Bøger i MFA Highlights serien

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has been at the forefront in presenting pre-Columbian artifacts as part of art history rather than in the context of natural history or archaeology. The artworks featured in this volume exemplify the aesthetics and supreme craftsmanship of the peoples of the ancient Americas in pictorial pottery, sumptuous gold body adornments, and luxury textiles.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is home to an important collection of artworks from South Asia that spans a large geographical area - comprising India and the countries that surround it - and more than four millennia. Among these objects are expressive figures in bronze and stone, dazzlingly intricate miniature paintings, luxury textiles and exquisite metalwork. Arranged thematically around dualities of art and craft, sacred and secular, Hindu and Muslim, real and ideal, male and female, and local and foreign - reflecting and challenging the dualistic thinking often applied to South Asian art - these works of art reveal the richness and depth of South Asian art and culture.

Kathryn Wysocki Gunsch is Head of the Arts of Africa and Oceania, and Teel Curator of African and Oceanic Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

The world-renowned collection of European decorative arts from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is full of sumptuous surprises. Some delicate and some divine, the objects range from an opulent automaton to a richly wrought crosier, and vary in scale from a salt cellar in the form of a crustacean to the fine wood panelling of an entire dining room. Their dates of manufacture span more than a thousand years--the earliest made shortly after the fall of the Roman Empire and the most recent in the computer age. They reach across space as well as time, bearing evidence not only of cultural exchange among European countries, such as England and France, but also of the revival of ancient motifs and of contemporary trade with India and China. Presented here with an introduction to the topic and individual texts on each piece, these diverse works are organized chronologically and by stylistic movements to highlight the hidden histories of these works.

A new addition to the MFA Highlights series.

New in the MFA HIGHLIGHTS series, which presents the best of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston's collections accessibly and affordably.

Presents the best of the collection of early European painting and sculpture held by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

A stunning selection of musical instruments, from ancient times to the presentMusical instruments are among the most meaningful artifacts produced by humankind, a marriage of technology, artistry, symbolism, religion and entertainment. Musical Instruments presents over 100 examples from the MFA's world-renowned collection, spanning a breadth of centuries and cultures, offering a brilliant array of instruments as producers of both aural and visual delight. The pieces shown here--which range from an ancient Greek trumpet to a modern lap steel guitar, from earthenware panpipes to the phenomenally complex Indonesian gamelan--are remarkable not only for the myriad sounds they produce, but also for their attractive, at times breathtaking, extraordinarily varied physical aspects. As objects of both cultural expression and sculptural craft, these are among the most exquisite and intriguing instruments ever created. More than a mere picture book, however, this latest title in the MFA Highlights series offers, as do its companion volumes, an accessible introduction to the genre, bringing to the fore the full richness, artistry and significance of musical instruments around the world.

Edited by Christine Kondoleon. Text by Richard Grossmann, Jennifer L. Heuser.

Though conservation plays a decisive role in the public's experience of artworks in museums, visitors are often unaware of what it takes to keep them vibrant, intact and in some cases existent, and until now there has never been a comprehensive, accessible volume that explains this science to the layperson. Here, the respected conservation scholar Richard Newman recounts tales of uncovered forgeries and unknown masterpieces from more than 130 years of MFA history--tales of important works rescued from neglect and abuse, and of new insights that have helped us understand how artists and craftspeople throughout history worked, lived and created the masterpieces we now see on display. Covering objects from all periods, media and genres--ancient to contemporary, painting to furniture, Eastern to Western--this latest volume in the MFA Highlights series invites readers to share a backstage look at the restoration, study and even discovery of some of the world's most remarkable artworks.

Arts of Korea celebrates historical Korean art through 100 works from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The MFA has one of the finest collections of Korean art outside of East Asia, with particularly superb holdings of high-quality stoneware and lacquerware of the Koryo and Yi dynasties, Bronze Age funerary objects and Buddhist paintings and sculptures. Many of the objects in this book were originally intended for everyday use and tell a story not only about the people who used or collected these boxes, mirrors, jars, tiles and trays, but also about the people who made them. Set to coincide with the MFA's long-awaited Korean Gallery renovation, this is an affordable yet unique addition to any Asian art library, with essays that offer an ideal introduction to the history of Korean art.