Illustrated books exploring humanity through the visual arts
Introduction
The story of humanity survives not only in its texts, but in the objects it leaves behind.
A Journey Through Art begins with a simple idea: by looking closely at what people made, we can better understand how they lived, believed and understood the world around them.
Read the Introduction →
Featured Book
Ritual: A Journey Through Art
Why have human beings, across cultures and throughout history, created rituals?
Ritual: A Journey Through Art explores this question through paintings, sculpture, architecture and material culture from across the world, tracing the ways people have used objects and images to mark death and renewal, approach the sacred, transform identity and give meaning to the world around them.
The Series
Each volume follows a single theme, inviting readers to encounter cultures across time and place through the objects they created, used and treasured.
Rather than telling history chronologically, the series asks larger questions about what it means to be human.
Latest Writing & Conversations
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Lecture for The London Institute of Tibetan Studies
A visual introduction to the extraordinary imagery of Himalayan Buddhist art, exploring symbolism, sacred geography and the role of mandalas in Buddhist practice.
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Objects are more than surviving artefacts: they are witnesses to human lives. This essay explores how paintings, sculptures and everyday objects preserve the beliefs, memories and experiences of the people who created them.
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Monsters gather at the boundaries between worlds. Human and animal, natural and supernatural, protective and dangerous, their impossible bodies have guarded thresholds, embodied threatening forces and given visible form to beings that could not otherwise be seen. Following these creatures through art across cultures and centuries, this essay asks what the monsters people imagined can reveal about the worlds they inhabited.