Sensations: The Story of British Art from Hogarth to Banksy, Hardcover

What is the artistic impulse uniting Robert Hooke's drawings of insects, George Stubbs's studies of horses, and Damien Hirst's pickled shark? In this new and spirited account of British art, Jonathan Jones argues for empiricism. From the Enlightenment to the present, British artists have shared a passion for looking hard at the world around them. Jones shows how this zeal for precision and careful observation paved the way for Realism, Impressionism, and the birth of modern art

Jonathan Jones is the art critic for the Guardian newspaper. He was on the jury for the 2009 Turner Prize and is the author of The Loves of the Artists: Art and Passion in the Renaissance and The Lost Battles: Leonardo, Michelangelo and the Artistic Duel that Defined the Renaissance.