Nature in the arts Books

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Book SynopsisLearn to make your own quiet place somewhere with this inspiring journey inside tranquil cabins and handmade homes, from the creators of the wildly popular Cabin Porn phenomenon. Cabin Porn began as an online project created by a group of friends to inspire their own homebuilding. It has grown into a global phenomenon, attracting thousands of submissions from fellow cabin builders and a passionate audience of millions interested in simple, efficient homes and the beauty of nature. Cabin Porn: Inside invites readers into these handmade homes to discover rooms of warmth and simplicity, connected by the universal desire to bring a simple building to life in harmony with the land around it. Each of these tranquil getaways is a lesson in living simply and joyfully.Here you will find hundreds of examples of what makes a cabin: the small details that enable their dwellers to live pleasantly

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Book SynopsisThis evocative collection of natural history drawings, produced over a period of more than two hundred and fifty years, captures the rich variety of animals, birds and insects to be found in India and the magnificent flora of the different regions.Trade Review"...features hundreds of drawings by the scientists and artists who revolutionised our understanding of the biodiversity of the Indian subcontinent" The Independent; "The text is interesting and very readable...the images are staggeringly beautiful and invite the reader to look at them time and time again. The author and Natural History Museum deserve praise." Yorkshire Gazette & Herald

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Book SynopsisInteresting Insects presents striking and surprisingly photogenic insect portraits, each specially selected from the oldest and most important entomology collection in the world - 34 million specimens held by London's Natural History Museum.

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Book SynopsisA richly illustrated poetry anthology featuring beautiful images of birds from around the worldTable of ContentsIntroduction • The poems • Further reading and sources • Illustration references

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Book SynopsisWith a coastline that rivals California’s, Maine attracts millions of visitors each year who come to swim, fish, hike, or just enjoy the views. Many of the images present a near panoramic scope, placing the viewer in the middle of a wilderness splendor. The photographs capture the region’s famous sandy beaches, tree-covered mountains, tidepools brimming with life, and secluded harbors, as well as quaint villages, historic lighthouses, cranberry bogs, and lobster boats. Chapters cover Ogunquit, Kennebunkport, and Portland to Penobscot Bay, Mount Desert Island, and Cobscook Bay. A central focus is Acadia National Park, one of the top ten most visited national parks in America. Nearby, the town of Bar Harbor hosts more than eighty cruise ships each year. The book also celebrates offshore Maine, with images of whales, puffins, and other elusive sea creatures. The Coast of Maine makes an affordable and charming gift for anyone planning, or dreaming of, a visit to this glorious r

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Book SynopsisA richly illustrated catalogue of visual art recording the changing ecology of Monhegan Island, a renowned artist destination off the coast of Maine.

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Book SynopsisInsects are the form of life most alien to us. Across millennia, insects have been providers and sources of food as well as feared vectors of infection. Particular insect types have come to be associated with beauty, diligence, and social and divine order, whilst others have become symbols of invasion, disease, and social decay. Today, insects are used to create luxury goods, to pollinate crops, to color political rhetoric, and to contribute to modern-day logistics, genetics, and forensics. A Cultural History of Insects reveals how our relationship with insects in life and in death is one of our most productive and intimate.The work is divided into 6 volumes, with each volume covering the same topics, so readers can either study a period/volume or follow a topic across history. The 6 volumes cover: Antiquity (c.1000 BCE-500 CE); the Medieval Age (500-1300); the Renaissance (1300-1600); the Age of Enlightenment (1600-1820); the A

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Book SynopsisPresenting a novel and needed theoretical model for interpreting shipwrecks and other drowned fragmentsthe histories they tell, and the futures they presageas junctures of artefact and ecofact, human remains and emergent ecologies, this book puts the environmental humanities, and particularly multispecies studies, in close conversation with literary studies, history, and aesthetic theory. Earth's oceans hold the remains of as many as three million shipwrecks, some thousands of years old. Instead of approaching shipwrecks as either artefacts or ecofacts, this book presents a third frame for understanding, one inspired by the material dynamism of sea-floor stuff. As they become encrusted by oceanic mattersome of it living, some inanimateanthropic fragments participate in a distinctively submarine form of material relation. That relation comprises a wide, and sometimes incalculable, array of things, lives, times, and stories. Drawing from several centuries of literary, philosophical, anTrade ReviewReading Underwater Wreckage is a book that does not operate at the surface; it is not an overview. Instead, The Encrusting Ocean introduces a dynamic methodology in oceanic interpretation that focuses on submerged artifacts. The book's encrusted theory unfolds as a valuable addition to the growing body of work in the blue humanities and new materialism. It is a book that inevitably will push the blue humanities to greater depths. -- Professor Sid Dobrin, University of Florida, USAThis book is a remarkable confluence of material culture, environmental humanities, and literary studies – but at its heart is the work of the sea itself. Quigley invites us to sift through the de debris of the seafloor with new feelers, new eyes, new conceptual prosthetics. We are invited to rethink the sea as archive and artist, and to reconsider what sunken treasure augurs in a time of rapid cultural and environmental change. * Astrida Neimanis, University of British Columbia, Canada *Reading Underwater Wreckage is a poignant and insightful entreaty to keep in mind that how we think and write, and conduct science, about wreckage is of paramount importance because wrecks are not things of the past. They are real things that impact real lives, then as now. -- Sarah Rich * Journal of Maritime Archaeology *Table of ContentsFigures Acknowledgements Preface: Submersions, Wrecks, and Stirrings Introduction I. Lively Debris: Ontologies of an Encrusting Ocean II. First Habit: Fouling III. Second Habit: Concrescing IV. Third Habit: Artmaking Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisOur relationship with trees is a lengthy, complex one. Since we first walked the earth we have, at various times, worshiped them, felled them and even talked to them. For many of us, though, our first memories of interacting with trees will be of climbing them.Exploring how tree climbers have been represented in literature and art in Europe and North America over the ages, The Tree Climbing Cure unpacks the curative value of tree climbing, examining when and why tree climbers climb, and what tree climbing can do for (and say about) the climber's mental health and wellbeing.Bringing together research into poetry, novels, and paintings with the science of wellbeing and mental health and engaging with myth, folklore, psychology and storytelling, Tree Climber also examines the close relationship between tree climbing and imagination, and questions some longstanding, problematic gendered injunctions about women climbing trees. Discussing, among others, the literary works of MaTrade ReviewThe Tree Climbing Cure confirms what many of us knew as children—that there’s something intrinsically good about gazing down at the world from precarious perches in trees. It’s no wonder that there’s abundant literature and art devoted to the tree-climbing (and other ways of being near trees), and Andy Brown deeply examines this aesthetic tradition in his excellent contribution to the current movement of arboreal ecocriticism. -- Scott Slovic, University Distinguished Professor of Environmental Humanities, University of Idaho, USAIf the art of climbing rock has a long and popular literary and artistic history, why are those who climb trees associated with immaturity and derangement? Who knew that tree climbers, too, have a long and fascinating artistic history which Andy Brown reveals in this remarkable book? Without dodging the difficult questions, Brown carefully considers the wellbeing issues raised by tree climbing arts. And you don’t have to leave the ground to feel the benefits sensitively conveyed by this uplifting book. -- Terry Gifford, author of The Joy of Climbing, Green Voices, Pastoral and Reconnecting With John Muir.Andy Brown's The Tree Climbing Cure is a fascinating study of tree climbers and tree climbing in literature and art as well as in practice across Europe and North America. The book's emphasis on the restorative power of tree climbing is particularly timely. The Tree Climbing Cure will appeal to a range of readers, from scholars and students of ecocriticism and environmental philosophy to anyone who enjoys time among trees. -- Karen Thornber, Harry Tuchman Levin Professor in Literature and Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, USA, author of 'Ecoambiguity' and 'Global Healing'Table of ContentsIntroduction: #manintree Chapter One: The Science of Nature and Wellbeing Chapter Two: Trees and the Mind Chapter Three: The Climbing Cure Chapter Four: The Family Tree Chapter Five: The Child in the Tree Chapter Six: The Archetypal Tree Chapter Seven: The Visionary Tree Chapter Eight: #womanintree Chapter Nine: ‘Tree Hugger’ Chapter Ten: Enthusiasm & Attitude: recreation, work, folly Conclusion: Descent Bibliography Index

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisThis sumptuous book presents a selection of over one hundred stunning artworks, depicting animals real and mythical, from the prints and photography collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. The work opens with a preface from celebrated cultural historian Michel Pastoureau, who considers the symbolic importance of animals to our dreams and imagination. Each image is accompanied by a commentary from one of the BnF's expert editorial team of curators and archivists, which provides information on the natural and symbolic history of the creature depicted. Featured artworks include such masterpieces as Dürer's rhinoceros, Manet's cats, a carp by Hiroshige and Matisse's swan. This is a truly beautiful and authoritative collection of some of the most recognisable and accomplished works of animal-themed art, from the medieval period to the present day.Trade ReviewThe edition of Animal: A Beastly Compendium published by Bloomsbury in their beautiful range of “Art History” invites to touch, look, turn every page and to dream yourself into the pictures and immerse yourself in the stories they tell. * The Protagonist Magazine *Opulent, provocative and mind-opening, Animal is a magnificent compendium, which is witness to the intertwining of human and animal lives, showing not only how richly and insistently humans have thought about animals, but also how good animals are to think with. * Steven Connor, Professor of English at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge, UK *Informative, thought-provoking and visually stunning, this volume will prove richly rewarding for anyone interested in probing the connections between animals, culture, art and history. The book's authoritative, engaging texts and sumptuous illustrations make Animal an intellectual and visual pleasure. * Pia F. Cuneo, Professor of Art History at the University of Arizona, USA *Table of ContentsAss - Bear - "Beast of Gévaudan” - Beaver - Bee - Bird - “Bird-Woman” - Bull - Butterfly - Camel - Carp - Cat - Chimera - Cow - Crocodile - Deer - Dinosaur - Dog - Dolphin - Dromedary - Duck - Elephant - Fish - Fox - Frog - Giant Squid - Giraffe - Goat - Goose - Grasshopper - Hippopotamus - Horse - Jaguar - Lion - Mole - Monkey - Mouse - Ostrich - Owl - Ox - Panther - Parrot - Peacock - Pelican - Pig - Porcupine - Rabbit - Ram - Rhinoceros - Salamander - Shrimp - Snake - Snowy Owl - Sperm Whale - Spider - Spiny Lobster - Stag - Swan - Tiger - Turtle Dove - Unicorn - Water Spaniel - Wild Boar - Wolf - Zebra

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Book SynopsisPart of bestselling designer Cynthia Hart''s Victoriana Dogs stationery line, this 1,000-piece puzzle features sweet and charming pups from the Victorian era, combining two big trends-dogs and vintage-into one sophisticated gift.Dogs were celebrated during the Victorian era because they embodied important cultural values of the time: steadfast, loyal, courageous. They became the most popular domestic pets-Dash, a King Charles Spaniel, was considered Queen Victoria''s closest childhood companion-and were pampered just as they are today. Created by artist Cynthia Hart, who layers antique paper ephemera, fresh flowers, ribbons, and vintage objects into lush collages filled with life, color, and energy, this timeless 1,000-piece puzzle celebrates the charming personalities of the dogs that captured hearts everywhere during the 19th century.- 1,000 interlocking pieces- Mini-poster (8 3/8 x 6 5/8) for reference or framing- Completed puzzle size: 23 4/5 x 19<

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