History of art Books

Book SynopsisThis handsomely illustrated volume traces the intersections of art history and paintings restoration in nineteenth-century Europe. Repairing works of art and writing about them-the practices that became art conservation and art history-share a common ancestry. By the nineteenth century the two fields had become inseparably linked. While the art historical scholarship of this period has been widely studied, its restoration practices have received less scrutiny-until now. This book charts the intersections between art history and conservation in the treatment of Italian Renaissance paintings in nineteenth-century Europe. Initial chapters discuss the restoration of works by Giotto and Titian, framed by the contemporary scholarship of art historians such as Jacob Burckhardt, G. B. Cavalcaselle, and Joseph Crowe that was redefining the earlier age. Subsequent chapters recount how paintings conservation was integrated into museum settings. The narrative uses period texts, unpublished archival materials, and historical photographs in probing how paintings looked at a time when scholars were writing the foundational texts of art history, and how, simultaneously, contemporary restorers were negotiating the appearances of these works. The book proposes a model for a new conservation history, object focused yet enriched by consideration of a wider cultural horizon.Trade Review"An enjoyable book, full of new information and pertinent critical judgments. The central role of restoration in the history of museums has never been more visible."-Neville Rowley, curator at the Gemaldegalerie and Bode-Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; "Matthew Hayes's radical new study, written by a professional conservator, affords fascinating fresh insights into the complexity of conservation campaigns on Renaissance paintings in the nineteenth century, examining how successive interventions record and embody vital, but all too often neglected, knowledge. Re-situating the work of significant restorers within their historical, intellectual and cultural contexts, he elucidates their distinctive contributions to the interpretation of the art of the past within a network of diverse authorities, including owners and custodians, art historians, dealers, and museum professionals. Bringing to bear new conservation data as well as archival discoveries, Hayes argues that past restorations were never value-neutral but evidence instead their own complex art historical contexts. This rigorous yet highly readable study raises many questions relevant for contemporary practice and will be an indispensable, thought-provoking resource for art historians, conservators, and non-specialists alike."--Susanna Avery-Quash, Senior Research Curator (History of Collecting), National Gallery, London;; “This book explores the complex relationships between two disciplines that were in flux in nineteenth-century Europe: the history of art, in particular that of the Italian Renaissance, and the restoration of paintings. The author, a paintings conservator and art historian, is uniquely qualified to provide what is a fascinating historiographical deep dive into the period. Focusing on a series of thematically arranged case studies, Dr. Hayes explores the nature of restoration, highly specific to its time and place, and its connections to the people and ideas that shaped Europe’s great picture galleries. Important questions are threaded throughout: What did those early art historians, restorers, dealers, curators, and museum directors likely see when they looked at paintings? What was done to restore and preserve these works? How did this change their appearance? What traces of these activities exist today? And critically, how do these observations and interventions intersect with the contemporaneous art historical imaginations that were creating the concept of the Italian Renaissance? The answers make compelling scholarship.;; Familiar artists, paintings, and collections are viewed through a new lens. Using a wide range of sources— the nineteenth-century art historical literature of course, but also museum archival records, photographs, restorers’ accounts and letters, modern examination reports, and the material record of the paintings themselves—the author expertly creates a persuasive narrative of museum practice, art historical scholarship, and restoration in dialogue. This is a timely and important book; many of the traces of early restorations are disappearing as pictures are treated anew, just at a time when scholarly interest in the history of restoration is growing, and our scientific ability to study and understand the material history of a work of art becomes more accurate and less invasive. Elegantly written and amply illustrated, scholarly yet refreshingly jargon-free, this accessible book clearly explains both conservation activities (many no longer practiced) and the historiography of Italian Renaissance art. There are also concise biographies of the restorers who worked on pictures in Florence, Milan, Venice, and Berlin, giving welcome presence to the people so often overlooked in traditional art historical accounts. For all these reasons, The Renaissance Restored is essential reading for art historians, curators, conservators, and scholars of European intellectual history.” —Michele D. Marincola, Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor of Conservation, Institute of Fine Arts, New York UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1: Finding Giotto in Florence Chapter 2: Titian and the Weight of Tradition Chapter 3: Charles Eastlake Directs Conservation Chapter 4: Bode, Hauser, and the Renaissance Museum Conclusion: Restoration and the Renaissance in the Nineteenth Century Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis abundantly illustrated book examines the figure of Balthazar, one of the biblical magi, and explains how and why he came to be depicted as a Black African king. According to the Gospel of Matthew, magi from the East, following a star, traveled to Jerusalem bearing precious gifts for the infant Jesus. The magi were revered as wise men and later as kings. Over time, one of the three came to be known as Balthazar and to be depicted as a Black man. Balthazar was familiar to medieval Europeans, appearing in paintings, manuscript illuminations, mosaics, carved ivories, and jewelry. But the origin story of this fascinating character uncovers intricate ties between Europe and Africa, including trade and diplomacy as well as colonization and enslavement. In this book, experts in the fields of Ethiopian, West African, Nubian, and Western European art explore the representation of Balthazar as a Black African king. They examine exceptional art that portrays the European fantasy of the Black magus while offering clues about the very real Africans who may have inspired these images. Along the way, the authors chronicle the Black presence in premodern Europe, where free and enslaved Black people moved through public spaces and courtly circles. The volume's lavish illustrations include selected works by contemporary artists who creatively challenge traditional depictions of Black history.Trade Review"This beautifully illustrated book on Balthazar, the African king believed to be one of the "wise men" who traveled from afar to acknowledge the divinity of the infant Christ, is a real gift. The range of related topics covered spreads out into the early modern world-the rise of African kingdoms as well as pertinent aspects of the slave trade-something readers today are looking for. The authors, experts all, know how to write concisely and to be enjoyed as well as impart insight."- Joaneath Spicer, The James A. Murnaghan Curator of Renaissance and Baroque Art, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; "This gorgeously illustrated volume gathers together cutting-edge articles to probe the image of the Black magus in European art. As a marker of real historical contacts, imaginary kingdoms, and known Christian princes, the presence of the Black king at the scene of Christ's Nativity is here read within a diverse range of possible interpretations. The book's strength is its polyvocality: no one story is put forward to explain the Black Balthazar. Rather, it tells the complicated history of the early modern period, in which connections among a whole variety of sub-Saharan African communities and western Europe were on the rise. Balthazar: A Black African King in Medieval and Renaissance Art is required reading for those curious about how the past informs current debates about race in the West."-Sarah M. Guerin, Assistant Professor, History of Art, University of Pennsylvania

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Book Synopsis"An inspiring makeshift ingenuity....These mirror images with their uncanny resemblances traverse space and time, spotlighting the black lives that have been silenced by the canon of western art, while also inviting us to interrogate the present." -Times (UK) Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Peter Brathwaite has thoughtfully researched and reimagined more than one hundred artworks featuring portraits of Black sitters-all posted to social media with the caption "Rediscovering #blackportraiture through #gettymuseumchallenge." Rediscovering Black Portraiture collects more than fifty of Brathwaite's most intriguing re-creations. Introduced by Brathwaite and framed by contributions from experts in art history and visual culture, this fascinating book offers a nuanced look at the complexities and challenges of building identity within the African diaspora and how such forces have informed Black portraits over time. Artworks featured include The Adoration of the Magi by Georges Trubert, Portrait of an Unknown Man by Jan Mostaert, Rice n Peas by Sonia Boyce, and many more. This volume also invites readers behind the scenes, offering a glimpse of the elegant artifice of Brathwaite's props, setup, and process. An urgent and compelling exploration of embodiment, representation, and agency, Rediscovering Black Portraiture serves to remind us that Black subjects have been portrayed in art for nearly a millennium and that their stories demand to be told. An exhibition of Brathwaite's re-creations is on view at the Bristol Museum & Art Gallery in Bristol, UK from April 14 to September September 3, 2023.Trade Review"Ever since I first stumbled across Peter's portraits on Twitter, I've been captivated by his sharp wit, innovative costuming, rich range of visual reference, and the sheer joy of each image. This is a book that will enchant and intrigue and educate. I'm thrilled by the beauty and fun and history on every page."--Samira Ahmed, BBC broadcaster; "Brathwaite brings a novel innovative way into considering the Black presence in art, creating another dimension to consider and reflect on the original work, helping us not just to engage more deeply with the composition and its subject but bringing the Black presence to life, re-creating it for us today in a thoroughly modern and highly relevant manner-an exciting Black visual tour de force!"-Michael I. Ohajuru FRSA; "Peter Brathwaite's oeuvre defies neat categorization: Is it art, performance, autobiography, or art historical essay? He has blended these modes to make work that is joyful, original, and poignant. It is important and timely. To restage Black portraiture, from the Domesday Book to Kehinde Wiley, Brathwaite gets inside the lives and worlds of each sitter and brilliantly rediscovers, reclaims, and re-presents Black (art) history for modern audiences. His empathetic performances give agency to the people portrayed and breathe warmth and life into what was previously frozen; he reminds us that Black historical lives matter too."-Lucy Peltz, Head of Collections Displays (Tudor to Regency) and Senior Curator, 18th Century Collections, National Portrait Gallery

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Book SynopsisAlfredo Boulton (1908–1995) is considered one of the most important champions of modern art in Venezuela and a key intellectual of twentieth-century modernism. He was a pioneer of modern photography, an art critic, a researcher and historian of Venezuelan art, a friend to many of the great artists and architects of the twentieth century, and an expert on the imagery of the heroes of his country’s independence. Yet, Boulton is shockingly underrecognized outside of his native land. The few exhibitions related to his work have been focused exclusively on his photographic production; never has there been a project that looks at the full range of Boulton’s efforts, foregrounding his influence on the shaping of Venezuelan art. This volume addresses these lacunae by analyzing Boulton’s groundbreaking photographic practice, his central role in the construction of a modern national artistic canon, and his influence in formalizing and developing art history and criticism in Venezuela. Based on the extensive materials held in Boulton’s archive at the Getty Research Institute, Alfredo Boulton brings together essays by leading scholars in the field to offer a commanding, original perspective on his contributions to the formation of a distinctive modernity at home and beyond.

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Book SynopsisThis sumptuously illustrated volume, edited by eminent war historian Joanna Bourke, offers a comprehensive visual, cultural and historical account of the ways in which armed conflict has been represented in art. Covering the last two centuries, the book shows how the artistic portrayal of war has changed, from a celebration of heroic exploits to a more modern, truthful depiction of warfare and its consequences. Featuring illustrations by artists including Paul Nash, Judy Chicago, Pablo Picasso, Melanie Friend, Francis Bacon, Kathe Kollwitz, Yves Klein, Robert Rauschenberg, Dora Meeson, Otto Dix and many others, as well as those who are often overlooked, such as children, women, non-European artists and prisoners of war, this extensive survey is a fitting and timely contribution to the understanding, memory and commemoration of war, and will appeal to a wide audience interested in warfare, art, history or politics. Introduction by Joanna Bourke, with essays by Jon Bird, Monica Bohm-Duchen, Joanna Bourke, Grace Brockington, James Chapman, Michael Corris, Patrick Crogan, Jo Fox, Paul Gough, Gary Haines, Clare Makepeace, Sue Malvern, Sergiusz Michalski, Manon Pignot, Anna Pilkington, Nicholas J. Saunders, John Schofield, John D. Szostak, Sarah Wilson and Jay Winter.Table of ContentsIntroduction by Joanna Bourke, with essays by Jon Bird, Monica Bohm-Duchen, Joanna Bourke, Grace Brockington, James Chapman, Michael Corris, Patrick Crogan, Jo Fox, Paul Gough, Gary Haines, Clare Makepeace, Sue Malvern, Sergiusz Michalski, Manon Pignot, Anna Pilkington, Nicholas J. Saunders, John Schofield, John D. Szostak, Sarah Wilson and Jay Winter.

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Book SynopsisIn this superbly illustrated book, Charles Watkins explores the myth and magic of arboreal art. Enter the groves of the classical world, from Daphne's metamorphosis into a laurel tree to the gardens of Pompeii. The tree in sacred art is represented in master works by Botticelli and Michelangelo. The oak as a symbol of nationhood and liberty across Europe is revealed. The mystery and drama of forest interiors, the formal beauty of avenues of trees, the representation of forestry over the ages and the world of `more than real' trees in the fantastic and surreal art of Arcimboldo, William Blake, Arthur Rackham and Salvador Dali are each illuminated in fascinating detail, coming right up to date with Giuseppe Penone and Ai Wei Wei. Watkins also elucidates the practice of genius in how artists learned to draw trees. Each thematic chapter takes a breathtaking journey through centuries of artists' engagement and fascination with a natural form that seems to allegorize or mirror the human journey through life. Drawing on the author's deep knowledge of the history and ecology of trees, Trees in Art shows that we can learn much about ourselves from the art of trees.

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Book SynopsisMany people know that Claude Monet (1840-1926) was a founder of French Impressionism, a master of landscape painting whose works include Impression, Sunrise and Water Lilies. What, perhaps, they don't know is that he created the ponds featuring those water lilies and spent 30 years painting 250 oils of them; that his water-lily work Le Bassin aux Nymphease sold in 2008 for $40 million; that his painting Cliffs Near Dieppe was stolen not once but twice; and that he was almost blind when he painted some of his most famous works. Biographic: Monet presents an instant impression of his life, work and fame, with an array of irresistible facts and figures convered into infographics to reveal the artist behind the pictures.

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Book SynopsisThe Biographic series presents an entirely new way of looking at the lives of the world's greatest thinkers and creatives. It takes the 50 defining facts, dates, thoughts, habits and achievements of each subject, and uses infographics to convey all of them in vivid snapshots. Many people know that Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669) was a Dutch painter and etcher, a master of light and shadow who is regarded as one of the greatest of all portrait artists. What, perhaps, they don't know is that he taught over 50 apprentices; that he produced over 2,000 artworks, of which 120 were self-portraits; and that, after buying one of the finest houses in Amsterdam, he ran up so many debts that he was forced to sell his wife's grave. Biographic: Rembrandt presents an instant portrait of his life and work, with an array of irresistible facts and figures converted into infographics to reveal the artist behind the pictures.

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Book SynopsisA fresh approach to the construction of "Anglo-Saxon England" and its depiction in art and writing. This book explores the ways in which early medieval England was envisioned as an ideal, a placeless, and a conflicted geography in works of art and literature from the eighth to the eleventh century and in their modern scholarly and popular afterlives. It suggests that what came to be called "Anglo-Saxon England" has always been an imaginary place, an empty space into which ideas of what England was, or should have been, or should be, have been inserted from the arrival of peoples from the Continent in the fifth and sixth centuries to the arrival of the self-named "alt-right" in the twenty-first. It argues that the political and ideological violence that was a part of the origins of England as a place and the English as a people has never been fully acknowledged; instead, the island was reimagined as a chosen land home to a chosen people, the gens Anglorum. Unacknowledged violence, however, continued to haunt English history and culture. Through her examination here of the writings of Bede and King Alfred, the Franks Casket and the illuminated Wonders of the East, and the texts collected together to form the Beowulf manuscript, the author shows how this continues to haunt "Anglo-Saxon Studies" as a discipline and Anglo-Saxonism as an ideology, from the antiquarian studies of the sixteenth century through to the nationalistic and racist violence of today.Trade ReviewImportantly, Karkov has positioned her voice within a monograph, which enables her to develop a sustained and complex argument that asks her reader to think deeply and honestly about issues that have been the subject of much division and derisiveness. The importance of what Karkov has done for the field of early medieval studies by writing Imagining Anglo-Saxon England cannot be overstated. * THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW *[O]ne of the most important studies of early medieval identity published in the past twenty years. . . . This monograph is not only impeccably researched and forcefully argued, but it also has the rare (and hopefully increasingly common) quality in medieval scholarship of being unequivocally important. As medieval studies (and Anglo-American society more broadly) attempts to confront its own colonial and racialized past, Catherine Karkov has identified a good place to start. * COMITATUS *Sharply incisive, unflinchingly direct, and the best kind of provocative, Catherine Karkov's Imagining Anglo-Saxon England provides one of the most cogent accounts to date of the fraught history of "Anglo-Saxon" studies. ...Imagining Anglo Saxon England takes important steps towards bridging the chasm between acknowledgment of the field's past harms and hope for its newly envisioned future. * SPECULUM *The book is uncompromising in its response to a turbulent world and changing field and is sure to be influential. -- TOEBI NEWSLETTER[E]ngaging and important points. -- Mary Cockray-Miller * Journal of English and Germanic Philology *Table of ContentsIntroduction A plan for utopia to come Utopia past and the heterotopia of origins Utopia/dystopia: humanity and its others in the Beowulf manuscript Retrotopia: Anglo-Saxonism, Anglo-Saxonists, and the myth of origins Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThe monochrome - a single-colour work of art - is highly ambiguous. For some it epitomizes purity, and is art reduced to its essence. For others it is just a stunt, the emperor's new clothes. Why are monochromes so admired, yet such an easy target of scorn? In this illuminating book Simon Morley unpacks the meanings of the monochrome as it developed internationally over the twentieth century to today. In doing so he explores more general questions such as how artists have understood what they make, how critics variously interpret it and how art is encountered by viewers.Trade Review"An indispensable introduction to the intriguing material, optical, and philosophical challenges posed by the monochrome. Morley writes with such tact and insight that anyone interested in the contemporary practice of painting, whether expert or novice, will find the book a delight."--Malcolm Bull, Professor of Art and the History of Ideas, University of Oxford "Brilliantly explores the labyrinthine complexities of this apparently simple form of abstract art."--David Batchelor, artistTable of Contents1 Introductions 2 Setting 3 Reception 4 Colour 5 Ground 6 Spiritual 7 Indefinable 8 Nothingness 9 Experiential 10 Zen 11 Material 12 Format 13 Sign 14 Idea 15 Allegorical 16 Expanded Field 17 East-Asia 18 Contemporary 19 Conclusion References

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Book SynopsisEnglish art critic John Ruskin was one of the great visionaries of his time, and his influential books and letters on the power of art challenged the foundations of Victorian life. He loved looking. Sometimes it informed the things he wrote, but often it provided access to the many topographical and cultural topics he explored--rocks, plants, birds, Turner, Venice, the Alps. In The Art of Ruskin and the Spirit of Place, John Dixon Hunt focuses for the first time on what Ruskin drew, rather than wrote, offering a new perspective on Ruskin's visual imagination. Through analysis of more than 150 drawings and sketches, many reproduced here, he shows how Ruskin's art shaped his writings, his thoughts, and his sense of place.Trade Review"Dixon contends that, far from being mere illustrations to his writings, Ruskin’s drawings were the first necessary step in his approach to beauty, words coming second. The aim of the book is to examine how Ruskin saw things, how he learnt to look at places, in particular, and how to represent them." * Cercles *"This beautifully produced book takes readers on a closely and sensitively observed grand tour of Ruskin’s pictorial imagination. In a moving return to an early subject, Hunt supplies this bibliographic equivalent of Ruskin’s restless journeying, a visual odyssey in honor not only of the places he cared about, but also of his sense of place, understood physically, emotionally, spiritually, chromatically. The images reproduced here are more than illustrations: thanks to Hunt’s hospitality and judgement as a guide, they take their place as staging-posts along a beguiling travelers’ road." -- Marcus Waithe, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge

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Book SynopsisKunstkammern, art and curiosity cabinets housed in a dedicated room or suite of chambers, were often filled with thousands of diverse and sometimes shocking objects reflecting the bounty of nature and human creativity. These could range from a cherry pit carved with dozens of faces to an intricate drinking cup fashioned from a rhinoceros horn. Whether as a setting for personal contemplation or as a manifestation of the wealth and prestige of its owners, these proto-museums dazzled visitors of the time. This book offers the first in-depth comparative examination of the history, theory, organization and character of the major Kunstkammern in the Holy Roman Empire.

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Book SynopsisRenowned photographer Julia Margaret Cameron is famous for her evocative portraits of eminent Victorians, including John Herschel, Alfred Tennyson, Henry Taylor, George Frederic Watts, Ellen Terry and Julia Stephen. This study of her work reveals how deeply she was convinced of the poetic possibilities of her medium, particularly its capacity for suggestive rather than literal meaning. She did not get it right on all counts, and her practice violated the aesthetic orthodoxy of the day. But the blurring of the ‘real’ subject before her lens created unparalleled possibilities for a broader pursuit of the sublime and beautiful. Drawing on over 100 items from the photographic collections at the Bodleian Library and Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford, as well as comparative works of art, this book celebrates a collection that illustrates the aesthetic development of the photographer from her earliest pictures to her most poetic photographs. It also includes her own poetry and the key images she created for her extraordinary Illustrations to Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, and Other Poems, demonstrating her fascination with the artistic connection between poetry and photography.Table of Contents1 Julia Margaret Cameron 11 2 The Life Poetic 29 3 Arresting Beauty 37 4 Picturing Poetry 45 5 A Poetry of Photography 53 6 Beautiful Shadows 63 Plates 69

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Book SynopsisThe Kennicott Bible is among the most celebrated Hebrew Bibles that survive from the Middle Ages. Originating from La Coruña in northern Spain, it features lavish carpet pages, gold leaf silhouettes and abundant marginal decorations. This extraordinary manuscript is a treasure chest of history, culture, devotion, art and cross- cultural collaboration. The story of its survival is a remarkable one and its sumptuous images have delighted readers since its creation in 1476. This book features a collection of all of the decorated pages from this stunning manuscript – accompanied by four chapters authored by experts in the fields of Bible study, book history and medieval Jewish art. They discuss the main themes from several perspectives, including the Hebrew text of the Bible, the scribe who created the pages, the layout and palaeography, and the illuminator who produced the decoration and its imagery. There is also an analysis of the early medieval commentary on the Old Testament, the Masorah. Richly illustrated throughout, this beautiful book makes available the key pages from a treasure of Jewish book art together with the latest scholarship on its origins, provenance and creation.Table of ContentsFOREWORD vi Martin J. Gross INTRODUCTION 1 Katrin Kogman-Appel CONTENTS, STRUCTURE & ORGANIZATION 11 Javier del Barco MATERIAL DESCRIPTION & LAYOUT 23 Javier del Barco THE MASORAH 35 María Teresa Ortega-Monasterio ARTISTIC EMBELLISHMENTS 53 Katrin Kogman-Appel PLATES 77 captions to plates 241 notes 246 bibliography 252 contributors 255 picture credits 256 index 257

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Book SynopsisIn 1621, Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) wrote a letter to William Trumbull, the English diplomat and political agent to King James I, in which he described a large painting of a lion hunt that he had just completed: “As you rightly observe, such things have more grace and power in a large picture than in a small one … because the large size of a picture gives one much more courage to express one’s ideas clearly and realistically”. Rubens here casually disclosed what lay at the heart of his artistic intentions – his constant quest to achieve in his compositions the equilibrium between power and grace. The same can be said of Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641) and Jacob Jordaens (1593–1678), whose lives and careers were markedly intertwined with and infl uenced by the senior artist. Just how diff erently they went about achieving this eff ect can best be seen in their drawings, for it is there that we see the artists thinking, evolving, and creating. The Morgan is particularly well suited to tell this story, for its holdings of Rubens, Van Dyck, and Jordaens drawings are unparalleled in the United States. The nucleus stems from Pierpont Morgan’s important 1909 acquisition of the collection of European drawings from the English Pre-Raphaelite painter and collector Charles Fairfax Murray. During the decades following Pierpont Morgan’s death in 1913, the collection of Flemish drawings was enriched with several notable acquisitions. The exhibited selection includes designs for paintings, tapestries, and sculpture, copies after Italian and German masters, portrait drawings, landscapes, and studies of the male nude.

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Book SynopsisGeorge Stubbs: ‘all done from Nature’ presents the first significant overview of Stubbs’s work in Britain for more than 30 years and brings together 80 paintings, drawings and publications from the National Gallery’s Whistlejacket to pieces never previously seen in public.Stubbs produced exceptional images of animals and people throughout his career. These were a product of his keen scientific eye and uncommon sense of compassion. Rather than trust to history and the untested example of his precursors, he championed doing as a way of thinking and deployed picture-making in pursuit of reality.On the title page of The Anatomy of the Horse, his groundbreaking publication that rewrote our understanding of equine biology, Stubbs confirmed that everything that followed was ‘all done from Nature’ – meaning that it all derived from his own painstaking analysis of the subject in front of him.George Stubbs: ‘all done from Nature’ accompanies the major exhibition at MK Gallery in Milton Keynes and the Mauritshuis in The Hague and includes new writing on the artist by Nicholas Clee, Martin Myrone, Martin Postle, Roger Robinson, Jenny Uglow and Alison E. Wright.

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Book SynopsisA groundbreaking and extensively researched account of the 1960s London art scene In the 1960s, London became a vibrant hub of artistic production. Postwar reconstruction, jet air travel, television arts programs, new color supplements, a generation of young artists, dealers, and curators, the influx of international film companies, the projection of “creative Britain” as a national brand—all nurtured and promoted the emergence of London as “a new capital of art.” Extensively illustrated and researched, this book offers an unprecedented, rich account of the social field that constituted the lively London scene of the 1960s. In clear, fluent prose, Tickner presents an innovative sequence of critical case studies, each of which explores a particular institution or event in the cultural life of London between 1962 and 1968. The result is a kaleidoscopic view of an exuberant decade in the history of British art.Distributed for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British ArtTrade Review“[E]loquent moments are investigated and analysed in a style that reminds us of the author’s academic credentials, at the same time as showing a wide and warm immersion in her subject and a generous range of reference.”—Julia Sutherland, Financial Times “A scholarly, beautifully constructed survey of the London art scene of the 1960s that focuses on a fascinating cast of glamorous characters and gritty drama, with much that resonates with today's art world”—Hettie Judah, Art Newspaper“Tickner unpicks the myths of London’s Pop Art counterculture, investigating the transformational moments that allowed the avant-garde to flourish.”—Holly Black, Elephant magazine“[A] handsome new volume, well-illustrated…which tells of the emergence of London as an international art scene, during the years that followed World War II”—Edward Lucie-Smith, ArtLyst“Tickner’s case studies range across institutions and events, from films and exhibitions to books and even protests.”—Dance Gazette“Lisa Tickner takes an in-depth look at the conditions that made 1960s London such a vibrant cultural hub.”—The Arts Society Magazine, ‘Best Books for June’“The YBA years had nothing on the London art scene of the '60s…Tickner offers a fresh account…through a series of original case studies.”—Apollo Magazine“[A] comprehensive survey of the burgeoning art scene in London 60 years ago, taking in everyone from Gilbert & George to David Hockney”—The Herald“London’s New Scene is full of unfamiliar material and original ideas…packed with information and reflection, [it] will prove invaluable to students and scholars but is written with a lightness of touch that will also appeal to the general reader.”—Art Daily “Chapters include examinations of Ken Russell’s seminal TV documentary Pop Goes the Easel, the influence of the Kasmin Gallery (the original white cube) and Michelangelo Antonioni’s film Blow Up, which perfectly captured the look and feel of the times. Well written and copiously illustrated, this is about as perfect a biography of a decade as you could wish for.”—Henry Walt, The Artist “London's New Scene is thus at once a corrective and an act of reappropriation. Our current reading of the 1960s comes from the populism of its initial writing, or, perhaps, packaging. All this needs careful unpicking, and Tickner provides it.”—Charles Darwent, Times Literary Supplement“Collectively, the texts represent one of the most imaginative sources on the 1960s London art world.”—Anne Massey, The Burlington Magazine“This richly illustrated book about the emergence of London as an international art scene is as much social history as art book. Besides bringing very precise details and perspective to key moments and subjects of the period, what it demonstrates clearly is that Sixties London was the crucible from which the new notion of a creative Britain emerged.”—Charlotte Gould, Cercles“An exceptionally well-researched and extensive study.”—Paul Flux, Albion Magazine

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Book SynopsisA revelatory study of one of the 18th century’s greatest artists, which places him in relation to the darker side of the English Enlightenment Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1797), though conventionally known as a ‘painter of light’, returned repeatedly to nocturnal images. His essential preoccupations were dark and melancholy, and he had an enduring concern with death, ruin, old age, loss of innocence, isolation and tragedy. In this long-awaited book, Matthew Craske adopts a fresh approach to Wright, which takes seriously contemporary reports of his melancholia and nervous disposition, and goes on to question accepted understandings of the artist. Long seen as a quintessentially modern and progressive figure – one of the artistic icons of the English Enlightenment – Craske overturns this traditional view of the artist. He demonstrates the extent to which Wright, rather than being a spokesman for scientific progress, was actually a melancholic and sceptical outsider, who increasingly retreated into a solitary, rural world of philosophical and poetic reflection, and whose artistic vision was correspondingly dark and meditative. Craske offers a succession of new and powerful interpretations of the artist’s paintings, including some of his most famous masterpieces. In doing so, he recovers Wright’s deep engagement with the landscape, with the pleasures and sufferings of solitude, and with the themes of time, history and mortality. In this book, Joseph Wright of Derby emerges not only as one of Britain’s most ambitious and innovative artists, but also as one of its most profound.Distributed for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British ArtTrade Review“A bold, punchy thesis, sure to ruffle academic feathers, and one that Craske, a reader in art history at Oxford Brookes, has been mulling for some time”—Alistair Sooke, The Daily Telegraph“In this beautifully illustrated volume Matthew Craske takes a fresh approach to one of Britain’s most exceptional and profoundly thoughtful painters.”—Rachel Campbell-Johnston, The Times ‘Best Art Books of the Year 2020’ “The “darkness” identified in the subtitle of this perception-shifting book was in the artist’s personality as well as on the canvas.”—Michael Prodger, The Sunday Times 'Best Art Books of 2020' "Matthew Craske's fascinating biography of Joseph Wright looks afresh at the artist known as the 'painter of light' [and] provides an alternative reading of this 'self-professed melancholic', drawing on neglected sources to mine the motivations and forces behind the creation of Wright's oeuvre...Craske's ambitious and innovative book invites the reader to reconsider this melancholy mind, this painter of darkness."—Emily Knight, Apollo Magazine"In this beautifully illustrated new book Matthew Craske overturns this view of the artist as a spokesman for scientific progress and reveals him to be someone very different."—ArtMag"[Joseph Wright's] most famous works show experiments and create the sense of wonder that must have accompanied them. He was much more than that, though, and this magnificently thorough biography and analysis includes a wide range of other figurative and landscape works."—Henry Malt, Artbookreview.net “Matthew Craske’s analysis of Wright’s life and art is clear and ample, with a combative streak that is an echo of Wright’s own demeanour...Craske does not merely address current scholarship; he also shakes it.”—James Hamilton, Literary Review“Matthew Craske’s spectacular new book directly challenges...our understanding of this enigmatic 18-century artist.”—Christopher Masters, World of Interiors“It is good to read a book so intent on its argument about a British painter, so sure that there is much at stake, so determined to break free of both neutral surveys and theoretical schemes...This intricate study leaves little doubt that Wright is not an intriguing minor artist with an attractive line in candlelit drama but among the great European painters of the eighteenth century.”—Alexandra Harris, Times Literary Supplement“Meticulous and eye-catching, [Wright’s] work is justly celebrated, and Matthew Craske goes to great lengths to explore his mindset and way of life.”—Elizabeth Fitzherbert, The Lady“Craske sees in Wright a much more complex and multifaceted character than previously portrayed.”—Mark Jones, Albion Magazine

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Book SynopsisThe first collective, critical historical study of women artists in Britain and France during the Revolutionary era In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, hundreds of women in London and Paris became professional artists, exhibiting and selling their work in unprecedented numbers. Many rose to the top of their nations’ artistic spheres and earned substantial incomes from their work, regularly navigating institutional inequalities expressly designed to exclude members of their sex. In the first collective, critical history of women artists in Britain and France during the Revolutionary era, Paris Spies-Gans explores how they engaged with and influenced the mainstream cultural currents of their societies at pivotal moments of revolutionary change. Through an interdisciplinary analysis of the experiences of these narrative painters, portraitists, sculptors, and draughtswomen, this book challenges longstanding assumptions about women in the history of art. Importantly, it demonstrates that women built profitable artistic careers by creating works in nearly every genre practiced by men, in similar proportions and to aesthetic acclaim. It also reveals that hundreds of women studied with male artists, and even learned to draw from the nude. Where traditional histories have left a void, this generously illustrated book illuminates a lively world of artistic production. Featuring an extensive range of these artists’ paintings, drawings, sculptures, and writings, alongside contemporary prints, satires, and works by their male peers, A Revolution on Canvas transforms our understanding of the opportunities and identities of women artists of the past. Distributed for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British ArtTrade Review“Revelatory.”—Sebastian Smee, Washington Post“Exhaustive, groundbreaking research. . . . [A] beautifully produced book.”—Jacqueline Riding, Art Newspaper, “Top Art Books of 2022”“By making its points compellingly and driving the agenda forward, A Revolution on Canvas is an important contribution to the field.”—Tabitha Barber, Art Newspaper“This publication, which might be one of the most anticipated art history books of the year, draws heavily on new research and statistical analysis on the subject of women artists during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.”—Sothebys.com“A wave of women pursued public recognition and commercial reward for their art at this time. It was a surge of activity, as Spies-Gans thoughtfully charts, hitherto unprecedented in history.”—Royal Academy Magazine“A Revolution on Canvas is an important contribution to our understanding of the history of art in the 18th century.”—WSG BulletinWinner of the 2023 Stansky Book Prize, sponsored by NACBSShortlisted for the 2023 Berger Prize, sponsored by The British Art JournalReceived Honorable Mention from the Louis A. Gottschalk Prize, sponsored by American Society for Eighteenth-Century StudiesName One of the Top Art Books of 2022 by The Art NewspaperOn the 2022 Top Art Books List by The Conversation

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Book SynopsisFrom Victorian breakthroughs in synthesising pigments to the BBC’s conversion to chromatic broadcasting, the story of colour’s technological development is inseparable from wider processes of modernisation that transformed Britain. This revolutionary history brings to light how new colour technologies informed ideas about national identity during a period of profound social change, when the challenges of industrialisation, decolonisation of the Empire and evolving attitudes to race and gender reshaped the nation. Offering a compelling new account of modern British visual culture that reveals colour to be central to its aesthetic trajectories and political formations, this chromatic lens deepens our understanding of how British art is made and what it means, offering a new way to assess the visual landscape of the period and interpret its colourful objects. Across a kaleidoscopic array of materials, from radiant paintings by major Victorian artists, vivid print advertisements and vibrant interwar fashion photographs, to glorious Technicolor films and the prismatic programmes of the BBC’s early years of colour television, The Rainbow’s Gravity reveals how Britain modernised colour and how colour, in turn, modernised Britain. Distributed for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

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Book SynopsisA groundbreaking approach to the problem of realism in Tudor art In Tudor and Jacobean England, visual art was often termed “lively.” This word was used to describe the full range of visual and material culture—from portraits to funeral monuments, book illustrations to tapestry. To a modern viewer, this claim seems perplexing: what could “liveliness” have meant in a culture with seemingly little appreciation for illusionistic naturalism? And in a period supposedly characterised by fear of idolatry, how could “liveliness” have been a good thing? In this wide-ranging and innovative book, Christina Faraday excavates a uniquely Tudor model of vividness: one grounded in rhetorical techniques for creating powerful mental images for audiences. By drawing parallels with the dominant communicative framework of the day, Tudor Liveliness sheds new light on a lost mode of Tudor art criticism and appreciation, revealing how objects across a vast range of genres and contexts were taking part in the same intellectual and aesthetic conversations. By resurrecting a lost model for art theory, Faraday re-enlivens the vivid visual and material culture of Tudor and Jacobean England, recovering its original power to move, impress and delight. Distributed for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British ArtTrade Review“The achievement of this wonderfully illustrated and bountifully referenced book is to make us question how we should look at post-Reformation art, and to find delight in its eccentricities.”—Brett Dolman, History Today

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Book SynopsisWhile there have been monographs on British artist-travellers in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, there has been no equivalent survey of what the writer, Henry Blackburn, described as ‘artistic travel' a hundred years later. By 1900, the ‘Grand Tourist' became a ‘globe-trotter' equipped with a camera, and despite the development of ‘knapsack photography', visual recording by the oldmedia of oil and watercolour on-the-spot sketching remained ever-popular.Kenneth McConkey's exciting new book explores the complex reasons for this in a series of chapters that take the reader from southern Europe to north Africa, the Middle East, India and Japan revealing many artist-travellers whose lives and works are scarcely remembered today. He alerts us to a generation of painters, trained in academies and artists' colonies in Europe that acted as crèches for those would go on to explore life and landscape further afi eld. The seeds of wanderlust were sown in student years in places where tuition was conducted in French or German, and models were often Spanish, Italian, or North African. At fi rst the countries of western Europe were explored afresh and cities like Tangier became artists' haunts. Training that prioritized plein air naturalism led to the common belief that a well-schooled young painter should be capable of working anywhere, and in any circumstances.At the height of British Imperial power, and facilitated by engineering and technological advance, the burgeoning tourism and travel industry rippled into the production of specialist goods and services that included a dedicated publishing sector. Essential to this phenomenon, the artist-traveller was often commissioned by London dealers to supply themed exhibitions that coincided with contracts for colour-illustrated books recording those exotic parts of the world that were newly available to the tourist, traveller, explorer, emigrant, or colonial civil servant.These works were not, however, value-neutral, and in some instances, they directly address Orientalism, Imperialism, and the Post-Colonial, in pictures that hybridize, or mimic indigenous ways of life. Behind each there is a range of interesting questions. Does experience live up to expectation? Is the street more desirable than the ancient ruin or sacred site? How were older ideas of the ‘picturesque' reborn in an age when ‘Grand Tours' once confi ned to Italy, now encompassed the globe? McConkey's widerangingsurvey hopes to address some of these issues.This richly illustrated book explores key sites visited by artist-travellers and investigates artists including Frank Brangwyn, Mary Cameron, Alfred East, John Lavery, Arthur Melville, Mortimer Menpes, as well as other under-researched British artists. Drawing the strands together, it redefi nes the picturesque, by considering issues of visualization and verisimilitude, dissemination and aesthetic value.Trade ReviewThis beautifully produced book offers a splendid survey of a staple of British art around 1900. * The Art Newspaper *

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Book SynopsisThis beautifully illustrated catalogue presents a selection of exceptional seventeenth-century Dutch drawings from the Peck Collection in the Ackland Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Featuring many previously unpublished and rarely exhibited works, the catalogue brings together examples by some of the best-known artists of the era such as Rembrandt, Jacques de Gheyn II, Samuel van Hoogstraten, and Frans van Mieris.The collection was donated to the museum in 2017 by the late Drs. Sheldon and Leena Peck. The transformative gift is comprised of over 130 largely seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Dutch and Flemish drawings, establishing the Ackland as one of a handful of university art museums in the United States where northern European drawings can be studied in depth.Drawn to Life presents around 70 works from this exceptional and diverse group of drawings amassed by the Pecks over four decades. Featuring new research and fresh insights into seventeenth-century drawing practice, the catalogue and accompanying exhibition celebrates the creativity and technical skills of Dutch artists who explored the beauty of the natural world and the multifaceted aspects of humanity.The catalogue features a broad selection of scenes of everyday life, landscapes, biblical and historical scenes, portraits, and preparatory studies, forming a dynamic and representative group of Dutch drawings made by some of the most outstanding artists of the period, including Abraham Bloemaert, Jacob van Ruisdael, Esaias van de Velde, Bartholomeus Breenbergh, Pieter Molijn, Aelbert Cuyp, Adriaen van Ostade, Ferdinand Bol, Nicolaes Maes, Jan Lievens, Gerard ter Borch, Adriaen van de Velde, Nicolaes Berchem, and Cornelis Dusart. Key sheets of remarkable quality by lesserknown artists such as Guillam Dubois, Herman Naiwincx, Willem Romeyn, and Jacobvan der Ulft, also comprise a core strength of the collection, and serve as a testament to the visual acuity of the Pecks as collectors.At the heart of the Peck Collection are several sheets by Rembrandt, including the sublime Noli me Tangere; a beautifully rendered late landscape, Canal and Boats with a Distant View of Amsterdam; and the superbly charming Studies of Women and Children, which was the last of Rembrandt’s seventeen known drawings with an inscription in his own hand to reach a public collection.Meticulously researched and written by Robert Fucci, Ph.D., Drawn to Life introduces both scholars and drawings enthusiasts to the depth and beauty of the Peck Collection at the Ackland Art Museum.Trade ReviewFrom an intellectual perspective this catalogue is a monumental achievement. It is also a splendidly designed book, beautifully illustrated and enriched with a sprinkling of enticing details that underscore so many of the salient characteristics of Dutch draftsmanship. * Misc US Reviewer *

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Book SynopsisThis scholarly publication presents the work of the designer, painter and illustrator Claude Gillot (1673–1722). The first volume on the artist in English, it accompanies a major exhibition at the Morgan Library& Museum that explores Gillot’s inventive and highly original draftsmanship and places his work in the context of artistic and intellectual activity in Paris ca. 1700.The history of eighteenth-century French art under the ancien régime is dominated by great names. But the artistic scene in Paris at the dawn of the century was diverse and included artists who forged careers largely outside of the Royal Academy. Among them was Claude Gillot. Known primarily as a draftsman, Gillot specialized in witty scenes taken from the Italian commedia dell’arte plays performed at fairground theaters and vignettes of satyrs enacting rituals that expose human folly. The book will address Gillot’s work as a designer, painter, and book illustrator, and advance a chronology for his career. Crafting a timeline for Gillot’s life and work will clarify his relationship with his younger collaborators Antoine Watteau and Nicolas Lancret.Through an artistic biography and six chapters, each devoted to an aspect of his oeuvre, Gillot’s role in developing quintessential rococo subjects is established. We follow Gillot from his start as the son of a decorative painter in the bishopric of Langres to his arrival in Paris in the 1690s, as the city and its secular entertainments flourished apart from the royal court at Versailles. Myriad opportunities awaited artists outside official channels, and Gillot built his career working in the theater and as a painter and designer long before seeking official academic status. His involvement with writers, playwrights, and printmakers helped define his sphere. Gillot’s preference for theatrical subjects brought him critical attention, and also attracted talented assistants such as Watteau and Lancret. Gillot came to prominence around 1712 working at the Paris Opéra and as a printmaker and illustrator of books, lending his droll humor to satires. By 1720, Gillot was enlisted to design costumes for the last royal ballet, one of the final projects of his career. He died nine months after his most celebrated pupil, Watteau. The sale of his estate, which including his designs and many etched copper plates, provided material for printmakers and publishers and ensured Gillot’s lasting fame among print connoisseurs. His oeuvre as a draftsman and painter, however, was largely forgotten until drawings and canvases began to emerge in the first half of the twentieth century.Trade ReviewUntil now, there has been no full-length study of Gillot in English, which makes Jennifer Tonkovich’s book very welcome. Produced to accompany an exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York, it stands on its own as a major work of scholarship. * The Art Newspaper *As beautifully proposed in ‘Claude Gillot: Satire in the Age of Reason’—a novel, revelatory exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum organized by Jennifer Tonkovich, curator of prints and drawings—the artist’s neglected story and oeuvre are ripe for another look. * The Wall Street Journal *[S]omething to marvel at. * The New York Sun *[The] artist shines, delivering proto-rococo gaiety with a delightful edge. * The New Yorker *

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Book SynopsisThis beautiful publication accompanies an exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum of the work of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778). It is the most important study of Piranesi’s drawings to appear in more than a generation. In a letter written near the end of his life, Giovanni Battista Piranesi explained to his sister that he had lived away from his native Venice because he could find no patronsthere willing to support “the sublimity of my ideas.” He resided instead in Rome, where he became internationally famous working as a printmaker, designer, architect, archaeologist, theorist, dealer, and polemicist. While Piranesi’s lasting fame is based above all on his etchings, he was also an intense, accomplished, and versatile draftsman, and much of his work was first developed in vigorous drawings.The Morgan Library& Museum holds what is arguably the largest and most important collection of these works, more than 100 drawings that include early architectural caprices, studies for prints, measured design drawings, sketches for a range of decorative objects, a variety of figural drawings, and views of Rome and Pompeii. These works form the core of the book, which will be published on the occasion of the Morgan’s Spring 2023 exhibition of Piranesi drawings. More than merely an exhibition catalogue or a study of the Morgan’s Piranesi holdings, however, this publication is a monograph that offers a complete survey of Piranesi’s work as a draftsman. It includes discussion of Piranesi’s drawings in public and private collections worldwide, with particular attention paid to the large surviving groups of drawings in New York, Berlin, Hamburg, and London; it also puts the large newly discovered cache of Piranesi material in Karlsruhe in context.The most comprehensive study of Piranesi’s drawings to appear in more than a generation, the book includes more than 200 illustrations, and while focused on the drawings it offers insights on Piranesi’s print publications, his church of Santa Maria del Priorato, and his work as a designer and dealer. In sum, the present work offers a new account of Piranesi’s life and work, based on the evidence of his drawings.Trade ReviewThese efforts do much to explain his remarkable staying power and the current relevance of even his loopiest creations. * New York Review of Books *Centuries later, Piranesi still enraptures. * The Architect's Newspaper *

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Book SynopsisIn London in 1770 Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) remarked, ‘What a work could be written on Shakespeare, Hogarth and Garrick! There is something similar in the genius of all three.’ Two-and-a-half centuries on, Robin Simon’s highly original and illuminating book takes up the challenge.William Hogarth (1697–1764) and David Garrick (1717–1779) closely associated themselves with Shakespeare, embodying a relationship between plays, painting and performance that had been understood since Antiquity and which shaped the rules for history painting drawn up by the Académie royale in Paris in the seventeenth century.History painting was considered the highest form of art: a picture illustrating a moment drawn from just a few lines in a revered text. Hogarth’s David Garrick as Richard III (1745) transformed those ideas because, although it looked like a history painting, it was also a portrait of an actor in performance. With it, Hogarth established the genre of theatrical portraiture, a new and distinctively British kind ofhistory painting.This book offers a fresh examination of theatrical portraits through close analysis of the pictures and of the texts used in performance. It also examines the central role of the theatre in British culture, while highlighting the significance of Shakespeare, Hogarth and Garrick in the European Enlightenment and the rise of Romanticism. In this context another trio of genius features prominently: Lichtenberg, GottholdEphraim Lessing and Denis Diderot.Familiar paintings and performances are seen in an entirely new light, while unfamiliar pictures are also introduced, including major paintings and drawings that have never been published.The final chapter shows that the inter-relationship between plays, painting and performance survived into the age of cinema, revealing the pictorial sources of Laurence Olivier’s legendary film Richard III.

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Book SynopsisArtists and travel have for centuries been intertwined where the desire to explore beyond the confines of one’s home has provoked a truly astonishing outpouring of creativity, much of which was captured through drawings and prints. Comprising over 100 such works, Connecting Worlds: Artists& Travel will be the first exhibition to approach the subject through the lens of artists’ experiences of travel from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century, before the establishment of the railroad and use of photography as a means of recording changed these experiences deeply. A collaboration between the Kupferstich-Kabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, and the Katrin Bellinger Collection, London, the exhibition will include works by major artists, lesser known professionals as well as amateurs, mostly from Northern Europe, amongst them Albrecht Dürer, Hans Holbein the Younger, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Wenceslaus Hollar, Zacharias Wagner, Valentin Klotz, Maria Sibylla Merian, Angelika Kauffmann, Franz Pforr, Augusta von Buttlar, Julie von Egloffstein,Ludwig Richter, and Friedrich Preller the Elder.Divided into three sections, “On the road”, “Destination Rome”, and “Dresden”, the exhibition begins by exploring artists on the road and what they regarded as important to record in sketchbooks and individual sheets. The second section looks at Rome as one of the most important destinations for Northern travellers, with its incomparable remains of antiquity and as the seat of the Catholic Church that celebrated its religious and administrative life through processions and public spectacle.The journey ends in Dresden, as a centre for collecting, cultural exchange and glamorous festivities, ambitiously competing with other international courts since the time of Augustus the Strong. A different kind of travel, made possible by collecting images and stories of landscapes, flora, fauna, and cultures previously unknown in Europe, is explored. This section closes with the story of the IndonesianRomantic artist Raden Saleh, who first visited Dresden in 1839, and was warmly welcomed by the Saxon court.The richly illustrated catalogue will feature essays by an international panel of experts addressing such topics as the uses of artist sketchbooks across time, written and visual accounts of travel in books and prints, encounters with the Ottoman world, travel and collecting at the Saxon court.

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Book SynopsisThis fascinating book presents the first biography of Helen Coombe, a woman admired not only for her artistic skill, but also for her intellect, personality and wit. It reveals her family background and education, her place in the Arts and Crafts Movement and her outstanding artistic output.

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Book SynopsisTHE COMMONALITY OF HUMANS THROUGH ART: HOW ART CONNECTS MANKIND THROUGH THE AGES explores how art has linked different cultures over the past 30,000 years. Organized thematically rather than chronologically or geographically, it traces how all humans are connected from birth to death. Ten leading scholars offer essays on how the language of art has been used by cultures to explain human behavior. The book begins with a discussion of the brain and art, aesthetics and human cultures, and creation myths. With these important subjects as a foundation, it moves into explorations of lived experiences: motherhood and the family, the world around us, conflict and warfare, portraying ourselves and others, sickness and healing, religion and rituals, and death. Each chapter is illustrated by outstanding artworks showing the commonality between cultures as they expressed their lives to their own people and those who followed them. The essays are written to the lay reader so the book can be a beautiful showcase on a coffee-table, an important art reference book in a library, or an introductory textbook in archaeology, cultural anthropology, and art history classes.

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Book SynopsisXuanhe Catalogue of Paintings is the first complete translation of the well-known document produced at the court of Emperor Huizong (r. 1100–1125). Dated to 1120, the Catalogue is divided into ten categories of subject matter. Under Daoist and Buddhist Subjects, Figural Subjects, Architecture, Barbarian Tribes, Dragons and Fish, Landscape, Domestic and Wild Animals, Flowers and Birds, Ink Bamboo, and Vegetables and Fruit are biographies of 231 painters, ranging from famous early masters, such as Wu Daozi (ca. 685-758) and Li Cheng (919-967), to otherwise unknown artists of the Song-dynasty court, including fourteen eunuch officials and sixteen male and female members of the royal family. Titles of their pictures held in the palace collection are listed for each artist. These 6,396 paintings testify to the visual culture experienced by viewers of the twelfth century. The author's Introduction analyzes the Catalogue as a source of evidence about the formation of the Song-dynasty palace collection and argues that the majority of its pictures were already in the collection before Huizong's reign, as a result of conquest, confiscation, tribute, gift culture, collecting by earlier emperors, and the production of academy artists and regular officials at the Song court. Under Huizong's reign, around a thousand other pictures were added to the Catalogue through acquisition and reattribution. Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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Book SynopsisIf you think TikTok is just an old Ke$ha song and your back feels like it's gonna crack any time you bend over, this Millennial Lotería: El Mid-Life Crisis Expansion Pack is perfect for you. With new cards like El Back Pain, La Insomnia, and El Dad Bod, you'll not only feel seen, but attacked as well. Because if you can't laugh at yourself, Gen Z will do it for you. Millennial Lotería: El Mid-Life Crisis Expansion Pack includes: • 10 new cards • 10 extra game boards • 108 extra bitcoin tokens OMG Important Info: This expansion pack does not contain the full Millennial Lotería game, which is sold separately. If you don't own it yet, make sure to add one to your cart. Like, right now!

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Book SynopsisThe Golden Age in Holland and Flanders roughly spanned the 17th century and was a period of enormous advances in the fields of commerce, scienceand art. Still lifes, landscape paintings, and romantic depictions of everyday life became valued by the increasingly wealthy merchant classes in the Dutch provinces, while religious and historic paintings as well as portraits continued to appeal to the Flemish patronage. The Golden Age brought us Rembrandt, Vermeer, Rubens, and Van Dyck, but it was also the period of Frans Hals' revolutionary portraiture, Adriaen Brouwer's depictions of the working class at play, Jan Brueghel's velvety miniatures, and Hendrick Avercamp's lively winter landscapes. Norbert Wolf applies his vast understanding of the interplay between history, culture, and art to explore the forces that led to the Golden Age in Holland and Flanders and how this period influenced later generations of artists. Accompanied by luminous color illustrations, Wolf's acce

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Book SynopsisWho spoke of the modern in Southeast Asia? When and where was the modern written? How was it written? How was it received? This collection brings together nearly 300 texts that were originally published between the late 19th to late 20th centuries, selected by a group of scholars as responses to questions such as these. The texts were produced chiefly in various locations in the region, by artists, critics, historians and curators in 13 languages, many of which had never before been translated into the English language. Years in the making, this publication is the first to present such breadth and depth of art writing in the region of Southeast Asia, and will be a valuable resource to students, teachers, scholars and those interested in Southeast Asian studies and art history.

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Book SynopsisA sustained engagement between contemporary art and philosophy relating to our place in, and responsibility to, the nonhuman world How do contemporary art and theory contemplate the problem of the “bio” of biopolitics and bioart? How do they understand the question of “life” that binds human and nonhuman worlds in their shared travail? In Art and Posthumanism, Cary Wolfe argues for the reconceptualization of nature in art and theory to turn the idea of the relationship between the human and the planet upside down.Wolfe explores a wide range of contemporary artworks—from Sue Coe’s illustrations of animals in factory farms and Eduardo Kac’s bioart to the famous performance pieces of Joseph Bueys and the video installations of Eija-Liisa Ahtila, among others—examining how posthumanist theory can illuminate, and be illuminated by, artists’ engagement with the more-than-human world. Looking at biological and social systems, the question of the animal, and biopolitics, Art and Posthumanism explores how contemporary art rivets our attention on the empirically thick, emotionally charged questions of “life” and the “living” amid ecological catastrophe.One of the foremost theorists of posthumanism, Wolfe pushes that philosophy out of the realm of the purely theoretical to show how a posthumanist engagement with particular works and their conceptual underpinnings help to develop more potent ethical and political commitments. Trade Review "Conversational in style yet highly ambitious in its ideas, this inspiring collection explores different ways of being in the world for humans and nonhumans alike. Cary Wolfe provides a unique approach to thinking both about art and with art—but also a new possibility for seeing and sensing the world through art."—Joanna Zylinska, King’s College London "Cary Wolfe is one of the few animal studies scholars thoroughly fluent in the complex language of contemporary visual arts culture, and he brings his talents for exquisite prose to Art and Posthumanism. I can think of no more valuable volume for makers engaged in the culture of interspecific ecological entanglements."—Mark Dion, visual artist "This important book provides readers with fascinating, crisscrossing paths into Wolfe’s entanglement of contemporary art world and posthumanist theory."—Ecozon@Table of ContentsContentsPreface1. In Lieu of an Introduction: A Conversation with Giovanni AloiPart I. Systems: Social, Biological, Ecological2. Lose the Building: Meaning and Form in Diller and Scofidio’s Blur3. Time as Architectural Medium: Koolhaas and Mau’s Tree City4. The Installation That Almost Ate MePart II. “The Animal”5. From Dead Meat to Glow-in-the-Dark Bunnies: Seeing “The Animal Question” in Contemporary Art6. Apes Like Us7. Condors at the End of the World: Rethinking Environmental Art8. Each Time Unique: The Poetics of ExtinctionPart III. The Biopolitical9. What Is the Bio- of Biopolitics and Bioart?10. No Immunity: The Biopolitical Worlds of Eija-Liisa Ahtila11. The Miracle of the Familiar: A Conversation with Eija-Liisa Ahtila12. The Biopolitical Drama of Joseph Beuys NotesIndex

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Book SynopsisWhether your character is jumping for joy or grappling with an opponent, this book provides all the essential techniques to draw more lifelike action figures in the classic Japanese manga style.The comprehensive introduction first shows the reader the physical anatomy of male vs. female figures and gives important tips on proportions, perspective and small but often-overlooked details such as the relative differences between male and female hands, fingers and feet.Five subsequent chapters cover over 40 action poses in the following categories: Chapter 1: Action (e.g. running and jumping) Chapter 2: Martial Arts (e.g. punching and kicking) Chapter 3: Interacting (e.g. judo holds and high fives) Chapter 4: Weapons (e.g. swords and knives) Chapter 5: Reacting (e.g. dodging a punch or taking a punch) Each pose and movement is illustrated with a rough sketch outline followed by a highlighted manga drawing containing detailed annotations by the author. After studying the sketches, you practice the drawing techniques in a tracing section at the end of each chapter. Each chapter also provides professional tips on the use of color and shading for greater realism.Special sections contain information and tips on particular topics of interest, such as how to draw clothes, hair and facial expressions or how to create special effects. At the end of the book, an actual 6-page comic strip gives readers the opportunity to practice what they have learned by filling in the missing elements.Trade Review"…this book breaks down the various poses you find in the genre, from the basics like running and jumping to the more complex like fight scenes. And when I say fight scenes, I mean all the components. Weapons, hand-to-hand-combat, throwing a punch, dodging a punch--this manual covers it."--Book Riot

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Book SynopsisExpert colorist Teruko Sakurai takes you to the end of the rainbow—and beyond—in this inspiring color dictionary!Over 2,750 traditional Japanese color combinations are presented, organized into 100 different themes associated with the seasons, landscapes and artistic heritage of Japan. Whether it's a shower of pink cherry blossoms, the flutter of a carp flap or the austere and cool tones of Mt. Fuji, flipping the pages of this color dictionary is like taking a stroll through the sensual delights of Japanese culture in all its dazzling tones, hues and palettes.Each two-page section in this richly-illustrated book presents a different theme with the following information: An introduction to the color scheme and a description of how it can be used A number-coded nine-color palette board showing the range of shades and hues that complement and comprise the scheme CMYK, RGB and HEX (the color code used in Japan) references for all nine colors 26 examples including two- and three-color combinations with photos and illustrations This is an indispensable guide for graphic designers, illustrators, decorators, artists and publishing professionals. It will also be enjoyable and inspiring for readers planning their own home design or art projects.

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Book SynopsisPut your money on Leonardo in this restaging of the Turner prize of the High Renaissance.The GuardianAt the turn of the 16th century, three titans of the Italian Renaissance briefly crossed paths, competing for the attention of the most powerful patrons in Republican Florence. In January 1504 the city's most prominent artists came together to advise on an appropriate location for Michelangelo's nearly finished sculpture of David. Among them was Leonardo da Vinci, who like Michelangelo had only recently returned to his native Florence. In this beautifully designed book, Scott Nethersole and Per Rumberg take Michelangelo's celebrated Taddei Tondo as their starting point, and examine the rivalry between Michelangelo and Leonardo, and the influence of both on the young Raphael. Some of the finest examples of Italian Renaissance drawing are reproduced, including Leonardo's Burlington House Cartoon and studies by Leonardo and Michelangelo for their murals commissioned by the Florentine government for the newly constructed council hall in the Palazzo della Signoria.

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Book SynopsisInterior stylist Bea Mombaers is passionate about vintage and design; she's always on the lookout for special finds and unique objects. Over time she developed a distinctive signature style. This book presents Bea's work and universe as seen through the lenses of different photographers. The photos show interiors arranged by Bea, but also intriguing details, beautiful still lifes and objects with a story Bea feels inspired by. The photos are presented according to the key moments in a day: waking up, breakfast, break, lunch, coffee, apero, dinner and party. Bea is a source of inspiration and interior dreams, and a personal view on Bea Mombaers's world and her favourite projects up to now.

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Book SynopsisBest known for his depictions of fierce samurai warriors in battle, Utagawa Kuniyoshi also produced landscapes, portraits of Kabuki actors, and images of mythical animals. His dynamic action scenes and fantastic creatures are recognized today as precursors of manga and anime. This dazzling volume by Matthi Forrer, one of the leading experts on ukiyo-e art, traces Kuniyoshi’s entire career. Chapters look at the major aspects of Kuniyoshi’s oeuvre; his book illustrations and portraits of fashionable women; his enormously popular series featuring actors, warriors, and landscapes; and the influence of Western art on his career. Meticulous, large-scale reproductions highlight the work’s clear outlines, elegantly muted palette, and precise details—from electrifying depictions of a tiger, mid-pounce, and light-hearted interpretations of Chinese folktales, to the terrifying figures of samurai swordsmen and romantic winter landscapes. A Japanese-style binding and box complete this luxurious package that promises an endlessly absorbing journey into the life of Kuniyoshi during the latter days of Japan’s Edo period.

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Book SynopsisHannah Höch (1889–1978) moved between differing worlds: as an editorial assistant with a major Berlin-based magazine publisher, and as the only woman who could hold her own in the German capital’s vibrant Dada scene of the 1920s. Höch broke with the traditions of representation and vision. Her works dissected a world marked by the catastrophe of the Great War and an intense consumer culture, and reassembled it in revolutionary, poetic, and often ironic ways. Höch kept to her artistic means and her poetic-radical imagination, shimmering between social observation and dream world, even in the post-WWII period. Scissors and glue were the weapons of her art of montage, of which she was a co-inventor. Cutting and montage also shaped film, still a new medium in the 1920s, which strongly influenced Höch’s art: she understood her assembled pictures as static films. This richly illustrated and expertly annotated book explores comprehensively for the first time Höch’s fascination with film and the visual culture of the modern industrial age. It demonstrates how montage evolved in a field of tension between artistic experimentation, commercial exploitation, and political appropriation. A text-collage on the history of montage, in which major protagonists of Modernism and Avant-garde such as Sergej Eisenstein, Raoul Hausmann, László Moholy-Nagy, Walter Ruttman, Kurt Schwitters, Theo van Doesburg, and Dsiga Wertow, have their say, rounds out the volume.

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Book SynopsisFirst published in 1953, Artemisia is a classic of 20th century Italian literature. From its first publication in 1953, Artemisia, a novel about Artemisia Gentileschi, an iconic 17th century painter, by Anna Banti, a brilliant Italian art historian, established itself as a feminist masterpiece. Like Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower and Marguerite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian, Artemisia is a book about the process of artistic creation. Much in Gentileschi's life marked her out as a victim - rape at the age of 18, a forced marriage to a man she did not love and, a powerful, patriarchal father, Orazio Gentileschi, who failed to value her artistic genius. But Gentileschi did not accept the status of victim, in the years between 1610 and 1650, she produced over 50 paintings that have established her as one of the great painters of all time. She gave up everything - "all tenderness, all claim to feminine virtues" to dedicate herself solely to painting. Sacrifices that Anna Banti, herself an artist, fully understands and captures in this amazing novel.

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Book SynopsisScottish architect, designer, and painter Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928) was one of the earliest pioneers of modern architecture and design. While he did not receive much recognition in his hometown of Glasgow during his lifetime, his bold new blend of simplicity and poetic detail inspired modernists across Europe. Mackintosh’s avant-garde approach embraced a variety of media as well as fresh stylistic devices. His multi-faceted oeuvre incorporated architecture, furniture, graphic design, landscapes, and flower studies. He embraced strong lines, elegant proportions, and natural motifs, combining an adventurous dose of japonisme with a modernist sensibility for function. He preferred bold black typography, restrained shapes, and tall, generous windows suffusing rooms with light. Much of his work was collaborative practice with his wife, fellow artist Margaret Macdonald. The couple made up half of the loose Glasgow collective known as “The Four”; the other two were Margaret’s sister, Frances, and her husband, Herbert MacNair. On the continent, the “Glasgow Style” was met with delight. In Italy, Germany, and, in particular, Austria, artists of the Viennese Secession and Art Nouveau drew much from its rectilinear yet lyrical forms. In this introductory book, we take in Mackintosh’s practice across art, architecture, and design to explore his particular combination of the statuesque and sensual and its vital influence on modernist expression across Europe. Featured projects include his complete scheme for the Willow Tea Rooms and the Mackintosh Building at the Glasgow School of Art, widely considered Mackintosh’s masterwork.

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Book SynopsisThis book investigates attention from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including philosophy, history, anthropology, art history, and comparative literature.Trade ReviewThis book brings together beautifully written and diverse perspectives on attention: as phenomenon, scholarly practice, memoir, meditation, metahistory, and art. Required reading in an era of exponential financialization and attention deficit disorder at civilizational scale. -- Blaise Agüera y Arcas, Google ResearchThese vivid and varied essays are a much-needed antidote to the flattened attention of the click economy. Here are the many dimensions of attention we've been missing: historical, philosophical, psychological, anthropological, and, yes, technological. This timely collection broadens and deepens current debates about the future of attention—and distraction. -- Lorraine Daston, author of Rules: A Short History of What We Live ByScenes of Attention is, in all the best ways, scholarly, inspiring, and unsettling. Its diverse contributors address this most urgent of topics so wisely, and articulate the results of their thinking with such readable lucidity, that one feels as if the complexities of attention had been brought freshly before us, in higher definition than before, and with a depth that had previously been foreshortened. -- Christopher Mole, author of Attention Is Cognitive Unison: An Essay in Philosophical PsychologyA wonderfully eclectic examination of attention, Scenes of Attention illuminates this central aspect of mind through different vignettes and rich theoretical perspectives that reveal the diversity of how we attend, how attention is shaped, manipulated and transformed. Accessible and engaging, it will provide ample material for productive reflection. -- Wayne Wu, author of Movements of the Mind: A Theory of Attention, Intention and ActionA very stimulating volume, Scenes of Attention revolves around the question of how best to approach, understand, and respond to the 'crisis of attention' that we all feel, to varying degrees, in the age of hypermediated multitaskery. These essays provide an interdisciplinary inquiry into the most pressing (and enduring) issues around the attention ecology. -- Dominic Pettman, author of Infinite DistractionTable of ContentsIntroduction, by D. Graham Burnett and Justin E. H. SmithPart I. Histories of Attention1. The Discovery of Attention, by Richard J. Spiegel2. Attention and Boredom in Early American Psychology, by Henry M. Cowles3. Attending to the Birds: Ornithologists and Listening, by Alexandra Hui4. Attention, Art, and Psychotherapeutics, by Julian ChehirianPart II. Philosophies of Attention5. Attention: Mechanism and Virtue, by Carlos Montemayor6. Attention, Technology, and Creativity, by Carolyn Dicey Jennings and Shadab Tabatabaeian7. Attention to Absence and Imagination, by Jonardon Ganeri8. Dispatch from the Jhāna Wars: Attention Practice in Online Buddhism, by John TreschPart III. Attention, Technology, Culture9. Wearable Attention: Course-Correction for Wandering Minds, by Natasha Dow Schüll10. Attentional ‘Ownership’: Online Education and Self-Possession, by Brian Yuan11. Attention is All You Need: Humans and Computers in the Time of Neural NetworksNick Seaver12. Medium Focus, by Joanna FiducciaPart IV. Endgame(s)13. Attention Fast, Attention Slow: Obsession, Compulsion, Holding Close, by Yael Geller14. Units of Intensive Care: Poetic Attention and the Precarious Body, by Lucy Alford BibliographyList of ContributorsIndex

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