From distinguished critic and curator John-Paul Stonard, a dazzling, panoramic world history of art from ancient times to the present for the twenty-first century reader.

Creation tells the extraordinary story of how people all over the globe, from prehistory to the present day, have created images in order to understand the world they inhabit. It explores the remarkable endurance of this creative impulse, and by tracing the diversity of artistic forms through the ages, offers a comprehensive and exhilarating introduction to world art.

Historian, critic, and curator John-Paul Stonard has assembled a dazzling array of paintings, sculptures and artifacts to tell a story of vitality and renewal. Fully illustrated, each chapter of Creation allows intimate access to key works of art and the conversations surrounding them, from the earliest cave paintings of the Palaeolithic Era to the conceptual art of today. Stonard has written a captivating and searching look at the evolving legacies of the past and casts a cold eye on our own unstable vantage point.