Hans Belting here offers his own interpretation of "The Garden of Earthly Delights", the luminous triptych by the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch, which he sees not as apocalyptic, but utopian. Taking readers through each panel, Belting discusses various schools of thought and explores Bosch's life and times. He compares Bosch's vision with the humanistic theories of Thomas More and Willibald Pirckheimer and suggests that the painter's aim was not to evoke the end of the world, but to investigate how the world would exist had the Fall not happened. The book includes a fold-out reproduction of the original painting.

Product Description: The "invisible masterpiece" is an unattainable ideal, a work of art into which a dream of absolute art is incorporated but can never be realized. Using this metaphor borrowed from Balzac, Hans Belting explores the history of "the masterpiece" and how its status and meaning have been elevated and denigrated since the early nineteenth century...read more

The "invisible masterpiece" is an unattainable ideal, a work in which a dream of absolute arts is incorporated but can never be realized. By means of this metaphor borrowed from Balzac, the author shows the variety of ways in which the status and meaning of the masterpiece have been elevated and denigrated since the early 19th century. The history of the masterpiece coincides with the history of the public museum. Leonardo's "Mona Lisa" and other celebrated paintings preoccupied later artists, who felt burdened by the one-time cult of the masterpiece as it had been transformed into the cult of visible works of art. Following Duchamp, artists became increasingly resistant to the notion of the masterpiece. Beginning in the 1960s, Conceptual and Minimal artists concentrated on ephemeral forms and manufactured multiple copies in order to reject the outmoded status of the one-off masterpiece and the art market that fed off it. This work presents an account of Western art that reveals works, events and individuals in the history of art in a different way.

Product Description: Hans Belting offers a lucid discussion in this volume of the conceptual models that have shaped the discipline of art history. What Belting means by "the end of the history of art" is not the death of the discipline, but the end of a particular conception of artistic development as a meaningful, progressive historical sequence...read more

Retells the landing of Leif Ericson and his crew in North America in 1000 AD and celebrates the spirit of Viking life and travel