From prehistoric Mexico to modern Istanbul, Mary Beard looks beyond the familiar canon of Western imagery to explore the history of art, religion, and humanity.

Conceived as a gorgeously illustrated accompaniment to “How Do We Look” and “The Eye of Faith,” the famed Civilisations shows on PBS, renowned classicist Mary Beard has created this elegant volume on how we have looked at art. Focusing in Part I on the Olmec heads of early Mesoamerica, the colossal statues of the pharaoh Amenhotep III, and the nudes of classical Greece, Beard explores the power, hierarchy, and gender politics of the art of the ancient world, and explains how it came to define the so-called civilized world. In Part II, Beard chronicles some of the most breathtaking religious imagery ever made―whether at Angkor Wat, Ravenna, Venice, or in the art of Jewish and Islamic calligraphers― to show how all religions, ancient and modern, have faced irreconcilable problems in trying to picture the divine. With this classic volume, Beard redefines the Western-and male-centric legacies of Ernst Gombrich and Kenneth Clark. 92 illustrations

瑪麗·比爾德（Mary Beard），英國著名古典學傢，劍橋大學古典學教授，由於她對古典文明研究做齣的長期貢獻，2018 年受封爵士。她長期擔任《泰晤士報文學增刊》的古典學編輯，並與英國廣播公司閤作拍攝瞭多部與古羅馬和古代文明相關的紀錄片。她的博客“一個劍橋教授的生活”廣受歡迎。主要著作：《羅馬宗教》（Religions of Rome, 1998）、《羅馬凱鏇式》（The Roman Triumph, 2007）、《龐貝：一座羅馬城市的生與死》（Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town, 2008）、《羅馬元老院與人民》（SPQR，2015）。其中《龐貝》一書榮獲 2009 年沃爾夫森曆史奬。

郭帆，英語係學士，藝術學碩士。現從事跨文化美學、人類學研究與相關紀錄片製作工作。