Books like History of Beauty

Umberto Eco’s groundbreaking and much-acclaimed first illustrated book has been a critical success since its first publication in 2004. What is beauty? Umberto Eco, among Italy’s finest and most important contemporary thinkers, explores the nature, the meaning, and the very history of the idea of beauty in Western culture. The profound and subtle text is lavishly illustrated with abundant examples of sublime painting and sculpture and lengthy quotations from writers and philosophers. This is the first paperback edition of History of Beauty, making this intellectual and philosophical journey with one of the world’s most acclaimed thinkers available in a more compact and affordable format. From the Trade Paperback edition

Liked History of Beauty by Umberto Eco? Here's what readers who loved it picked up next.

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On Photography by Susan Sontag (1973) · 3.84★
Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton (2008) · 3.54★
Leonardo's Notebooks by Leonardo da Vinci (1519) · 3.97★
Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay (2003) · 3.74★
The Shock of the New by Robert Hughes (1980) · 3.73★
Ways of Seeing by John Berger (1972) · 3.75★
Art Through the Ages by Helen Gardner (1926) · 3.84★
The Letters of Vincent van Gogh by Vincent van Gogh (1914) · 3.99★
The Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari (1550) · 3.78★