New History of Western Art

Koenraad Jonckheere is a professor in Northern Renaissance and Baroque Art at Ghent University, Belgium.

“There are many stories of western art that have been written, almost all of them focused on artists, nations, and traditions. But Jonckheere’s daring book is a learned and eminently readable story of the art itself, about the questions that works of art try and often fail to answer, and about what they do to us in the process. It’s a catalyst for teaching and thinking anew.”—Marisa Anne Bass, Yale University“No other history of art comes close to Jonckheere’s. It’s as engagingly written as Gombrich’s classic The Story of Art. It’s neither pedestrian nor a survey of an out-of-date canon. It’s the most ambitious and original general history of art we have ever had. Vigorous, up-to-date, unprejudiced and lively, it’s a history of art of our time and for our time.”—David Freedberg, Columbia University“This insightful book will remain relevant even in shifting times. It is coherent, thoughtful, even wise, and it has that voice missing from so many studies of art with a larger scope.”—Larry Silver, University of Pennsylvania