What We Are Reading Today: The Rare Art Traditions

What We Are Reading Today: The Rare Art Traditions
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Updated 20 August 2023
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What We Are Reading Today: The Rare Art Traditions

What We Are Reading Today: The Rare Art Traditions

Author: Joseph Alsop

In “The Rare Art Traditions,” Joseph Alsop offers a wide-ranging cultural and social history of art collecting, art history, and the art market.

He argues that art collecting is the basic element in a remarkably complex and historically rare behavioral system, which includes the historical study of art, the market for buying and selling art, museums, forgery, and the astonishing prices commanded by some works of art.

“The Rare Art Traditions” tells the story of three important traditions of art collecting: the classical tradition that began in Greece, the Chinese tradition, and the Western tradition. The result is a major original contribution to art history.