THE FOLIO SOCIETY

Mirror of the World is an art history book with a difference. Using 372 art works from all over the world, painter and art historian Julian Bell traces the history of image-making from the prehistoric 'Holy Spirit' rock pictures of Utah, to the Chinese avant-garde paintings of the 1990s.

Rather than treating each tradition in isolation, Bell compares artistic developments in far-flung places, moving from religious art at Lindisfarne to courtly art among the Incas, and from Van Dyck at the court of Charles I to the Mughals miniaturists of Agra.

Above all, Bell's experience as a painter allows him to explain the methods and motives of past artists with fascinating insight. Illustrated with every conceivable form of art, Mirror of the World is a glorious, groundbreaking and comprehensive work. Not since E. H. Gombrich's The Story of Art has there been such an exciting new narrative guide to art history.