HOW DO WE LOOK

Sub-titled 'The Body, The Divine, and The Question of Civilisation', the popular TV historian Mary Beard takes a look beyond the familiar canon of Western imagery. She offers an expansive survey of world history to show how religion has long inspired art, from the Hindu temple at Angkor Wat to the exquisite calligraphy of Islamic mosques, whether describing the church of San Vitale at Ravenna and how early Christian artists depicted Jesus, or examining the role of vanity in Renaissance art through Tintoretto's Crucifixion. All religions have wrestled with idolatry and iconoclasm, destroying art as well as creating it, and within her book, Mary Beard redefines the Western-centric legacies of Ernst Gombrich and Kenneth Clark, revealing a new legacy for future generations. Mary Beard begins her history with a meditation on the human body and its varied representations across epochs starting from the gigantic 3,000 year old stone heads carved by the Olmec of Mesoamerica, Greek bodies, the Emperor of China and the power of images, supersizing a Pharoah, the artfulness of Islam, Bible stories, Hindu images, the scars of battle and more. 240pp with beautiful colour plates.