Art, music and ideas
How to look at paintings, listen to music and read the stories and philosophies that shaped culture. 7 guides, about 55 minutes of reading.
- How to look at a painting
Composition, colour, light and context: a practical way to get more out of any picture in a gallery.
- A short history of Western art
From cave paintings to conceptual art, the major movements and what each was reacting against.
- How music works
Pitch, rhythm, harmony and form explained without jargon, with a look at how sound becomes music.
- Architecture through the ages
Columns, arches, domes and steel: how building technology and belief shaped the world's great structures.
- The story of the novel
How long prose fiction developed from ancient romances and The Tale of Genji to the modern bestseller.
- The language of film
Shots, angles, editing and sound: the techniques filmmakers use to tell stories and how cinema began.
- What is philosophy?
The main branches of philosophy, the questions each one asks, and why the subject still matters.