrian, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1986.
Meyer Schapiro, The Social Bases of Art, in Worldview in PaintingArt and Society: Selected
Papers, George Braziller, New York 1999

Arthur C. Danto, After the End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of History, Princeton, NJ,
Princeton University Press 1997
Julian Stallabrass, Art Incorporated, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004.

Have a good summer. We look forward to welcoming you to the course in September.