Ars Sacra: Christian Art and Architecture of the Western World from the Very Beginning up Until Today
h.f. Ullmann, $350 hb, 800 pp, 9783833151408
Ars Sacra: Christian Art and Architecture of the Western World from the Very Beginning up Until Today edited by Rolf Toman and Thomas Paffen
Who says printed books are dead and that the e-book is the future? Ars Sacra, weighing in at eleven kilos, with eight hundred pages and two thousand colour images, sets a new standard for the coffee-table book. While an iPad version would be lighter and not require a reinforced table, justice can only be done to this large-format book in printed form. Spanning late antiquity to the present, Ars Sacra presents the Christian artistic tradition through its greatest monuments and works of art. While many of the illustrations are familiar – Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque are well covered – the photographs are superb. Some buildings have multiple images and those from Poland and Russia, for instance, show the important regional architectural styles that developed away from the sphere of Rome.
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