One hundred masterpieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This monumental new book is the first to celebrate the greatest and most iconic paintings from the encyclopedic collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, one of the largest, most important, and most beloved museums in the world. This impressive volume's broad sweep of material, all from a single museum, makes it at once a universal history of painting and the ideal introduction to the iconic masterworks of this world-renowned institution. More than 1,000 lavish color illustrations and details of 500 masterpiece paintings, created over 5,000 years in cultures across the globe, are presented chronologically from the dawn of civilization to the present. These works represent a grand tour of painting from ancient Egypt and classical antiquity and prized Byzantine and medieval altarpieces, to paintings from Asia, India, Africa and the Americas, and and the greatest European and North American masters. The Metropolitan Museum of Art includes and introduction and illuminating texts about each artwork written specially for this volume by Kathryn Calley Galitz, whose experience as both curator and educator at the Met makes her uniquely qualified. European and American artists include Duccio, El Greco, Raphael, Titian, Botticelli, Bronzino, Caravaggio, Turner, Velázquez, Goya, Rubens, Rembrandt, Brueghel, Vermeer, David, Renior, Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, Degas, Sargent, Homer, Matisse, Picasso, Pollock, Jasper Johns, and Warhol. The artworks are arranged in rough chronological order, without regard to geography or culture, offering a visual timeline of the history of painting, from the earliest examples on pottery jars made over five thousand years ago to canvases on which the paint has barely dried. Freed from the constraints imposed by the physical layout of the Museum, the paintings resonate anew; and this chronological framework reveals unexpected visual affinities among the works. For those wishing to experience the unparalleled breadth and depth of the Met's collection, or study masterpieces of painting from throughout history, this important volume is sure to become a classic cherished by art lovers around the world.

Each reproduction is accompanied by a text that includes pertinent information about the work.

The Walter and Leonore Annenberg Collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, watercolors, and drawings constitutes one of the most remarkable groupings of avant-garde works of art from the mid-19th to the early 20th century ever given to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. A revised and expanded edition of the 1989 publication Masterpieces of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism: The Annenberg Collection, this volume presents more than fifty masterworks by such luminaries as Manet, Degas, Morisot, Renoir, Monet, Cezanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Picasso, and Matisse, accompanied by elucidating texts and a wealth of comparative illustrations. -- From publisher.

Twenty-five essays on great works of American art and design from the "Masterpiece" column in The Wall Street Journal. John Wilmerding's "Masterpiece" column is among the The Wall Street Journal's most popular features. This book gathers those essays by Wilmerding, the distinguished former curator of American art at the National Gallery. Each essay integrates a detailed visual analysis with insights not only into the art and its creator, but also into the historical context at the time of the artwork's execution. American Masterpieces features a full-sized reproduction of each sculpture, painting, piece of architecture, and photograph discussed. Some such as Mary Cassatt's "Little Girl in a Blue Armchair" (along with pieces by Thomas Eakins and Andrew Wyeth) are well known. Many others (such as Henry H. Richardson's Crane Memorial Library in Quincy, Massachusetts) are largely unregarded. No matter how well you know art, you are certain to make new discoveries. This broad, representative, and eclectic selection of the best this country has produced is for anyone looking for a smart, opinionated, and always engaging guide to American art and art history.

A best book of the year from New York Public Library, NPR, the Financial Times, Book Riot, and the Sunday Times (London). A fascinating, revelatory portrait of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its treasures by a former New Yorker staffer who spent a decade as a museum guard. Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. But only a select few have unrestricted access to every nook and cranny. They’re the guards who roam unobtrusively in dark blue suits, keeping a watchful eye on the two million square foot treasure house. Caught up in his glamorous fledgling career at The New Yorker, Patrick Bringley never thought he’d be one of them. Then his older brother was diagnosed with fatal cancer and he found himself needing to escape the mundane clamor of daily life. So he quit The New Yorker and sought solace in the most beautiful place he knew. To his surprise and the reader’s delight, this temporary refuge becomes Bringley’s home away from home for a decade. We follow him as he guards delicate treasures from Egypt to Rome, strolls the labyrinths beneath the galleries, wears out nine pairs of company shoes, and marvels at the beautiful works in his care. Bringley enters the museum as a ghost, silent and almost invisible, but soon finds his voice and his tribe: the artworks and their creators and the lively subculture of museum guards—a gorgeous mosaic of artists, musicians, blue-collar stalwarts, immigrants, cutups, and dreamers. As his bonds with his colleagues and the art grow, he comes to understand how fortunate he is to be walled off in this little world, and how much it resembles the best aspects of the larger world to which he gradually, gratefully returns. In the tradition of classic workplace memoirs like Lab Girl and Working Stiff, All The Beauty in the World is a surprising, inspiring portrait of a great museum, its hidden treasures, and the people who make it tick, by one of its most intimate observers.