The Culture Vulture: A Guide to Style, Period, and Ism

The Culture Vulture A Guide to Style, Period, and ISM Can you tell pop art from dada? Are baroque and rococo, or existentialism and minimalism, all Greek to you? Would you like to be able to differentiate a Georgian manor house from a Tudor mansion, a Meissen cup from a Delft saucer? Anyone who reads is constantly coming across more or less arcane references to period and style. Even television has gotten into the act. One episode of the former series "Miami Vice" caught a character describing the upscale taste of a burglar: "This guy knows the difference between Baccarat and Lalique." Once museums were largely deserted and wonderfully peaceful places in which to browse. Now you must get a ticket and sometimes stand six deep to see a popular exhibit. Who are all these people? They are the culture vultures, and you, and perhaps the person next to you, are among them. Now The Culture Vulture, the book, brings more than 250 terms to your fingertips. No longer will you be in the dark wondering how a Biedermeier chair relates to a Victorian couch or what the difference is between a Bokhara and a Baluchi rug. Based on scholarly sources, this guide provides a readable and amusing synthesis of all those things you learned in school and forgot, with suggested readings should you care to delve further. The Culture Vulture is for the true dilettante (from the Italian dilettare, meaning to delight, charm), or one who finds pleasure in knowledge. We may not have the time or ability to become scholars, but we want to know more.

If you've ever wondered how a Biedermeier chair relates to a Victorian couch or what the difference is between a Bokhara and a Baluchi rug, this is the book for you. Based on scholarly sources, this amusing guide contains over 250 terms and more than 100 illustrations.