Search results for ""author painters"

Provence, May 1889. The hospital of Saint-Paul-de Mausole is home to the mentally ill. An old monastery, it sits at the foot of Les Alpilles mountains amongst wheat fields, herbs and olive groves. For years, the fragile have come here and lived quietly, found rest behind the shutters and high, sun-baked walls. Tales of the new arrival - his savagery, his paintings, his copper-red hair - are quick to find the warden's wife. From her small white cottage, Jeanne Trabuc watches him - how he sets his easel amongst the trees, the irises and the fields of wheat, and paints in the heat of the day. Jeanne knows the rules; she knows not to approach the patients at Saint-Paul. But this man - paint-smelling, dirty, troubled and intense - is, she thinks, worth talking to. So ignoring her husband's wishes, the dangers and despite the word mad, Jeanne climbs over the hospital wall. She will find that the painter will change all their lives.Let Me Tell You About A Man I Knew is a beautiful novel about the repercussions of longing, of loneliness and of passion for life. But it's also about love - and how it alters over time.

Read more less

This book examines the first generation of artists in Britain to define themselves as history painters, attempting what then was considered to be art's most exalted category. These ambitious artists, including John Hamilton Mortimer, Henry Fuseli, Alexander and John Runciman, James Barry, James Jefferys, George Romney, John Flaxman, and William Blake, most of whom were born in the 1740s and 60s, were presented with the challenge of how best to compete with the continental old masters when they had only an impoverished native tradition on which to build. They cultivated the concept of the artist as an original genius, a psychological strategy born out of deep-seated anxiety. At the core of this identity formation was the artists' perception of William Shakespeare, whom they recast as the original genius incarnate. They strove to accomplish in art what they perceived he had accomplished in literature. Theseus's lines in A Midsummer Night's Dream, 'The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy' (V.i.12) personified for them the Shakespeare of their imagining, and this conception of fine frenzy became the touchstone for their artistic identities, profoundly influencing both their lives and their art. This book pays special attention to their self-portraits in which they proclaim this new identity, one that emphasizes the impassioned and extravagant nature of their personal vision and their claims to original genius. The book includes more than 120 black-and-white illustrations.

Read more less

The National Trust owns and cares for the most important, varied and valuable collection of antiques in Britain. From Rubens paintings to Paul McCartney's bedroom paraphenalia, its enormous range is unequalled and many of these antiques are still housed in the properties for which they were designed or bought. 'Treasures of the National Trust' is the only book to detail this collection in an accessible and enlightening way. Divided into themed chapters such as Paintings, Sculpture, Tapestry and Needlework, French and English Furniture, European Pottery and Porcelain - 'Treasures' is suitable for those with little knowledge of art history and antiques as well as those more versed in the subjects. Special features illuminate the work of key painters, designers and craftsmen; historical timelines give a quick visual context for the artworks, and cross-referencing ensures that readers can see what else is held at that Trust property. The 'treasures' range from single pieces, such as Rubens' The Garden of Love at Waddesdon and St Michael Overcoming Satan by Flaxman at Ickworth, to collections of multiple pieces, such as the miniatures at Ham House and Petworth's 16th-century maiolica plates and teapots. Some have been chosen for their rare beauty and artistry, others for their value or history, but each will be illuminated for the reader. With sumptuous photography and authoritative text (written in conjunction with the Trust's renowned curators), 'Treasures of the National Trust' will prove an essential reference title on the best of British heritage.

Read more less

Huichol Indian yarn paintings are one of the world's great indigenous arts, sold around the world and advertised as authentic records of dreams and visions of the shamans. Using glowing colored yarns, the Huichol Indians of Mexico paint the mystical symbols of their culture—the hallucinogenic peyote cactus, the blue deer-spirit who appears to the shamans as they croon their songs around the fire in all-night ceremonies deep in the Sierra Madre mountains, and the pilgrimages to sacred sites, high in the central Mexican desert of Wirikuta. Hope MacLean provides the first comprehensive study of Huichol yarn paintings, from their origins as sacred offerings to their transformation into commercial art. Drawing on twenty years of ethnographic fieldwork, she interviews Huichol artists who have innovated important themes and styles. She compares the artists' views with those of art dealers and government officials to show how yarn painters respond to market influences while still keeping their religious beliefs. Most innovative is her exploration of what it means to say a tourist art is based on dreams and visions of the shamans. She explains what visionary experience means in Huichol culture and discusses the influence of the hallucinogenic peyote cactus on the Huichol's remarkable use of color. She uncovers a deep structure of visionary experience, rooted in Huichol concepts of soul-energy, and shows how this remarkable conception may be linked to visionary experiences as described by other Uto-Aztecan and Meso-American cultures.

Read more less

The Outer Hebrides is an island archipelago on the remotest north-western periphery of a bigger island archipelago, itself part of Europe’s Atlantic coastline. And what is Atlantic Europe if not the north-western tip of the vast land mass of Eurasia? Here is an unrivalled sense of place, on the edge, the periphery, the brink. Bruce Kendrick has been visiting these islands, regularly, since 1970. Art & Nature in the Outer Hebrides combines his highly commendable nature writing with fascinating stories of folk he has met over the years who create wonderful art and crafts in these remote islands. How do these artists, be they painters, potters, photographers, or poets, interpret their world of nature, their culture, their heritage, here in the wilds of the north-east Atlantic Ocean? Like many worthwhile things in life, making art is not without its challenges. There will be setbacks on any lifelong journey but there will be triumphs too. If there is one trait these Hebridean-based artists do have in common it is their single-minded determination and persistence to create art, in all its many guises, from out of the deep well of their own imagination and their inescapable world of nature’s beauty and inspiration. Bruce is also an accomplished nature photographer and his supporting images of both art and nature in these islands only add to the book’s appeal. So come along and enjoy Bruce’s fine narrative style as he travels from Lewis in the north to Vatersay in the south where nature prevails and art flourishes.

Read more less

When in their lives do great artists produce their greatest art? Do they strive for creative perfection throughout decades of painstaking and frustrating experimentation, or do they achieve it confidently and decisively, through meticulous planning that yields masterpieces early in their lives? By examining the careers not only of great painters but also of important sculptors, poets, novelists, and movie directors, Old Masters and Young Geniuses offers a profound new understanding of artistic creativity. Using a wide range of evidence, David Galenson demonstrates that there are two fundamentally different approaches to innovation, and that each is associated with a distinct pattern of discovery over a lifetime. Experimental innovators work by trial and error, and arrive at their major contributions gradually, late in life. In contrast, conceptual innovators make sudden breakthroughs by formulating new ideas, usually at an early age. Galenson shows why such artists as Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Cezanne, Jackson Pollock, Virginia Woolf, Robert Frost, and Alfred Hitchcock were experimental old masters, and why Vermeer, van Gogh, Picasso, Herman Melville, James Joyce, Sylvia Plath, and Orson Welles were conceptual young geniuses. He also explains how this changes our understanding of art and its past. Experimental innovators seek, and conceptual innovators find. By illuminating the differences between them, this pioneering book provides vivid new insights into the mysterious processes of human creativity.

Read more less

• Un libro favorito: con más de 900 reseñas positivas: destacado por profesionales y elogiado constantemente por sus ilustraciones detalladas, explicaciones concisas y variedad de enfoques• Completo: con proyectos para artistas principiantes, intermedios y avanzados, para que el lector gane en confianza y mejore sus habilidades• Cubre todos los niveles: con proyectos para artistas principiantes, intermedios y avanzados, el lector podrá estudiar los conceptos básicos antes de saltar a nuevos desafíos creativos.Domina más de 80 técnicas de pintura con talleres paso a paso y consejos de artistas profesionalesLos talleres completamente ilustrados de artistas profesionales te guían a través de más de 80 técnicas de pintura, que incluyen lavado plano, piel, efectos escultóricos o empaste. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------• Favorite one: With 900 positive reviews, is a favorite practitioner choice and is consistently praised for its wealth of information and concise explanations• Expansive: Includes projects suitable for beginner, intermediate, and advanced painters alike, so readers are sure to build confidence and improve skills.•Fully illustrated, step-by-step workshops from professional artists guide you through more than 80 painting techniques.

Read more less

Tells the story of Rembrandt and his marriage to Saskia, the love of his life. Paintings, drawings, etchings, objects, letters and poems tell the tale of a society marriage in 17th century Holland. Accompanies a travelling exhibition in The Netherlands at the Fries Museum, 24 November, 2018, to 19 March 2019 and in Kassel, Germany, 12 April, to 11 August 2019. The year 2019 marks the 350th anniversary of Rembrandt's death. Rembrandt van Rijn married Saskia van Uylenburgh, the love of his life, in Friesland (the Netherlands) in 1634. The famous painter came to know her when she visited her cousin in Amsterdam, Hendrick van Uylenburgh, Rembrandt's art dealer. This book, the catalogue for a travelling exhibition, sketches a picture of marriage in the time of Rembrandt and Saskia. Their story is the tale of a high society marriage in seventeenth century Holland, from courtships to weddings to daily married life and funerals. The show follows Rembrandt and Saskia from their meeting to her untimely early death after 10 years of marriage. Paintings, drawings, and etchings by Rembrandt, as well as letters and poetry, are featured alongside wedding portraits, objects, and jewellery from the period, offering insight into what weddings and married life meant in the Golden Age of 17th century Holland.

Read more less

See the world through Frida Kahlo's eyes and be inspired to produce your own masterpieces.Have you ever wondered exactly what your favorite artists were looking at to make them draw, sculpt, or paint the way they did? In this charming illustrated series of books to keep and collect, created in full collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, you can see what they saw, and be inspired to create your own artworks, too. In What the Artist Saw: Frida Kahlo, meet the famous Mexican painter. Learn all about how she experimented with different ways of painting herself, and how she channeled her experiences into her art. Have a go at producing your own self portrait!In this series, follow the artists' stories and find intriguing facts about their environments and key masterpieces. Then see what you can see and make your own art. Take a closer look at landscapes, or even yourself, with Vincent van Gogh. Try crafting a story in fabric like Faith Ringgold, or carve a woodblock print at home with Hokusai. Every book in this series is one to treasure and keep - perfect for budding young artists to explore exhibitions with, then continue their own artistic journeys.© The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Read more less

'One never tires of reading and re-reading his best works. Akutagawa was a born short-story writer' Haruki Murakami 'The quintessential writer of his era' David Peace These are short stories from an unparalleled icon of modern Japanese literature. Sublimely crafted and shotthrough with a fantastical sensibility, they offer dazzling glimpses into moments of madness, murder and obsession. A talented and spiteful painter is givenover to depravity in pursuit of artistic brilliance. In the depths of hell, arobber spies a single spider's threadbeing lowered towards him. When abody is found in an isolated bamboogrove, a kaleidoscopic account ofviolence and desire begins to unfold. Vividly translated by BryanKaretnyk, this mesmerising collection brings together a seriesof essential works from themaster of the Japaneseshort story. Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe. Translated by Bryan Karetyn Ryunosuke Akutagawa was one of Japan's leading literary figures in the Taisho period. Regarded as the father of the Japanese short story, he produced over 150 in his short lifetime. Haunted by the fear that he would inherit his mother's madness, Akutagawa suffered from worsening mental health problems towards the end of his life and committed suicide aged 35 by taking an overdose of barbiturates.

Read more less

In the voluminous scholarship that's been written on Paul Cezanne, little has been said about the twenty-four portraits in oil that Cezanne made of his wife, Hortense Fiquet Cezanne, over an extended twenty-year period. In "Cezanne's Other: The Portraits of Hortense", Susan Sidlauskas breaks new ground, focusing on these paintings as a group and looking particularly at the differences that render many of them unrecognizable as the same person. She argues that Cezanne sidestepped the conventional goals of portraiture-he avoids representing a consistent, identifiable physiognomy or conventional feminine postures and does not portray the subject's inner life-making lack of fixedness itself his subject, which leads him ultimately to a radical reformulation of modern portraiture. Sidlauskas also upends the notion of Mme Cezanne as the irrelevant and absent spouse. Instead she reveals Hortense Fiquet Cezanne as a presence so crucial to the artist that she became the essential 'other' to his ever-evolving 'self'. Coupling historical texts from philosophy, psychology, and physiology with more recent writings from women's and gender studies, cognitive psychology, and visual culture, Sidlauskas demonstrates that Mme Cezanne offered intimacy at arm's length for the painter who has been dubbed 'the lone wolf of Aix'.

Read more less

The artistic accomplishments of James Northcote (1746–1831) have tended to be overshadowed by his role as a biographer of Joshua Reynolds, first president of the Royal Academy of Arts, with whom Northcote apprenticed for five years. Here, Mark Ledbury constructs a very different image of Northcote: that of a prolific member of the Royal Academy and an active participant in the cultural and political circles of the Romantic era, as well as a portrait and history painter in his own right. This book pays particular attention to Northcote’s One Hundred Fables (1828), a masterpiece of wood engraving, and the unconventional, collaged manuscripts for the volume, now at the Yale Center for British Art. Along with another series of collages now at The Morgan Library & Museum and a second volume of fables published posthumously in 1833, these collages and printed works constitute the most ambitious project of the artist’s later years. An underappreciated and courageously eccentric masterpiece, the Fables were an early experiment in what is now a familiar multimedia practice and are extensively published here for the first time. Idiosyncratic, personal, and visionary, the Fables serve as a lens through which to examine Northcote’s long, complex, and fruitful artistic career.Distributed for the Yale Center for British ArtExhibition Schedule:Yale Center for British Art(10/02/14–12/14/14)

Read more less

In Consuming Painting, Allison Deutsch challenges the pervasive view that Impressionism was above all about visual experience. Focusing on the language of food and consumption as they were used by such prominent critics as Baudelaire and Zola, she writes new histories for familiar works by Manet, Monet, Caillebotte, and Pissarro and creates fresh possibilities for experiencing and interpreting them. Examining the culinary metaphors that the most influential critics used to express their attraction or disgust toward painting, Deutsch rethinks French modern-life painting in relation to the visceral reactions that these works evoked in their earliest publics. Writers posed viewing as analogous to ingestion and used comparisons to food to describe the appearance of paint and the painter’s process. The food metaphors they chose were aligned with specific female types, such as red meat for sexualized female flesh, confections for fashionably made-up women, and hearty vegetables for agricultural laborers. These culinary figures of speech, Deutsch argues, provide important insights into both the fabrication of the feminine and the construction of masculinity in nineteenth-century France. Consuming Painting exposes the social politics at stake in the deeply gendered metaphors of sense and sensation.Original and convincing, Consuming Painting upends traditional narratives of the sensory reception of modern painting. This trailblazing book is essential reading for specialists in nineteenth-century art and criticism, gender studies, and modernism.

Read more less

Barbara Cole's artwork is collected by public and private institutions and has been exhibited worldwide, including at the Canadian embassies in Washington, D.C. and Tokyo, Japan. Cole, who is often referred to as an inventor, uses a raw, hands-on photographic process that is consistent with her belief that the possibilities of photography are virtually limitless. Since the early 1980s, she has channelled her appreciation for the camera itself. She is dedicated to the history of photography by deviating from automatic cameras and techniques. Barbara Cole uses photography to play with notions of time, place, and identity. In her numerous series, Cole often asks the questions: how do you paint an image of timelessness? How do you capture the feeling of weightlessness in an image? Her ethereal photography takes on a quintessential painterly quality, with the transformation of figures a predominant theme in her work. Over the past 30 years, although she works with traditional photographic means, Cole's approach and aesthetic has become closer to that of a painter. The artist's work focuses on a powerful narrative, some with external motifs and others with intense figure transformations that alone tell the story. Cole's background in fashion and fashion editorial naturally leads to a process that channels her experience into creating a particular atmosphere with costumes and backdrops. Text in English and German.

Read more less

Our Pink Shark A5 Notebook, Allyn Howard's lushly illustrated underwater scene with a delightful surprising pink shark in a rich environment of bright plants and fish, captured in full colour on our new line of flexible cover, lined paper, A5 Notebook. This soft-covered paperback notebook has full-colour artwork on the front and back cover by the best illustrators and artists from around the world. 140 pages of navy lined paper is an excellent canvas for bullet journaling, list-making, all forms of writing and gratitude journaling — whatever you can think of. Bring it everywhere you go. Handsome exposed, section-sewn binding means the notebook lies flat when open on any page. Soft-covered paperback notebook. Full-colour artwork on front and back cover. 140, lined printed pages. Exposed, section-sewn binding. Underwater navy dip-dyed edges. Lays flat. Allyn Howard is a painter and illustrator based in Brooklyn, New York. Inspired by her childhood, her work reflects an interest in nature, often from the vantage point of small curious animals. Allyn uses water-based acrylics on wood, paper, and canvas, merging a decorative style with a colourful, painterly one.

Read more less

Our Honey Bunnies QuickNotes collection is illustrated by Brooklyn based illustrator/artist Allyn Howard who has a retro painterly style that we adore. Every bunny is unique and they all belong together! Our QuickNotes boxed notecards are full colour, collectable greeting/notecards that are blank inside and can be used to convey personal greetings, thank-yous and invitations. This QuickNotes notecard box holds 20 full colour cards with and 20 classic white envelopes. Four notecard styles are included, all wrapped up in a keepsake box with magnetised lid. 20/ full colour, 101x127mm. notecards and envelopes 5 cards each of 4 images Packaged in a keepsake box with magnetic lid Measures 114 x 139 x 38mm We choose the best images from well-known classic and contemporary fine artists, plus talented emerging illustrators and designers from around the globe. Allyn Howard is a painter and illustrator based in Brooklyn, New York. Inspired by her childhood, her work reflects an interest in nature, often from the vantage point of small curious animals. Allyn uses water-based acrylics on wood, paper, and canvas, merging a decorative style with a colourful, painterly one.

Read more less

Recording 'mountain adventure' is the primary raison d'etre of the "Alpine Journal" and this 113th volume has it in abundance. A bolt of lightening stuns climbers on a new route in the Cordillera Huayhuash; Kenton Kool and Nick Bullock struggle on the icy north face of Kalanka; Mike Cocker and friends end a spot of exploration in the Cordillera Carabaya besieged in their hotel as troops put down a riot; and in Kygyzstan, Dave Pickford dices with Aku Su granite and aggressive officialdom.Mick Fowler opens a special section on 'Pure Alpinism' with an account of his and Paul Ramsden's first ascent of Manamcho, Tibet, and Russian Valery Babanov contributes a vivid essay describing the stand-out climb of 2007 - his six-day, alpine-style ascent of the west pillar of Jannu.Artist/alpinist Andy Parkin takes pastels and piolet in search of challenges in Nepal. Rowan Huntley's fine work appears throughout this AJ and Julian Cooper tells of the 'painter's khora' that resulted in his acclaimed series of canvases on Mount Kailas.With more illustrations than ever before, this journal also recalls the gatherings and expeditions that marked the AC's 150th anniversary, recalls the extraordinary life of Sir Edmund Hillary, and takes a careful look at the effects on the mountain environment of retreating glaciers and visitor pressures.

Read more less

Ann Blockley is a very successful artist, known for the innovative way in which she uses texture as a key element in her work. This book, in Collins Artist’s Studio series, looks at how she achieves her stunning effects and provides essential guidelines for the intermediate painter wishing to develop this aspect of their own painting. Creating texture in watercolour can be quite a challenge but this book provides a fresh approach to the subject. It focuses on a wide range of unusual techniques, some of which depart from the more conventional methods, revealing how to portray texture by a variety of means. Ann explains how to manipulate the paint by lifting out colour, scraping and scratching the paint, and by using additional materials such as wax, clingfilm, salt and metallic pigments. She also explains how the surface itself can play an important role in the effects that can be achieved, and experiments with acrylics, inks, gouache and collage as well as watercolour. In later chapters Ann looks at the creative process and provides insights into how to develop ideas, then concentrates on how to portray texture in specific subjects, such as flowers and foliage, animals, still life, buildings and landscapes. Practical exercises, projects, step-by-step demonstrations and studio tips are included, as well as the work of several guest artists – John Blockley, Moira Huntly and Shirley Trevena.

Read more less

Romantic landscape painting and the tradition of recounting fairy tales have their roots in the 19th century. The painter Philipp Fröhlich transposes them to the present. In his works Hansel and Gretel are dressed like people of the 21st century, and his scenes of nature, which are rendered in a style that approaches photorealism, provide a sharp contrast to the anti-modernism that is usually associated with fairy tales. While we were able to identify with the heroes from the picture books of our childhood, the figures in Fröhlich’s art seem eerily removed from us. The canvases are huge and give the impression to viewers that they have become part of the pictures themselves. Fröhlich studied stage design in Düsseldorf until 2002, and gradually switched from theatre work to painting. But his artistic approach is still influenced by his initial training. Beginning with notes and preparatory studies, Fröhlich develops models, some of which are elaborately designed, to try out the composition of the future picture. The resulting stage-like, almost cinematic quality of his paintings leads to an intriguing mixture of precise, cool realism and soft painterly effects – as if we were gazing into a distorting mirror between reality and fantasy. Text in English and German.

Read more less

From a world-renowned painter, an exploration of creativity’s quintessential—and often overlooked—role in the spiritual life “Makoto Fujimura’s art and writings have been a true inspiration to me. In this luminous book, he addresses the question of art and faith and their reconciliation with a quiet and moving eloquence.”—Martin Scorsese “[An] elegant treatise. . . . Fujimura’s sensitive, evocative theology will appeal to believers interested in the role religion can play in the creation of art.”—Publishers Weekly Conceived over thirty years of painting and creating in his studio, this book is Makoto Fujimura’s broad and deep exploration of creativity and the spiritual aspects of “making.” What he does in the studio is theological work as much as it is aesthetic work. In between pouring precious, pulverized minerals onto handmade paper to create the prismatic, refractive surfaces of his art, he comes into the quiet space in the studio in a discipline of awareness, waiting, prayer, and praise. Ranging from the Bible to T. S. Eliot, Mark Rothko, and Japanese Kintsugi technique, he shows how, unless we are making something, we cannot know the depth of God’s being and God’s grace permeating our lives. This poignant and beautiful book offers the perspective of, in Christian Wiman’s words, an “accidental theologian,” one who comes to spiritual questions always through the prism of art.

Read more less

The brilliance of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was unprecedented in his own lifetime and has never been exceeded. The universality of his genius is extraordinary: he was a painter, sculptor, musician, architect, engineer, inventor, scientist, anatomist and mathematician. Even today he is rarely out of the news, and fascination with this Renaissance master and his work has never been greater. Leonardo famously left behind only a very small number of completed projects, but his surviving drawings, sketches and notebooks give an extraordinary insight into the workings of his mind and the enormous scope of his interests. Through drawing Leonardo attempted to record and understand the world around him, transmitting knowledge more accurately and concisely with images than would be possible with words. Beginning with an introduction to the life of the artist, this beautifully illustrated gift book presents a chronological selection of priceless drawings by Leonardo along with other beautiful works thought to be by his students and other members of his circle. These demonstrate his astonishing mastery of technique and how he communicated this to the artists who followed him. Leonardo's working methods and his wide range of interests are also explored, leading credence to the notion that the true nature of Leonardo's intentions can only be known through his remarkable drawings.

Read more less

An illuminating look at a fundamental yet understudied aspect of Italian Renaissance paintingThe Italian Renaissance picture is renowned for its depiction of the human figure, from the dramatic foreshortening of the body to create depth to the subtle blending of tones and colors to achieve greater naturalism. Yet these techniques rely on a powerful compositional element that often goes overlooked. Groundwork provides the first in-depth examination of the complex relationship between figure and ground in Renaissance painting.“Ground” can refer to the preparation of a work’s surface, the fictive floor or plane, or the background on which figuration occurs. In laying the material foundation, artists perform groundwork, opening the ground as a zone that can precede, penetrate, or fracture the figure. David Young Kim looks at the work of Gentile da Fabriano, Giovanni Bellini, Giovanni Battista Moroni, and Caravaggio, reconstructing each painter’s methods to demonstrate the intricacies involved in laying ground layers whose translucency and polychromy permeate the surface. He charts significant transitions from gold ground painting in the Trecento to the darkened grounds in Baroque tenebrism, and offers close readings of period texts to shed new light on the significance of ground forms such as rock face, wall, and cave.This beautifully illustrated book reconceives the Renaissance picture, revealing the passion and mystery of groundwork and discovering figuration beyond the human figure.

Read more less

To his contemporaries in late 16th-century Venice, El Greco (1541­–1614) was a contrary fellow, an innate artist blessed with extraordinary talent, but stubborn in the pursuit of his own path. Throughout his career, as he progressed from Crete to Venice, to Rome and ultimately Toledo, Spain, “The Greek” stood apart from his peers, merging different Western art traditions to create a unique pictorial language. El Greco’s single-minded style rejected naturalism and rejected accessibility. Works such as The Disrobing of Christ (1577–79), The Burial of the Count of Orgaz (1586–88), and The Vision of St John (1608–14) reveal elongated, twisted figures; unreal colors; and an experimental rendering of space — all resistant to easy viewing and intent, instead, on an art of epic grandeur and intellectual beauty. Frequently regarded with suspicion and criticism during his lifetime, El Greco was revived by a troop of ardent modern admirers, including Pablo Picasso, Roger Fry, and Der Blaue Reiter pioneer Franz Marc. Today, the artist belongs to the privileged group of great old master painters, as much an anomaly of his age, as a reference point across the centuries. This essential introduction from TASCHEN Basic Art 2.0 explores the influences and the ingredients of El Greco’s radical and singular vision, from the symbolic world of Byzantine icons and the humanistic values of the Renaissance to the nascent beginnings of conceptual practice.

Read more less

Eighteenth-century France witnessed an unprecedented proliferation of materially unstable art, from oil paintings that cracked within years of their creation to enormous pastel portraits vulnerable to the slightest touch or vibration. In A Delicate Matter, Oliver Wunsch traces these artistic practices to the economic and social conditions that enabled them: an ascendant class of art collectors who embraced fragile objects as a means of showcasing their disposable wealth.While studies of Rococo art have traditionally focused on style and subject matter, this book reveals how the physical construction of paintings and sculptures was central to the period’s reconceptualization of art. Drawing on sources ranging from eighteenth-century artists’ writings to twenty-first-century laboratory analyses, Wunsch demonstrates how the technical practices of eighteenth-century painters and sculptors provoked a broad transformation in the relationship between art, time, and money. Delicacy, which began the eighteenth century as a commodified extension of courtly sociability, was by century’s end reimagined as the irreducible essence of art’s autonomous value.Innovative and original, A Delicate Matter is an important intervention in the growing body of scholarship on durability and conservation in eighteenth-century French art. It challenges the art historical tendency to see decay as little more than an impediment to research, instead showing how physical instability played a critical role in establishing art’s meaning and purpose.

Read more less

Because Dutch seventeenth-century painting is primarily known for its naturalism, representing the divine posed particular problems for painters of religious stories, especially Rembrandt. Indeed, if seeing is believing, then the visible presence of angels – and finally the presence on earth of Christ as the divine Incarnation in the flesh – could confirm to the senses the presence of divine providence in the world. Angels also evoke a sense of wonder in all who behold them, those who are blessed to receive their visitation from a watchful, if invisible God. Like John Calvin, Rembrandt carefully read his Bible. Thus his angels, represented traditionally as winged creatures, actively participate in important religious events, particularly in Old Testament scenes, beginning with Abraham. In later biblical history, however, angelic appearances diminish; both God – and angels as His agents – intervene less directly to interact with humankind. In Rembrandt’s art, angels are active and visible, but sometimes they reveal their identity just as they disappear, flying away. Other Rembrandt religious images convey divine presence only through light rays from above. With the New Testament advent of Christ, however, angelic attendants chiefly magnify the divine nature of Jesus in the world. Following the theology of John Calvin that dominated Dutch spirituality, Rembrandt allows his pious viewers to behold those very angels or, like Mary Magdalene and the apostles, even to view the divine nature of the risen Christ.

Read more less

Yusuf Franko Kusa Bey (1856–1933), a high-ranking bureaucrat in fin-de-siècle Ottoman imperial administration, was also a talented caricaturist. Because of his duties in the Ottoman Foreign Ministry, and spending most of his life in Istanbul, he was both a member and an observer of high-society social circles in Pera [Beyoglu]. Ambassadors, ministers, diplomats, famous opera singers, painters, Pashas and Efendis, Madames and Monsieurs, were part of this social milieu, and most of them became eternally recorded through the ‘types and charges’ in Yusuf Franko’s caricature album. Including images of himself, he charged his subject materials, the people in his social network, with their particular qualities and transformed their portraits into witty caricatures that reflected contemporary scenes of social life and political debates in Pera. This book, which accompanies the facsimile of Yusuf Franko’s own caricature album, Youssouf, consists of three articles and an annotated appendix. While the articles analyze the majority of his caricatures from diverse perspectives (his family history and biography, the history of contemporary European caricature art and politics, and the social and spatial context in which he drew his caricatures), the appendix gives brief information about each caricature plate following the exact order in the facsimile. These extraordinary caricatures are published for the first time in their entirety since they were discovered in an antique rug dealer’s shop in Istanbul in 1957.

Read more less

A searing psychological thriller of trauma, dark academia, complicity, and revenge, revealing the horrors that happen in the dark, the girls who become cautionary tales, and the guilty who go unpunished. Until now. "A smart, dark, feminist revenge thriller" pHEAT MAGAZINE Barnes & Noble Thriller of the month Three campfire secrets. Two witnesses. One dead in the trees. And the woman, thirty years later, bent on making the guilty finally pay. 1988. A group of outcasts gather at a small, prestigious arts camp nestled in the Maine woods. They're the painters: bright, hopeful, teeming with potential. But secrets and dark ambitions rise like smoke from a campfire, and the truths they tell will come back to haunt them in ways more deadly than they dreamed. 2018. Esteemed art professor Max Durant arrives at his protégé's remote home to view her graduate thesis collection. He knows Audra is beautiful and brilliant. He knows being invited into her private world is a rare gift. But he doesn't know that Audra has engineered every aspect of their weekend together. Every detail, every conversation. Audra has woven the perfect web. Only Audra knows what happened that summer in 1988. Max's secret, and the dark things that followed. And even though it won't be easy, Audra knows someone must pay.

Read more less

A sweeping exploration of the shaping role of animal skins in written culture and human imagination over three millennia “Richly detailed and illustrated. . . . An engaging exploration of book history.”—Kirkus Reviews For centuries, premodern societies recorded and preserved much of their written cultures on parchment: the rendered skins of sheep, cows, goats, camels, deer, gazelles, and other creatures. These remains make up a significant portion of the era’s surviving historical record. In a study spanning three millennia and twenty languages, Bruce Holsinger explores this animal archive as it shaped the inheritance of the Euro-Mediterranean world, from the leather rolls of ancient Egypt to the Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom. Holsinger discusses the making of parchment past and present, the nature of the medium as a biomolecular record of faunal life and environmental history, the knotty question of “uterine vellum,” and the imaginative role of parchment in the works of St. Augustine, William Shakespeare, and a range of Jewish rabbinic writers of the medieval era. Closely informed by the handicraft of contemporary makers, painters, and sculptors, the book draws on a vast array of sources—codices and scrolls, documents and ephemera, works of craft and art—that speak to the vitality of parchment across epochs and continents. At the center of On Parchment is the vexed relationship of human beings to the myriad slaughtered beasts whose remains make up this vast record: a relationship of dominion and compassion, of brutality and empathy.

Read more less

Following the U.S.-Mexican War (1846-1848), lands that had for centuries belonged to New Spain, and later to Mexico, were transformed into the thirty-first state in the United States. This process was facilitated by visual artists, who forged distinct pictorial motifs and symbols to establish the state's new identity. This collective cultural inheritance of the Spanish and Mexican periods forms a central current of California history but has been only sparingly studied by cultural and art historians. California Mexicana focuses for the first time on the range and vitality of artistic traditions growing out of the unique amalgam of Mexican and American culture that evolved in Southern California from 1820 through 1930. A study of these early regional manifestations provides the essential matrix out of which emerge later art and cultural issues. Featuring painters, printmakers, photographers, and mapmakers from both sides of the border, this collection demonstrates how they made the Mexican presence visible in their art. This beautifully illustrated catalogue addresses two key areas of inquiry: how Mexico became California, and how the visual arts reflected the shifting identity that grew out of that transformation. Published in association with the Laguna Art Museum, and as part of the Getty's Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA. Exhibition dates: Laguna Art Museum: October 15, 2017-January 14, 2018

Read more less

Focusing on the art of Henri Fantin-Latour (1836-1904) and his colleagues Gustave Courbet, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Frederic Bazille, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Fellow Men argues for the importance of the group as a defining subject of nineteenth-century French painting. Through close readings of some of the most ambitious paintings of the realist and impressionist generation, Bridget Alsdorf offers new insights into how French painters understood the shifting boundaries of their social world, and reveals the fragile masculine bonds that made up the avant-garde. A dedicated realist who veered between extremes of sociability and hermetic isolation, Fantin-Latour painted group dynamics over the course of two decades, from 1864 to 1885. This was a period of dramatic change in French history and art--events like the Paris Commune and the rise and fall of impressionism raised serious doubts about the power of collectivism in art and life. Fantin-Latour's monumental group portraits, and related works by his friends and colleagues from the 1850s through the 1880s, represent varied visions of collective identity and test the limits of association as both a social and an artistic pursuit. By examining the bonds and frictions that animated their social circles, Fantin-Latour and his cohorts developed a new pictorial language for the modern group: one of fragmentation, exclusion, and willful withdrawal into interior space that nonetheless presented individuality as radically relational.

Read more less

Creating Connections features over 70 paintings, sculptures, drawings, and watercolours from the Rosenthal Collection of work by self-taught artists. This richly illustrated publication explores the mysterious connections we have with works of art and examines the journey into the meaning of art for its creators. It looks at the historic approaches to the creations of self-taught artists and the problems inherent in their interpretation. It also considers where we should go to achieve a more equitable and inclusive art history. The Rosenthal Collection comprises a significant and notably varied grouping. Not only does it cover a broad mix of American names including Earl Cunningham, Henry Darger, Thornton Dial, Bill Traylor, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Ralph Fasanella, Martin Ramirez, and Janet Sobel, it also includes non-US artists Carlo Zinelli, Hiroyuki Doi, Adolf Woelfli, Donald Pass, and Nek Chand among others. Jean Dubuffet, the French painter who famously promoted their study, is also featured. An illustrated interview by Julie Aronson with Richard Rosenthal provides special insight into the collector who has brought together this exceptionally diverse array of work. Essays by Olivia Sagan and Charles Russell look at the need for a more nuanced approach to these artists and their work, at the history of its appreciation (including terminology such as "Outsider Art"), and examine the work in the context of autobiography, trauma, connection, and remembering.

Read more less

First study of the role of architecture in the work of Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School of American painting. At the height of his career as the leader of the Hudson River School of American landscape painting, Thomas Cole listed himself in the New York City Directory as an architect. Why would this renowned painter, who had never before designed a building, advertise himself as such? The importance of Cole’s paintings and the significance of his essays, poems, and philosophy are well established, yet an analysis of his architectural endeavors and their impact on his painting has not been undertaken - until now. In celebration of the recreation of the artist’s self-designed Italianate studio at Cedar Grove in Catskill, New York, now the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, this book focuses on Cole’s architectural interests through architectural elements found in his paintings and drawings as well as in his realized and visionary projects, expanding our understanding of the breadth of his talents and interests. An essay by noted art historian Annette Blaugrund and a contribution by Franklin Kelly, illustrated with Cole’s famous works, sketches, and architectural renderings, reveal an unexplored, yet fascinating, aspect of the career of this beloved artist—and thus, a crucial moment in the development of the Hudson River School and American art. Published to coincide with the exhibition “Thomas Cole: The Artist as Architect” at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site and travelling to the Columbus Art Museum, the book adds a new dimension to scholarship on the artist.

Read more less

A smartly designed and beautifully illustrated look at the life and work of an elusive and influential designer and architect Eileen Gray (1878–1976) was a versatile designer and architect who navigated numerous literary and artistic circles over the course of her life. This handsome volume chronicles Gray’s career as a designer, architect, painter, and photographer. The book’s essays, featuring copious new research, offer in-depth analysis of more than 50 individual designs and architectural projects, accompanied by both period and new photographs. Born in Ireland and educated in London, Gray proceeded to Paris where she opened a textile studio, studied the Japanese craft of lacquer that would become a primary technique in her design work, and owned and directed the influential gallery and store known as “Jean Désert.” Gray struggled for acceptance as a largely self-taught woman in male-dominated professions. Although she is now best known for her furniture, lighting, and carpets, she dedicated herself to many architectural and interior projects that were both personal and socially driven, including the Villa E 1027, the iconic modern house designed with Jean Badovici, as well as economical and demountable projects, such as the Camping Tent. Published in association with the Bard Graduate CenterExhibition Schedule:Bard Graduate Center Gallery, New York (February 28–July 12, 2020)

Read more less

A celebration of the American painter's life and work in the region he loved best In 1883 American artist Winslow Homer (1836–1910) moved his studio from New York City to Prouts Neck, a slip of coastline just south of Portland, Maine. Here, over the course of twenty-five years, Homer produced his most celebrated and emotionally powerful paintings, which often depicted the dramatic views and storm-strewn skies around his home. Homer's influence and the Prouts Neck area would have a profound effect on the rise of a new American modernism, inspiring the artists who followed him.This beautifully illustrated catalogue celebrates Homer's legacy at Prouts Neck, and documents the Portland Museum of Art's six-year conservation project to preserve the Winslow Homer Studio, the former carriage house in which Homer lived and worked. Photographs of the studio and site, never before open to the public, highlight views that are recognizable as the subject of so many of Homer's paintings. Essays by leading scholars examine his iconic masterpieces; his artistic development in Prouts Neck; the architecture of his studio; his relationship to French painting; and the full range of his marine paintings.Published in association with the Portland Museum of ArtExhibition Schedule:Portland Museum of Art(09/22/12-12/30/12)

Read more less

The Greek sculptor Lysippos of Sicyon (fourth century BCE) represented Kairos carrying a razor in his left hand. According to the epigram dedicated to this statue by Posidippus of Pella (mid-third-century BCE), the Greek divinity of the opportune moment is said to move with a swiftness that is sharper than any razor’s edge. Why does Kairos carry a razor in his hand? And how does the knife relate to opportunity and temporality? This book embarks on a narrative detour to answer these questions. Stories of revelation and transformation are anatomised to discover the moments of the knife pulsating underneath the surface. The sword grasped at the right moment by the Biblical heroine Judith, Abraham’s sacrificial knife, the eucharistic knife from the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, Psyche’s razor, the surgeon’s scalpel, or the apocalyptic double-edged sword each figure as multifaceted imaginations of these kairotic moments. Under the skin of this book lives the question raised by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781) in his Laokoon oder über die Grenzen der Mahlerey und Poesie (1766). Who is best suited to capture the right moment, the painter, or the poet? At the heart of it all is the disruption of time itself. The moment of the knife is the time of the wound in time. Sudden, sharp, and unexpected this moment pierces deep into the human experience, stirring the soul with a swiftness beyond imagination.

Read more less

Renowned and much-loved travel writer Jan Morris turns her eye to Sydney: 'not the best of the cities the British Empire created ... but the most hyperbolic, the youngest at heart, the shiniest.' Sydney takes us on the city's journey from penal colony to world-class metropolis, as lively and charming as the city it describes. With characteristic exuberance and sparkling prose, Jan Morris guides us through the history, people and geography of a fascinating and colourful city. Jan Morris's collection of travel writing and reportage spans over five decades and includes such titles as Venice, Hong Kong, Spain, Manhattan '45, A Writer's World and the Pax Britannica Trilogy. Hav, her novel, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Arthur C. Clarke Award. 'Sydney should be flattered. A great portrait painter has chosen it for her recent subject . . . Few writers - a handful of novelists apart - have got so far under the city's skin as Morris . . . Few Sydneysiders could match her knowledge of their city's history and its anecdotes' The Times 'The writing is, at times, like surfing: sentences rise like vast waves above which she rides, never overbalancing into gush . . . Jan Morris convincingly explains modern Sydney through its history' Observer

Read more less

In 1778 Pierre Henri De Valenciennes, a young landscape painter from Toulouse, found himself in Rome with many other foreign artists intent on studying not only the ancient monuments and the works of the modern masters, but also to encounter Italy's light and landscape. Contrary to most of his companions, Valenciennes rarely copied ancient or modern works of art, but instead he chose to sketch views of Rome, 'a mix of antique and of modern, an assemblage of irregularity and symmetry'. The 96 pages of the sketchbook, reproduced in their actual size and accompanied by a commentary, guide us through Rome, from the river port of Ripa Grande to the basilica of St. John Lateran, from the Ponte Salario bridge to the Vatican, from Piazza Barberini to the Villa Borghese and along the banks of the river Tiber. An advocate of en plein air painting, Valenciennes' sketches use two or three tints of the same colour to trace the landscape of an ideal Rome, and to achieve this goal he did not hesitate to modify or move the surrounding architecture. Contents: Preface by Xavier Salmon, Director of the Prints and Drawings Department of the Louvre; Introduction; Travel to Italy and meeting with artists; Valenciennes' Italian Sketchbooks; Description of the organisation of Sketchbook RF 12966; Material Description; Provenance; List of Exhibitions, Bibliography. Text in French.

Read more less

Lines from a Canvas offers the public one of the best kept secrets in the world of poetry for years, the work of Jacob Miller. His poems uniquely traverse the cultural territory from Homer to the Grateful Dead, taking the reader from ancient Greece and Rome to the Holocaust to the Cold War to Vietnam to 9/11. In short, the expansive canvas of his content presents a compelling spectrum mixing classical and modern brush strokes, all while exploring experiences of love and loss, isolation and separation, as well as mortality. Consistent with his content, though perhaps of even greater importance, the crowning achievement shown in this collection is Jacob Miller’s new poetic technique, which delivers the reader to an expertly constructed and long-needed bridge between classical traditions (such as rhyme and meter, or even hidden slant rhymes or assonance connections), and imagistic free-verse. Additionally, this collection contains the poet’s free-verse libretto to the modern opera Manhattan in Charcoal, (recently released on CD). The title poem, Lines from a Canvas, offers the point of view of a canvas, not the painter, and this launches the operative conceit in this collection: each poem explores the perspective of the canvas of life and death, more than the poet himself. Each poem truly brings something new to the page.

Read more less

Together, Cranach's paintings and Luther's powerful oratory created a force field that transformed Germany, Europe, and ultimately the Western world This compelling book retells and revises the story of the German Renaissance and Reformation through the lives of two controversial men of the sixteenth century: the Saxon court painter Lucas Cranach (the Serpent) and the Wittenberg monk-turned-reformer Martin Luther (the Lamb). Contemporaries and friends (each was godfather to the other’s children), Cranach and Luther were very different Germans, yet their collaborative successes merged art and religion into a revolutionary force that became the Protestant Reformation. Steven Ozment, an internationally recognized historian of the Reformation era, reprises the lives and works of Cranach (1472–1553) and Luther (1483–1546) in this generously illustrated book. He contends that Cranach's new art and Luther's oratory released a barrage of criticism upon the Vatican, the force of which secured a new freedom of faith and pluralism of religion in the Western world. Between Luther's pulpit praise of the sex drive within the divine estate of marriage and Cranach's parade of strong, lithe women, a new romantic, familial consciousness was born. The "Cranach woman" and the "Lutheran household"—both products of the merged Renaissance and Reformation worlds—evoked a new organization of society and foretold a new direction for Germany.

Read more less

I’m not a portrait painter. If I’m anything, I have always been an autobiographer.Self-Portrait reveals a life truly lived through art. In this short, intimate memoir, Celia Paul moves effortlessly through time in words and images, folding in her past and present selves. From her move to the Slade School of Fine Art at sixteen, through a profound and intense affair with the older and better-known artist Lucian Freud, to the practices of her present-day studio, she meticulously assembles the surprising, beautiful, haunting scenes of a life. Paul brings to her prose the same qualities that she brings to her art: a brutal honesty, a delicate but powerful intensity, and an acute eye for visual detail.At its heart, this is a book about a young woman becoming an artist, with all the sacrifices and complications that entails. As she moves out of Freud’s shadow, and navigates a path to artistic freedom, Paul’s power and identity as an artist emerge from the page.Self-Portrait is a uniquely arresting, poignant book, and a work of art and literature by a singular talent. 'Fascinating… Painfully honest on what it means to be a woman who puts art first, no matter what.’ Olivia Laing, New Statesman**Shortlisted for the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize 2019**

Read more less

An easy-to-follow, step-by-step manga drawing instruction book from fan favourite manga artist and painter Camilla d'Errico, featuring 30 lessons on illustrating cute, cool and quirky characters in the Pop Surrealist style with pencils. With appearances at Comic Cons and her paintings displayed in art galleries around the world, Camilla d'Errico has established herself as a go-to resource for manga-influenced art. Following in the footsteps of her past art-instruction books 'Pop Manga' and 'Pop Painting', 'Pop Manga Drawing' provides the most direct and accessible lessons yet for rendering characters in her signature Pop Surrealist style. Written in the fun and encouraging voice that fans have come to expect, this book takes you step-by-step through lessons on drawing with graphite and mechanical pencils, along with insights on enhancing pieces with other mediums (including coloured pencils and pastels). It also provides tips and expert advice on drawing specific elements, including hands, hair and backgrounds, that can take your manga art to the next level. 'Pop Manga Drawing' grants one-of-a-kind access to the basic building blocks of artistic expression, giving you the tools you need to create your own pop manga masterpieces.

Read more less

See the world through Frida Kahlo's eyes and be inspired to produce your own masterpieces.Have you ever wondered exactly what your favourite artists were looking at to make them draw, sculpt, or paint the way they did? In this charming illustrated series of books to keep and collect, created in full collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, you can see what they saw, and be inspired to create your own artworks, too. In What the Artist Saw: Frida Kahlo, meet the famous Mexican painter. Learn all about how she experimented with different ways of painting herself, and how she channelled her experiences into her art. Have a go at producing your own self portrait!In this series, follow the artists' stories and find intriguing facts about their environments and key masterpieces. Then see what you can see and make your own art. Take a closer look at landscapes, or even yourself, with Vincent van Gogh. Try crafting a story in fabric like Faith Ringgold, or carve a woodblock print at home with Hokusai. Every book in this series is one to treasure and keep - perfect for budding young artists to explore exhibitions with, then continue their own artistic journeys.© The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Read more less

On December 28, 1817, the eccentric painter B. R. Haydon gave a famous dinner party in his painting room in London. He invited, among others, three of the greatest literary lights of the age: the poets John Keats and William Wordsworth and the essayist and wit Charles Lamb. Over the course of a long winter evening of delights, the guests recited poetry, indulged in high-minded conversation, and took part in ridiculous antics, with such displays of brilliance and wit that the party came to be known as the Immortal Dinner. Penelope Hughes-Hallett celebrates this unique gathering by vividly bringing to life these illustrious diners against a backdrop of social change. Literary London society was at its extraordinarily gifted best just two years after Waterloo: the Elgin Marbles controversy still raged; Mrs. Siddons performed Lady Macbeth in her drawing room to a distinguished audience; Joseph Ritchie, a young physician and would-be poet, prepared to explore the River Niger with a copy of Keats in his pocket. The Immortal Dinner offers a fascinating glimpse into the lives and thoughts of this literary elite at a turning point in English society. It recaptures these rare spirits, using a great many of their own words from letters and diaries. With 75 black-and-white illustrations and 2 maps.

Read more less

A spectacular and unprecedented visual biography of the leading pioneers and protagonists of modern art and design Josef - painter, designer, and teacher - and Anni Albers - textile artist and printmaker - are among the twentieth century's most important abstract artists, and this is the first monograph to celebrate the rich creative output and beguiling relationship of these two masters in one elegant volume. It presents their life and work as never before, from their formative years at the Bauhaus in Germany to their remarkable influence at Black Mountain College in the United States through their intensely productive period in Connecticut. Accessibly written, the book is packed with more than 750 artworks, archival images, and documents - many published here for the first time - all tracing the remarkable lives and careers of this legendary couple. Dispersed throughout area series of short essays on artists that focuses on the Alberses relationship with a number of important artists and architects of the 20th century, like Ruth Asawa, Marcel Breuer, Merce Cunningham, Philip Johnson, Paul Klee, Jacob Lawrence, and many more. The beautifully cloth-bound package utilizes an elegant color palette and design that speaks to the work of both artists. This comprehensive visual biography showcases the artists' rich and dynamic lives, and their infinite influence on each other, as they shared the profound conviction that art was central to human existence.

Read more less

Uncovers the extraordinary breadth of designer Mariano Fortuny, including and beyond his fashion output, alongside the personal and political catalysts that inspired him Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo (1871–1949) was a polymath who experimented in a variety of media including electric lighting, stage design, photography, the development of pigments, and textile and garment design. Yet his vision as a painter, persistently attuned to light and color, shaped all his artistic endeavors. Fortuny: Time, Space, Light examines Fortuny’s Venetian workspaces, clothing designs, stage lighting inventions, and paintings to find unifying themes of revivalism, memory, light, magic, and secrecy that run throughout his wide-ranging career. It features new archival discoveries, including unseen artworks and unpublished personal writings, as well as a new analysis of Fortuny’s paintings, never-before discussed in an English-language publication. In addition to providing historical context and visual analysis of his work, the book delves into the relationships between Fortuny and Proust, Wagnerian opera, and Italian fascism. It also aims to illuminate more of Fortuny’s personal motivations through new archival evidence and unpublished notes to explore how his object collection and library were used as catalysts for his innovative creations.

Read more less

Apart from a handful of art historians no one has ever heard of the Brussels painter Hendrick De Clerck (1560-1630). Nevertheless, De Clerck was a contemporary of Peter Paul Rubens, the latter having gone down in history as an artistic trailblazer and painting powerhouse, while Hendrick De Clerck has quietly faded into oblivion. Yet the subtly coded, vibrantly coloured pictures that De Clerck painted for Archduke Albert of Austria and his wife Isabella are political propaganda of the highest order. In creating a mode of archducal representation that could help to gain an empire, the sky is quite literally the limit. De Clerck represents Isabella as wise Minerva, chaste Diana, the Virgin Mary. And that's nothing compared to her husband, for in De Clerck's paintings Albert is transformed into the sun god Apollo or even into Jesus Christ himself. Hendrick De Clerck's mastery of ingenious pictorial strategy made him a leading player in one of the most ambitious projects history has ever seen. For those who know how to read them, his paintings tell a story of power, political promises, and grandiose ambition. Most of all, they are supreme examples of image-building; for as the Archdukes were well aware, even as a monarch you're only as important as you make yourself.

Read more less

In 1925 the artists Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious moved to the Essex village of Great Bardfield, at first sharing lodgings. Over the course of several years and encouraged by Bawden and Ravilious' work, other artists came to live in the village, forming a community of artists and designers that has continued to the present. Among the first to join them were the Rowntrees, Kenneth and Diana, and Michael Rothenstein and his wife Duffy Ayers. They were followed by John Aldridge, painter and designer of wallpapers (printed, like Bawden's papers, by the Curwen Press); Walter Hoyle, printmaker and also a wallpaper designer; Marianne Straub, textile designer and weaver; illustrators and printmakers Bernard Cheese and his wife Sheila Robinson. Though the careers of Bawden and Ravilious are well-documented, many of the other artists are less well-known but equally talented, such as George Chapman, Stanley Clifford-Smith and Laurence Scarfe.This book tells the story of Great Bardfield and its artists, and their famous 'open house' exhibitions, showing how the village and neighbouring landscape nurtured a distinctive style of art, design and illustration from the 1930s to the 1970s and beyond. '..their shared artistic legacy is immediately obvious from this beautiful book.' --Country Life 16th 23rd December 2015'..Beautifully designed.' --Evening Standard 24th December 2015'..splendidly illustrated' -- The Spectator, 28th November 2015

Read more less

A curious gem of 19th-century gothic fiction Cecil Dreeme is one of the queerest American novels of the 19th century. This edition, which includes a new introduction contextualizing the sexual history of the period and queer longings of the book, brings a rare, almost forgotten, sensational gothic novel set in New York’s West Village back to light. Published posthumously in 1861, the novel centers on Robert Byng, a young man who moves back to New York after traveling abroad and finds himself unmarried and underemployed, adrift in the heathenish dens of lower Manhattan. When he takes up rooms in “Chrysalis College”—a thinly veiled version of the 19th-century New York University building in Washington Square—he quickly finds himself infatuated with a young painter lodging there, named Cecil Dreeme. As their friendship grows and the novel unfolds against the backdrop of the bohemian West Village, Robert confesses that he “loves Cecil with a love passing the love of women.” Yet, there are dark forces at work in the form of the sinister and magnetic Densdeth, a charismatic figure of bad intention, who seeks to ensnare Robert for his own. Full of romantic entanglements, mistaken identity, blackmail, and the dramas of temptation and submission, Cecil Dreeme is a gothic novel at its finest. Poetically written—with flashes of Walt Whitman, Charles Dickens, and Oscar Wilde—Cecil Dreeme is an early example of that rare bird, a queer novel from the 19th century.

Read more less