Human figures depicted in the arts Books

Book SynopsisIn this title 40 young artists realise the manifestations of modern Japan through their own unique brand of self-portraiture. These artists have provided the concerns of young Japan and illustrated the pressures of society.

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Book SynopsisDuring the course of the 19th century, a relatively modern medium entered the private space of Iranian houses of the wealthy and became a popular feature of interior design in Persia. This was print media - lithographed images on paper and postcards - and their subject was European women. These idealised images adorned houses across the country throughout the Qajar period and this trend was particularly fashionable in Isfahan and mural decorations at the entrance gate of the Qaysarieh bazaar. The interest in images of Western women was an unusual bi-product of Iran's early political and cultural encounters with the West. In a world where women were rarely seen in public and, even then, were heavily veiled, the notion of European women dressed in - by Iranian standards - elegant and revealing clothing must have sparked much curiosity and some titillation among well-to-do merchants and aristocrats who felt the need to create some association, however remote, with these alien creatures. The introduction of such images began during the Safavid era in the 17th century with frescoes in royal palaces. This spread to other manifestations in the form of tile work and porcelain in the Qajar era, which became a testament to the popularity of this visual phenomenon among Iran's urban elite in the 19th and early 20th century. Parviz Tanavoli, the prominent Iranian artist and sculptor, here brings together the definitive collection of these unique images. European Women in Persian Houses will be essential for collectors and enthusiasts interested in Iranian art, culture and social history.Table of ContentsPreface Part I Zan-e Farangi (Farangi Woman) Occidentalism Iran in the Late 19th Century The Appearance of European Women in Persian Painting Images of European Women in th e 17th Century in Iran Sukiasian House Part II Return of Images of Farangi Women in Iran Images of Farangi Women in Later Persian Houses Use of Original Western Prints of Images of European Women Mirror Rooms Shahshahani House Zavelian House House of Mushir al-Mulk Homa’i House Trays Part III Iranian Contribution Farangi Women on Rugs and Other Media Fatima Farangi Women on Rugs, Qalamkars, and Tiles

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Book SynopsisProvides an overview of French art circa 1500, a dynamic, transitional period when the country, resurgent after the dislocations of the Hundred Years' War, invaded Italy and all media flourished.Trade Review"American readers are well served by the more compact, beautifully illustrated English version. Recommended."—W. Cahn, Choice -- W. Cahn * Choice *

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Book SynopsisWilliam Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum accompanies a groundbreaking exhibition organized by the Hunterian at the University of Glasgow, in collaboration with the Yale Center for British Art, to celebrate the 2018 tercentenary of The Hunterian's founder, Dr. William Hunter (17181783). This publication is the first in 150 years to assess the contribution made by Hunter, the Scottish-born obstetrician, anatomist, and collector, to the development of the modern museum as a public institution. Essays examine how Hunter gathered his collection to be used as a source of knowledge and instruction, encompassing outstanding paintings and works on paper, coins and medals, and anatomical and zoological specimens. Hunter also possessed ethnographic artifacts from Spain, the Middle East, China, and the South Pacific, and was an avid collector of medieval manuscripts and incunabula; these were all located within one of the most important working libraries of eighteenth-century London. Published by the Yale Center for British Art in association with The HunterianExhibition Schedule:The Hunterian, Glasgow (09/28/1801/06/19)Yale Center for British Art (02/14/1905/20/19)Trade Review“There is, as the exhibition and [this] scholarly catalog demonstrate, a thread running through this collection, a way of thinking associated with the Enlightenment that led William Hunter to spend decades gathering artifacts and then specifying that they be housed in a posthumous museum.”—Edward Rothstein, Wall Street Journal“Hunter’s book, the subject of an essay by Mungo Campbell, is one of the most remarkable and also most beautiful medical publications of its time.” —Duncan Macmillan, The Art NewspaperLong listed for the Historians of British Art Book Prize

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“[The Woman in White] argues that Hiffernan was more collaborator than victim, an assessment that strives to write her into history as Whistler’s indispensable partner.”—Gioia Diliberto, Wall Street Journal“[A] lavish volume . . . illuminating . . . Ms. MacDonald’s deep research has corrected some misinformation and unearthed important new facts.” —Gioia Diliberto, Wall Street Journal“The Woman in White examines the relationship between the prickly American painter and the muse-mistress who modeled for his haunting ‘Symphonies in White’ . . . [and] argues that the two formed a symbiotic partnership.”—Michael Dirda, Washington Post (“This Season’s Hidden Gems”)“There are…illuminating chapters retelling Hiffernan’s biography and the story of her relationship with Whistler, alongside fascinating and new discoveries pertaining to the physical makeup of The Woman in White, its materiality, and its legacy, once more emphasising the formalist facets of white on white as a premodernist theme.”—Marte Stinis, British Association of Victorian Studies Newsletter

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Book SynopsisDuring his reign and following his death, the physiognomy of Alexander the Great was one of the most famous in history, adorning numerous works of art. This study demonstrates how the various portraits transmit not so much a likeness of Alexander as a set of cliches that symbolized the ruler.

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Book SynopsisEurope and the World Beyond focuses geographically on peoples of South America and the Mediterranean as well as Africa, but conceptually it emphasizes the ways that visual constructions of blacks mediated between Europe and a faraway African continent that was impinging ever more closely on daily life in cities and ports engaged in the slave trade.Trade ReviewThis volume, part of a monumental series about the depiction of black peoples in Western art history, covers the period from the Renaissance and Baroque eras into the imperialism and colonialism of the 18th century… The volume is richly illustrated with artworks from many sources in a wide variety of media… This volume and the rest of the series has inestimable value in furthering understanding of how attitudes toward issues of race have evolved. -- Eugene C. Burt * Library Journal (starred review) *Inspired to collect images of Africans and the diaspora during the height of the Civil Rights movement, Dominique Schlumberger de Menil and her husband John amassed over 30,000 images as an artistic and academic counter against racism. These images were sorted, studied, and grouped into a series of volumes originally published in the late 1970s and early 1980s; long out of print, they are now beautifully reproduced along with additional color plates and scholarly commentary. This edition focuses on the depictions of blacks during the 16th–18th centuries. Due to Eurocentric attitudes of the time, few works depict black individuals; rather, people of African descent were often studied at an anthropological level and commonly depicted as pages, slaves, or servants. Though the series has rightfully become embraced by academia, even armchair historians will find the book to be a feast of information and commentary. Digressions on the black Magus and the debate about the race of Madonna and Jesus are fascinating, but it is the breathtaking collection of artwork that makes the greatest impact. The rich and varied array, printed on high-quality paper, must be seen to be fully appreciated. * Publishers Weekly (starred review) *Monumental and groundbreaking volumes…[with] beautifully reproduced and thought-provoking images… A vast array of different ‘Images of the Black’ appear in these volumes, from statues of black saints such as St. Maurice or St. Benedict the Moor, to portraits of notable African ambassadors and kings, poets and musicians, or drawings of literary characters such as Shakespeare’s Othello, Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko, or Yarico from George Colman’s Inkle and Yarico… Africans have been painted and sculpted by some of the most eminent artists in the Western tradition, including Titian, Tiepolo, Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Reynolds, Hogarth, Watteau and Gainsborough. More importantly, they have not been caricatured, but sensitively portrayed by these masters, their humanity captured on canvas for all to see… In placing such a vast variety of different images together, both positive and negative, these volumes show that the ‘Image of the Black’ was not at all homogenous but rather reflected the wide range of the Western response to the ‘other.’ …Seen through the prism of ‘Western Art,’ these ‘Images of the Black’ often tell us more about the Europeans and their agendas than the Africans they portray. Nonetheless, the cumulative effect of the images is to demonstrate a continuous black presence in the Western imagination and experience… This series will pose new questions to scholars of art, history and literature and provoke us all to reconsider the role of ‘the Black’ in Western civilization. -- Miranda Kaufmann * Times Literary Supplement *A fascinating story of the changing image of Africa’s people in Western art. The images are simply extraordinary and the scholarship inspiring. Anyone who cares about Western art or about Africa and her diaspora ought to know these magnificent volumes. -- Kwame Anthony AppiahIn addition to being an indispensable guide to the evolving meanings of racial difference, these dazzling volumes filled with extraordinary images and rich arguments contribute to an alternative history of the Western world. An invaluable gift for both specialists and general readers. -- Paul Gilroy, author of The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness

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Book SynopsisEmphasizing the role of erotic entertainment as an outlet and agent of modern sensibilities, Uncovering Paris: Scandals and Nude Spectacles in the Belle Epoque offers a fresh approach to important topics of the period - Bohemian artists, the New Woman, and press censorship - and reinterprets them through the lens of la femme nue.

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Book SynopsisA manual of techniques that visually simplify and refine the study of the body's muscles and skeleton into concepts that can easily be used by beginning and intermediate artists alike. It offers tips such as how to self-check the proportions of the head and body to make sure they are accurate.

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Book SynopsisIn addition, by restoring these works to their original context – political, philosophical and aesthetic – the author opens up unexpected new readings of images and texts which had previously appeared to be self-explanatory.The purpose of this book is to raise questions about how these images of a dead Egyptian queen were read.Trade ReviewMary Hamer has written a fascinating study of politics and desire, authority and sexuality, through the protean figure of Cleopatra. Barbara JohnsonAn example of the best kind of research on a female figure whose resonance in myth/history carries a weight of baggage that needs feminist investigation. Naomi Segal, University of LondonThe book is far stronger than a lot of recent competitors and is much more sensitively written. Sally-Ann Ashton, Fitzwilliam Museum, CambridgeSigns of Cleopatra’s very rigorous engagement with art history and the Cleopatra icon makes it particularly useful for courses on art history, visual culture and women’s studies… Especially valuable are the coherent readings of visual images, supported by fantastic illustrations. Francesca RoysterTable of Contents List of plates Preface to the 2008 edition Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Looking like a queen 2. Cleopatra: housewife 3. Newton and Cleopatra 4. Spaced out: Cleopatra and the citizen-king 5. A body for Cleopatra Notes Afterword: Cleopatra in the twenty-first century: The debate over race Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisDifference exists; otherness is constructed. This book asks how important Western artists, from Giotto to Titian and Caravaggio, and from Bosch to D rer and Rembrandt, shaped the imaging of non-Western individuals in early modern art. Victor I. Stoichita's nuanced and detailed study examines images of racial otherness during a time of new encounters of the West with different cultures and peoples, such as those with dark skins: Muslims and Jews. Featuring a host of informative illustrations and crossing the disciplines of art history, anthropology, and postcolonial studies, Darker Shades also reconsiders the Western canon's most essential facets: perspective, pictorial narrative, composition, bodily proportion, beauty, color, harmony, and lighting. What room was there for the "Other," Stoichita would have us ask, in such a crystalline, unchanging paradigm?

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Book SynopsisThe figure of a woman reclining, in repose, displayed, abandoned, fallen, asleep, or dreaming, returns in the work of women filmmakers and photographers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Filmmakers Agnès Varda and Catherine Breillat, and American photographer working in Paris, Nan Goldin, return to the paintings of Titian, Velázquez, Goya, Courbet, and others, re-imagining, and re-purposing, their images of female beauty, display, (auto)eroticism, and intimacy. This book, a sensuous evocation of these feminist works, claims a female-identified pleasure in looking. The artists explored align images of repose and sensuality with other images of horizontality and proneness, of strong emotional content, images of erotic involvement, of vulnerability, of bodily contortion, of listlessness, grief, and depression. The reclining nude is for all three artists a starting point for a reflection on the relation of film, projections, and still photography, to painting, and a sustained re-imagining of the meanings conjured through serial returns to a particular pose. This book claims that the image of the reclining nude is compelling, for female-identified artists – and for all allied in feeling and picturing femininity – in the sensitive, ethically adventurous, politically complex feminist issues it engages. The reclining nude is an image of passivity, of submission, of hedonism. It allows thought about passivity as pleasure, about depression and grief figured posturally, about indolence as a form of resistance and anarchy. Through this image, female-identified artists have claimed freedom to offer new focus on these extremes of emotion. They are re-imagining horizontality.Trade ReviewReviews ‘This book is a deep and far-reaching exploration of the sensory impressions, affective impact, and gender-ideological import of films and photographs by three women—Agnès Varda, Catherine Breillat, and Nan Goldin. The author wisely focuses on an important but underexamined area of these women’s work: images of the reclining nude.'Douglas Keesey, California Polytechnic State UniversityTable of ContentsContentsAcknowledgementsIllustrationsshorelineThe Reclining Nudefour reflections on reclining: 1four reflections on reclining: 2four reflections on reclining: 3four reflections on reclining: 4VardaBreillatGoldinIndia SongBibliography and Filmography

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Book SynopsisSkin represents a place where art, science, philosophy and social culture intersect. With a growing number of bodily extensions and the continuous discovery of new areas – physical, virtual and psychological – the clear distinctive lines between individuals, countries and even species are beginning to blur. Advances in bio-medical research together with deconstructivist theories in philosophy are reflected in the work of many artists using skin, materially or metaphorically, as an interface, whose work goes beyond the descriptive surface of the skin, to explore issues of xeno-transplants, trans-species and trans-racial exchanges. In recent years, a trend towards the analysis of skin, its functions and meanings, has emerged in the practice of many artists using wet biology, bio-architecture and self-experimentation. Jens Hauser has been involved in much of the development in this area. Bound in a unique thermochromic cover (designed by artist Zane Berzina), this book provides an engaging, critical and thought-provoking approach to how current technologies are changing our perceptions of the body, the self and the interactions between bodies. Edited by one of the leading curators in (bio)technology based art and including contributions from 25 major international artists, scholars and critics in this field, this provocative art and text book examining some of the most contentious moral, aesthetical and philosophical issues of our day will complement the exhibition and encourage debate within this exponentially growing field.Trade ReviewAnd what a book it is! Liverpool University Press has taken academic publishing into the next phase with this book in its integration of various modes for representing knowledge production. Richard Cavell... this book reacts to the body heat of the reader, [the cover]changing colour on contact, fading from bright orange to reveal a whitesurface with a texture not that far from some kind of skin...the book endpapers also reveal printed skin patterns...If the complexity of these external and internal surfaces intrigues you, then so will the ideas contained within them.Times Higher Education SupplementTable of Contents Welcoming sk-interfaces to FACT – Mike Stubbs Culturing Change – Marta Rupérez Who’s Afraid of the In-Between? – Jens Hauser The Return of Marsyas: Creative Skin – Stéphane Dumas McLuhan and the Body as Medium – Richard Cavell Endogenous Design of Biofacts: Tissues and Networks in Bio Art and Life Science – Nicole C. Karafyllis Fitter, Better, Stronger, Faster – John A. Hunt e-skin: Research into Wearable Interfaces, Cross-modal Perception and Communication for the Visually Impaired on the Mediated Stage – Jill Scott Feel Me, Touch Me: The hymNext Project – Julia Reodica In the Face of the Victim: Confronting the Other in the Tissue Culture and Art Project – Adele Senior Harlequin Coat – Orlan Secularism, Preface from Michel Serres, The Troubadour of Knowledge The Fusional Haptics of Art Orienté pbjet – Marion Laval-Jeantet Marsyas – beside myself – Kira O’Reilly Extra Ear: Ear on Arm – Stelarc The Telepresence Garment – Eduardo Kac World Skin: A photo safari in a land of war – Maurice Benayoun Why Immolation? – Critical Art Ensemble The Office of Experiments’ Truth Serum Threat: Notes on the Psychopharmacology of Truthfulness – Nicolas Langlitz Wim Delvoye’s Sybille II – Ralf Kotschka Immobile, Bleu... Remix! – Yann Marussich Biological Habitat: Developing Living Spaces – Zbigniew Oksiuta Light, only light – Jun Takita The Midas Project – Paul Thomas Re-thinking Touch – Zane Berzina Olivier Goulet’s SkinBag Corps.EXT – Fabienne Stahl Biographies Funders and Supporters sk-index

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Book SynopsisThe National Gallery started life in 1824 when the British government purchased the collection of 38 pictures belonging to the estate of wealthy banker John Julius Angerstein. As there was no suitable space available to display the collection, the pictures were put on display in Angerstein’s former home in Pall Mall. It was only in 1838 that the collection moved to its current site in Trafalgar Square. The building and collection have continued to expand ever since; today, the National Gallery houses one of the world’s greatest collections of western European paintings. This book brings together the stories behind the founding and growth of the National Gallery: the generous benefactors, the architectural controversies, the protracted acquisitions, the dedicated staff, and the visiting public. Generously illustrated, it aims to give insight into the history of the people and events that have helped shape this much-loved national institution.Published by National Gallery Company/Distributed by Yale University Press

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Book SynopsisChildren have always fascinated artists and Painting Childhood will explore some of the most iconic paintings of children produced over the past 500 years. Featuring stunning portraits, amusing genre scenes and touching ‘fancy pictures’, the book will examine both the creative process and the specifi c challenges posed by painting children: from how to capture the fleeting moments of youth to how to encourage young subjects to sit still. Accompanying the exhibitions Painting Childhood: From Holbein to Freud and Childhood Now, the book will discuss a wealth of masterpieces from British collections by artists including Hans Holbein the Younger, Anthony van Dyck, Jan Steen, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, William Hogarth, Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, Johan Zoff any and John Everett Millais. These iconic paintings will be considered alongside the preparatory sketches that were made for them and the works that were made after them in an exploration of the creative process and the artistic ‘conversations’ that occurred throughout the centuries. Painting Childhood will also explore ‘intimate portraits’ – artist’s portrayals of their own children. Paintings, sketches and sculptures by Stanley Spencer, Louise Bourgeois, Jacob Epstein and Lucian Freud, among others, present highly personal insights into the place of family within an artist’s life, and the ongoing dialogue between biography and creativity. This theme extends to the present day, and the work of three contemporary figurative painters - Chantal Joffe, Mark Fairnington and Matthew Krishanu. Drawn to children as subjects, each of these London-based artists depict childhood in very diff erent ways. Together, they provide fresh perspectives on what constitutes childhood today and reaffirm the place of painting as a diverse and powerful artistic practice.

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Book SynopsisIn this 2005 study, Jeannine Uzzi examines the ruling elite's notions of what it meant to be Roman by examining images of children in Roman imperial art. Roman children are most often shown in depictions of peaceful public gatherings before the emperor, whereas non-Roman children appear only in scenes of submission, triumph, or violent military activity.Table of Contents1. Introduction: the question; 2. Evidence, methodology, and the child image; 3. Imperial largesse; 4. Public gathering; 5. Anaglypha Traiani/Hadriani; 6. Submission; 7. Triumph; 8. Battle ground; 9. Ara Pacis; 10. Conclusion: a narrative of identity; Appendix. Children in nonofficial imagery.

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewSummer must-read. -- Watercolor Artist Magazine

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Book SynopsisDawn Woolley is an artist and research fellow at Leeds Arts University examining consumer culture, social media, and gender. She completed an MA in Photography (2008) and PhD by project in Fine Art (2017) at the Royal College of Art. Her artwork is a feminist critique of consumer culture, encompassing photography, video, installation, and performance to draw attention issues of sexualisation, objectification, and idealisation. Recent solo exhibitions include; Consumed: Stilled Lives', Perth Centre for Photography, Australia (2021) and Dance for Good & Exercise Your Rights' in collaboration with Davin Watne, Public Space One gallery, Iowa City (2020).Trade ReviewA brilliant analysis of consumerism exposing how we are manipulated by capitalism seeking to turn our subjectivity into an object for corporate profit. By drilling into the shiny surface of corporate deceit Consuming the Body uncovers ways to resist the deceptions foisted on us. * Peter Kennard, Professor of Political Art, Royal College of Art, UK *What are we to do with the idealised mirror-images that capitalism beams at us through social media, making us all fetishists and hysterics? Consuming the Body is written urgently but elegantly, finally offering ways of thinking outside this dangerous box. * Professor Naomi Segal, Honorary Fellow, Institute of Modern Languages Research, University of London, UK *This book is a fascinating take on selfie culture and beyond, taking up classic feminist psychoanalytic discussions of the fetishistic gaze to think about the impact of social networks, cosmetic surgery, health surveillance and the ‘sadistic commands’ of capitalist consumer culture. Focusing on the increasingly blurred lines between neoliberal self-surveillance and neurosis, the book explores how hysteria, anorexia and bulimia share much with contemporary online imperatives around fitness, health and beauty. Offering some solace through activist work on social networks, the book proposes that selfie culture needs a new set of rules for it to become a space of empowerment and to loosen the disciplinary control that it exerts. * Catherine Grant, Senior Lecturer, Art and Visual Cultures department, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK *Selfies and social media have an image problem - in more ways than one. In this compelling book, Dawn Woolley challenges the narrow stereotypes criticising how bodies are portrayed in these digital media. She elucidates their complex meanings, practices and politics, and in doing so, recuperates their value, particularly for women with non-normative bodies. * Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW Sydney, Australia *Dawn Woolley offers up an exciting and eloquent exploration of the often sadistic ways that contemporary capitalism compels us to consume. Importantly Woolley gives us valuable insight into radical self-presentation approaches on social media that glitch and refuse the ‘ideal’ in order to empower a body’s presence. * Dr. Jacki Willson, Associate Professor in Performance and Gender, School of Performance and Cultural Industries, University of Leeds, UK *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction 1 Sadistic Commands 2 The Fetishistic Gaze 3 Hystericized Insistent Presence 4 Self(ie) Discipline 5 The Hysteria Economy 6 The Clinical Fetishistic Gaze 7 Anti-Consumers and the Fetishistic Gaze 8 The Bulimic Economy 9 Empowering Presence Conclusion Bibliography Glossary Index

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Book SynopsisFeaturing 25 drawings in charcoal, conte crayons, and pastels, this handbook pairs portraits of people who live and work along the U.S./Mexico border with bilingual poems that have been inspired by each of the drawings. A testimony to the people of the Rio Grande Valley, these drawings and poems capture their spirit, their quest for happiness, and their struggles to overcome economic hardship. This remarkable book highlights characters such as the "young street musician," the "six-year-old street vendor," and the "wise woman with rings." Compassionate and aesthetically compelling, this record raises awareness about social and cultural issues associated with border life, such as education, literacy, and poverty, and fosters cross-cultural understanding.Trade ReviewHurray for Steve and Reefka and the magical work they are doing crossing fronteras." —Sandra Cisneros, author, Caramelo and House on Mango Street"Such a kiss is this book that you oftentimes cannot tell which came first: the poem, it’s translation, or the art work." —Rene Saldaña, author, The Jumping Tree and The Whole Sky Full of Stars"In the tradition of an earlier era, Steve and Reefka Schneider have created a portrait of border life that utilizes both words and pictures to capture the moment." —Kathleen Alcalá, author, The Flower in the Skull

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