Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This work replaces Harold Osborne's Oxford Companion to Art (1970), which has been continuously in print for thirty years. Though originally commissioned as a new edition of Osborne's book, it is effectively a completely new work, planned and written afresh for new generations of art lovers. Apart from a handful of classic articles by Harold Osborne mainly on aesthetics, and a few others which needed only minor change, the text is entirely new. Unlike Osborne, it focuses on Western art rather than the whole of world art, concentrating primarily on painting, sculpture, and the graphic arts, leaving architecture to be covered separately. With not only a tighter focus but also a greater extent than Osborne's, the new Companion offers far deeper coverage of the subject than previously; it includes many more artists and their works, and also pays proper attention to new topics of interest focused on patronage, taste, theory and criticism, materials and techniques, and the new art history. There are over 2600 entries, alphabetically arranged. Almost half of them cover artists, from classical times to the twentieth century. Other entries discuss art styles and movements, art forms (such as battle painting, landscape, caricature, or stained glass), specialist terms, and materials and techniques in all media. There is strong emphasis on location as a focus for art: not only are there regional and cultural surveys, but also entries on specific places of importance such as Paris or Urbino; and, in addition, entries on museums and galleries are arranged under the their city headword so that the reader can easily survey the major sites within a particular locality, such as New York, Boston, or Madrid. Patronage receives imaginative treatment: here, rather than focusing on a limited number of individual patrons, the Companion has entries on towns and cities as centres of patronage and collecting - such as Nuremberg, Dresden, or Prague. In addition, there is a novel series of entries on the critical fortunes of the art of the major European countries, covering, for example, patronage and collecting of Italian art in France, Spain, Britain, Germany and Central Europe, the USA, and in Italy itself. A further category of entry covers topics in the theory of art, such as iconography, perspective, and synaesthesia; and there is wide-ranging coverage too of art scholarship and criticism from Aristotle and Pausanius to Sartre, Panofsky, and Michel Foucault. All this is supplemented by entries on general topics as varied as reproduction, anatomy, guilds and confraternities, frames, and the conservation and restoration of paintings and sculpture. This is a work for everyone who loves art, whether actively engaged in the subject professionally or as one of the countless amateurs visting sites and cities, galleries, and exhibitions, churches, libraries, country houses, and palaces in pursuit of beauty and cultural enrichment.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of contents
• Introduction
• List of illustrations
• List of advisory editors and contributors
• Thematic list of entries
• List of abbreviations
• Note to the Reader
• A-Z entries, including 49 feature articles
• Index of people
• Picture credits

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

A partial successor to the 1970 Oxford Companion to Art, this title limits itself to European-language cultures, dropping architecture and non-Western subjects. The 2600 signed entries generally range in length from 100 to 1000-plus words (and are occasionally longer), and they include artist, historian, theorist, and patron biographies as well as entries on institutions, cities and museums, styles, movements, and art historical theory and methodology. Most entries have at least one bibliographical reference and are longer than those in The Oxford Dictionary of Art (LJ 9/15/97), which includes 3000 entries but otherwise appears comparable to this title in scope. Reflecting the methodological growth of art history and changes in topics of study since the first title was published, this book offers more coverage of the Baroque, manuscript illumination, and 19th- and 20th-century art. Established living artists are included. Editor Brigstocke, a Paul Mellon Research Fellow at the British School in Rome, included unchanged some of the technical and aesthetic essays by Harold Osborne, editor of the 1970 title, but this is essentially a new work. Most of the 100 contributors are British, which slightly colors the selections and some of the entries, and the plates are "tasters" not related to specific entries. As with any work of this scope, there are inevitable omissions and occasional errors of fact, but this title essentially accomplishes its goals and is recommended for all collections looking for an in-depth work on Western art. Jack Perry Brown, Art Inst. of Chicago Libs. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

Distinguished editor Brigstocke's splendid, large book consists of 48 gorgeously reproduced famous masterpieces in full color, ranging through human form and face as expressed from Roman times into the 20th century. This enormous undertaking includes contributions by five advisory editors who are specialists of the particular period in the cultural history of art. A short introduction, more contributors, abbreviations, note to the reader, entries, and an index of artists and writers on art are all clearly arranged in alphabetical order. This book does not only include an encyclopedic description of all the Western visual artists, but also the appropriate terminology, eminent European museums, patronage and collecting, cities themselves, mythological beings, philosophers, poets, techniques, etc.! Like from "Abacus to Zeus," it is so necessary in the academic world so bombarded by Internet information (many times not documented properly) to continue to spread art knowledge itself, for its own sake! Everyone curious about this very survival of erudite information should keep this book in their study-room-office or visit libraries, in order to be reminded of what may have been forgotten. You will be overwhelmed. More than most highly recommended. Graduate students through professionals. I. Spalatin Texas A&M University-Commerce

Booklist Review

Intended primarily as "a stimulating point of departure," this successor to Harold Osborne's Oxford Companion to Art (1970) features more than 2,600 entries ranging from a few sentences to a few pages on subjects including artists, art terms and techniques, movements and schools, museums, the arts of selected countries, and the art of different places as objects of patronage and collecting. The great majority of entries were newly commissioned to some 160 contributors, while a small number of articles from The Oxford Companion to Arthave been retained. Leaving coverage of architecture and non-Western art for other volumes, Brigstocke has focused on Western painting, sculpture, and graphic arts. Significant living artists "whose careers have already taken shape" are included. Many entries are accompanied by a short bibliography. Asterisks within each entry refer readers to separate articles, and cross-references are found between entries. Wherever possible, the present location of works of art is indicated. Several sections of color plates reflect the themes of "the human form and the face, as interpreted from antiquity to the present day." There is an index of artists and other people not given main entries but mentioned in other articles; unfortunately, there is no indexing to the articles on the arts of different countries. Coverage is selective but balanced. Only three New York City museums (Frick, Metropolitan, and Museum of Modern Art) are given separate entries, but the articleNew York: Patronage and collectinggives nods to a few others as well as to many historically important galleries. The article on Mexican art, while acknowledging the importance of the muralist movement and mentioning many other twentieth-century Mexican artists, does not name the "Three Great" muralists Orozco, Rivera, or Siqueiros; each artist, however, has a main entry. A small number of errors were noted; the most serious was the entry for the Smithsonian Institution, whose heading reads Washington, Smithsonian Instituteand whose founder is twice identified as "James Smithsonian" (should be "Smithson"). The Oxford Companion to Western Artis highly recommended for academic, public, and high-school libraries. BecauseThe Oxford Companion to Art covers architecture and non-Western art, it should be retained. RBB.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Hugh Brigstocke is a freelance writer and editor. He was a Curator at the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh from 1968 to 1983, where he published a critical catalogue of the Italian and Spanish paintings (1978; rev. 1993), and co-organized the exhibition Poussin. Bacchanals and Sacraments (1981). From 1983 to 1987, he was the first Editor in Chief of the Macmillan/Grove Dictionary of Art, responsible for conceiving the range of its coverage, drawing up the headword list, and supervising the commissioning. He then worked at Sotheby's, London, becoming head of the Old Master Paintings Department until 1995. He has curated several exhibitions, most recently Poetry in Paradise (National Gallery of Scotland, 2000). In 2001 he will be Paul Mellon Research Fellow at the British School, Rome.