Design & Architecture
The Alhambra
This is a collection of essays, verbal sketches, and stories by Washington Irving. Irving lived at the Alhambra Palace while writing some of…
A Little Tour in France
A splendid example of travel writing at its best, in this description of six week tour in France -- from Touraine, down to Provence, then ba…
Thoughts on Art and Life
This is a compilation of the thoughts on art, science and life of Leonardo da Vinci, translated by Maurice Baring and edited by Lewis Einst…
Ten Books on Architecture
On Architecture is a treatise on architecture written by the Roman architect Vitruvius and dedicated to his patron, the emperor Caesar Augus…
Concerning the Spiritual in Art
Published in 1911, Kandinsky's book compares the spiritual life of humanity to a pyramid -- the artist has a mission to lead others to the p…
The Medici
This work relates the history of the Medici family through three centuries and eleven generations, from its rise from obscurity, to its zeni…
Auguste Rodin
Rodin has pronounced Rilke's essay the supreme interpretation of his work. (From the translators’ Preface)Auguste Rodin, 1840-1917, was a …
The Letters of a Post-Impressionist
“Being the Familiar Correspondence of Vincent Van Gogh ... [Van Gogh's] art was appreciated during his life only by a very few and it is but…
The Seven Lamps of Architecture
The Seven Lamps of Architecture, published in May 1849, is an extended essay written by the English art critic and theorist John Ruskin. The…
Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic
One of the earliest works of this Italian philosopher and literary critic, Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic marks t…
Narrative of the operations and recent discoveries
Giovanni Battista Belzoni (1778 – 1823) was an Italian explorer and pioneer archaeologist of Egyptian antiquities. He is known for his remo…
The Two Paths
"The Two Paths" is a collection of five lectures delivered in 1858 and 1859 by John Ruskin on art and architecture. This is how th…
The Story of London
A non-exhaustive history of London from the earliest settlement up to early modern times, focusing on the daily lives of its citizens, the a…
The waning of the middle ages
The Waning of the Middle Ages (also known as The Autumn of the Middle Ages, or Autumntide of the Middle Ages), subtitled A study of the form…
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects
The Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, from Cimabue to Our Times, or Le Vite delle più eccellen…
Lectures On Painting Delivered To The Students Of The Royal Academy
This 1883 book contains chapters on ancient costumes, Byzantine and Romanesque art, David and his school, modern schools of Europe, drawing,…
Discoveries Among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon
Austen Henry Layard is best known as the excavator of Nimrud and of Nineveh, where he uncovered a large proportion of the Assyrian palace re…
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects
The Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, from Cimabue to Our Times, or Le Vite de' più eccellenti…
Great Artists
Great Artists by Jennie Ellis Keysor offers an insightful exploration into the lives and works of some of history's most renowned painters, …
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
The 7 Wonders of the Ancient World is a list of masterpieces of architecture and art of classical antiquity. First compiled in the second ce…