An elegant gift book, Love celebrates the myriad ways that romantic love is depicted through art. Sometimes chaste, sometimes frenzied, often passionate and occasionally heartbreaking, placed together these beautiful images create a fascinating and enlightening journey through the visual portrayal of love and sexuality in Western art.
Spanning 500 years, works of art – including paintings, drawings, sculptures, illustrations and installations – are punctuated by brief captions adding background detail or additional information about the art, artists and their subjects. Divided among key themes – such as courtship, passion, symbolism, enduring love and even loss – each of the 50 works of art included has been individually selected for the particular way in which the artist has attempted to capture the ineffable, affirmative, devotional aspects of love.
Alex Pilcher is the author of A Queer Little History of Art (2017) also published by Tate.