This book opens with the question, What is African art? The answer is a brilliantly colorful and detailed look at the myriad materials and genres, forms and meanings, cultural contexts and expressions that comprise artistic traditions across this vast and varied continent. Viewing artworks in their contexts—ancient and modern, urban and rural, western and eastern, decorative and functional—the book is nothing less than a virtual tour of African culture.Masks, textiles, royal art, sculpture, ceramics, tools and weapons—in each instance, the book features examples that reveal the most significant aspects of workmanship, materials, and design in objects of wood, stone, ivory, clay, metalwork, featherwork, leather, basketwork, and cloth. Photographs of each piece alongside close-ups of fine details afford new views of these works and allow for intriguing comparisons between seemingly unrelated objects and media. The featured details evoke the hand and eye of the most accomplished craftspeople across Africa, past and present. In sum, these photographs, along with Chris Spring’s enlightening commentary, offer an experience of African art that is at once broad and deep, richly informed and intimately felt. They are, at the same time, a kaleidoscopic view of art from prehistory to gestures prefiguring the future.

This latest title in a strikingly beautiful series of collectable books turns our attention to the rich variety of art from the Ancient Americas. We gain fascinating insights into the design and production of a wide range of objects from Mexico and Central and South America. Enlarged details chosen to inspire, illuminate, and surprise bring us close to the world of the Olmecs, Mayans, Mixtecs, Aztecs, and Incans.

Beginning by asking what constitutes Ancient American art, Colin McEwan contextualizes this art in its complexity of form and meaning. The close-ups provide the reader with insights that even a behind-the-scenes museum tour cannot offer. As we move across a range of cultures and media, we understand larger issues within which these works of art are embedded: What is the relationship between art and nature in the Ancient Americas? How were these objects used in ritual and religious practices? What is the role of masks? How do the practices of ancestor deification, sacrifice, and rituals related to fertility and procreation shape the visual and material culture of the Ancient Americas?

Jade, turquoise, featherwork, metalwork, wood, stone, ceramics, textiles, and illustrations—each beautifully photographed object is part of the extraordinary Ancient American collection of the British Museum. The beauty of the smallest details is magnified and contextualized through accompanying essays written by experts in Ancient American art.

For many Westerners, the words "Chinese art" evoke visions of willow pattern landscapes on porcelain plates and teapots, Chinese wallpaper decorated with flowers, birds, and pagodas, and perhaps silk brocades. This beautiful book allows readers to see beyond such ornamental exports to the true nature of the art produced in China over millennia for a Chinese audience, whether the Emperor, the scholarly elite, the ordinary folk, or the furnishing of tombs and temples.

Drawing on the British Museum's extensive collection, Chinese Art in Detail explores the traditional hierarchy of materials and techniques reaching back as far as the Han Dynasty in the third century B.C.—with calligraphy and painting most revered, followed by jades and bronzes, decorative arts such as lacquer, porcelain, and silk, and, finally, sculpture for religious and funerary use. Images of complete artifacts set against magnified details give readers the rare opportunity to appreciate the delicacies of technique and material that characterize much of Chinese art—and distinguish one form, as well as one period, from another. Illuminated throughout by two scholars thoroughly and deeply versed in the history and character of the works under scrutiny, this sumptuously illustrated book conveys an understanding of Chinese art in all its great variety, its simplicities, its complexities, its splendors, and its mysteries of craft and inspiration reaching back to Neolithic times.

The rich and diverse cultures of India are represented in exquisite detail in this book, which begins with a simple question: what is Indian art? The answer is as complex as the history of a nation that is only sixty years old and a civilization that is one of the oldest in the world. The vocabulary of Indian art is syncretic and is shaped by a variety of religious influences such as Hindu, Muslim, and Buddhist. Persian, Turkish, Central Asian, Chinese, Japanese, as well as a host of European artistic traditions have also left their imprint on India. And the stunning topography of the subcontinent--the majestic Himalayas in the north, the dramatic deserts of Rajasthan, the fertile Gangetic plain, a southern coastline washed by the waves of the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Bay of Bengal--continues to shape the Indian artistic imagination.

Each thematically organized chapter in this book delves into such topics as religion and myth, epics, festivals, courtly and village life, and the natural world. The gorgeous close-ups of paintings, textiles, and sculptures in metal, ivory, and wood illuminate the aesthetics and workmanship, as well as recurrent motifs that are distinctly Indian. The objects are all part of the extraordinary Indian Art collection in the British Museum. The beauty of the smallest details are magnified and contextualized through the accompanying essays written by an expert on Indian art and culture.

How do we know Islamic art? What tells us that images and artifacts are products of the Muslim world, a culture that has historically extended from Spain to Southeast Asia and spanned a period from A.D. 622 to our day? This exquisitely and extensively illustrated book allows readers to identify those elements and themes that define art forms as Islamic, and to examine them in works of painting and metalwork, in calligraphy and manuscripts, ceramics, glass, wood, and ivory comprising one of the most imposing collections of arts from across the Muslim world.

Arranged thematically--in chapters focusing on religion and belief, the supernatural and natural worlds, feasting, the hunt, war, music, and power--Islamic Art in Detail provides a much-needed cultural context for these widely varied works while pointing out exceptional features. In its exploration of selected works, the book juxtaposes images of each object with enlarged details--details that might otherwise be virtually invisible to the naked eye--affording surprising comparisons between seemingly unrelated pieces and offering a rare multifaceted view of the art, technique, and iconography of some of the Islamic world's most beautiful images and artifacts.

Beginning by asking, “What is Japanese art?” this book supplies an answer so broad in its reach, so rich in detail, and so extensively illustrated as to give a reader not just a true picture, but also a fine understanding, of Japanese art. Arranged thematically, the book includes chapters on nature and pleasure, landscape and beauty, all framed by the themes of serenity and turmoil, the two poles of Japanese culture ancient and modern. Highlighting—close up and in color—outstanding examples of design and craft in prints, paintings and screens, metalwork, ceramics, wood, stone, and lacquer, Japanese Art in Detail presents each image alongside enlarged details--details that otherwise might be virtually invisible to the naked eye--thus affording intriguing comparisons between seemingly unrelated pieces. Throughout, John Reeve provides cultural context while pointing out exceptional features.

Though drawn from one extraordinary source—the British Museum—the specific objects pictured here are representative of many others in public and private collections worldwide, and offer a clear idea, both broad and particular, of what constitutes Japanese art. Most of these images, as well as many of those mentioned, are accessible electronically through the British Museum's online database, as are several tours linked to recent exhibits.

Pacific Art in Detail introduces the riches of Oceanic art through astonishing close-up views of rarely seen treasures, allowing behind-the-scenes insight into this vibrant work that no conventional gallery tour affords. Carefully selected pieces from the world-renowned Oceanic collection at the British Museum—by artists employing a wide variety of materials and techniques—illustrate such major themes as the role of artistic creation in land and ocean management, political and spiritual power, and connections to gods and ancestors.

Jenny Newell’s introduction addresses the question “What is Pacific art?” while short texts place each individual object into its cultural context. Handsome photographs of each complete work are displayed alongside these fine details, to allow for intriguing comparisons between seemingly unrelated objects and media.

Evoking the hand and eye of the most accomplished Pacific artists and craft workers, past and present, these details spur the creative imagination and serve as an astute introduction to Oceanic collections in museums around the world.