Enormous walls are the best-preserved testaments of Great Zimbabwe’s past and the largest example of an architectural type seen in archaeological sites throughout the region.

In Mesopotamia, the surviving evidence from the third millennium to the end of the first millennium B.C. indicates that although many of the gods were associated with natural forces, no single myth addressed issues of initial creation.

Many Korean monks traveled not only to China but also to India to learn the various teachings of the Buddha.

While early single-volume Qur’ans were often large and even monumental for use in recitations, others were miniature in scale and may have been used as talismans.

Over the course of the nineteenth century, American and European popular culture elaborated on Washington’s iconic persona and adapted it to patriotic and sentimental purposes.

Paintings of extraordinary beauty and variety were made for the many royal courts of India during a golden age that unfolded in the sixteenth century and lasted well into the British period. In India, two artistic traditions converged. The indigenous Rajput culture produced exuberant, vibrantly colored, boldly patterned illustrations of Hindu myths and epics. The entirely different art of the Islamic Mughal invaders, subtle and naturalistic, mainly presented elegant scenes of court life and history. From the cross-fertilization of these two traditions, a multiplicity of highly original painting styles blossomed and flourished. While works of art originating in Mughal and Rajput courts are often treated separately, in this book paintings made in the major Mughal, Deccani, Rajput, and Pahari workshops are presented together, chronologically. Eighty-three exceptionally fine paintings are reproduced in full color. Each is accompanied by a paragraph explaining the subject illustrated and pointing out particular qualities of style. Interrelations between the various court traditions are explored in the essay, a lucid and comprehensive overview of the development of Indian painting. The author vividly describes the vicissitudes of political power, royal personality, and the movement of artists from place to place that constituted the historical and social context in which each regional court evolved its distinctive artistic vocabulary. The rich, remarkable court paintings of India are splendidly offered to the reader's eye and mind in this book, which also includes a map, enlarged detail photographs, and a selected bibliography.

Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellow Noam Andrews takes a close look at the Concinnitas series: a group of 10 aquatint prints of equations chosen by a prominent list of mathematicians and physicists.

Jan Gossart (ca. 1478–1532) was among the first Netherlandish artists to travel to Rome to make drawings after antique monuments and sculpture and then, upon his return, to introduce biblical and mythological subjects with erotic nude figures into the mainstream of Northern painting. Often credited with successfully assimilating Italian Renaissance style into the art of sixteenth-century northern Europe, Gossart is the pivotal old master who redirected the course of early Netherlandish art from the legacy of its founder, Jan van Eyck, toward a new style that would eventually lead to the great age of Peter Paul Rubens. Man, Myth, and Sensual Pleasures: Jan Gossart's Renaissance offers a much-needed comprehensive reappraisal of the artist's accomplishments—the first in 45 years. It is not only an exhibition catalogue but also a study of Gossart's complete oeuvre as a painter, draftsman, and printmaker. Among the many highlights are the exquisite, gemlike Malvagna Triptych, Gossart's only surviving intact altarpiece; the Carondelet Diptych, one of the masterpieces of early Netherlandish portraiture; the Portrait of an Old Couple, an astonishingly trenchant psychological study; the extraordinary drawing of Adam and Eve from the collection of the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth; and a unique hand-colored etching of the young Charles V. To demonstrate the artistic milieu of which Gossart was a part, antique and Renaissance sculpture, paintings by contemporaries such as Gerard David and Bernard van Orley, and prints and drawings by Marcantonio Raimondi, Lucas van Leyden, and Albrecht Dürer are also discussed and illustrated. The majority of the paintings in this volume have for the first time undergone rigorous technical examination by methods such as infrared reflectography, X-radiography, pigment analysis, and microscopy. As a result, many problems relating to attributions, dating, versions, and copies have been clarified, and a fuller understanding has been obtained of the artist's working procedures, the relationship between his drawings on paper and the underdrawings of his paintings, and the evolution of his technique and style. The results of a valuable dendrochronological study of the panel supports are also presented. Gossart's accomplishments as a draftsman have been enhanced by the acceptance of several additional drawings, while his prints receive their first in-depth evaluation. The text draws on these unprecedented technical investigations as well as on recent original scholarship concerning many issues not adequately examined in the past. Among these topics are Gossart's early career as a proponent of Antwerp Mannerism, the full impact of his sojourn to Rome, the patronage of Philip of Burgundy (including a closer look at the erotic nature of court art), Gossart's dialogue with sculpture, the rationale behind his simultaneous portrayals of Late High Gothic and Renaissance architectural styles, and his experimentation with new modes of portraiture.

Gold, sought from the western and central Sudan, was the main commodity of the trans-Saharan trade. The traffic in gold was spurred by the demand for and supply of coinage.