Best of
Art-History

1994

Egon Schiele, 1890-1918: The Midnight Soul of the Artist


Reinhard Steiner - 1994
    After a short flirtation with Klimt's style, Schiele soon questioned the aesthetic orientation to the beautiful surface of the Viennese Art Nouveau with his rough and not easily accessible paintings. Many contemporaries found his expressive nudes and self-portraits, with their strange movements and morbid colours, to be ugly and even morally objectionable - criticism which culminated in criminalizing the painter as "obscene" and resulted in 1912 in an indictment and short jail sentence. However, not even his harshest critics could dispute however the artist's extraordinary drawing talent.

Dali


Robert Descharnes - 1994
    After many years of research, Robert Descharnes and Gilles Neret finally located all the paintings of this highly prolific artist. These two volumes represent a one time offer at 29.99 as a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Dali's birth. The set will have a sticker indicating the 100th anniversary,

Vermeer, 1632-1675: Veiled Emotions


Norbert Schneider - 1994
    Most of his pictures, all of which are reproduced in this text, show women about their daily business. Vermeer records the tasks and duties of women, the imperatives of virtue under which their lives were lived, and the dreams that provided the substance of their contrasting counter-world.

Bruegel: The Complete Paintings


Rose-Marie Hagen - 1994
    1525-1569) turned his eye on the everyday. Most of Bruegel's 45 surviving works, which are all reproduced in this book, record the facts of 16th century life in rural or small town communities. In this title in the Basic Art Series, Rose-Marie and Rainer Hagen outline the artist's account of his society and times, and the relevance that account has for us today.

The Book of Kells: An Illustrated Introduction to the Manuscript in Trinity College, Dublin


Bernard Meehan - 1994
    The strange imagination displayed in the pages, the impeccable technique and the very fine state of preservation make The Book of Kells an object of endless fascination.This edition reproduces the most important of the fully decorated pages plus a series of enlargements showing the almost unbelievable minuteness of the detail; spiral and interlaced patterns, human and animal ornament—a combination of high seriousness and humor. The text is by Bernard Meehan, the Keeper of Manuscripts at Trinity College, Dublin.

Schiele


Wolfgang Georg Fischer - 1994
    At the time he was in prison for disseminating immoral drawings. Throughout his work the note of defiance, provocation, and rebellion was sounded. Schiele's favorite subjects were female nudes and self-portraits, and he worked at his art with furious commitment, though it was not until shortly before his early death that he began to win real recognition. Today, with Oskar Kokoschka, he is seen as the most important of the Austrian artists who came after Klimt. This study examines the life and work of Egon Schiele through all the major oil paintings and many of his erotic drawings.

Mondrian (Basic Art)


Susanne Deicher - 1994
    His main pictorial elements are horizontals and verticals, his preferred colours yellow, red and blue. Throughout his life, Mondrian (1872-1944) applied these elements in his quest for 'universal harmony'. This album presents his work.

Power of Feminist Art


Norma Broude - 1994
    . . . Until Power, feminist art has been conspicuously absent from standard academic narratives. . . . Now, no critic or historian, conservative or not, can argue that feminist art is insignificant.--Elizabeth Hess, Village Voice. 270 illustrations, 118 in full color.

Harm's Way: Lust & Madness & Murder & Mayhem


Joel-Peter Witkin - 1994
    Edited and with an introduction by Joel-Peter Witkin, the book includes turn-of-the-century crime-scene photographs, nineteenth-century asylum inmate portraits with calligraphic annotations detailing the patients' diagnoses, nineteenth-century medical photographs from the Burns Archive, and a selection of images from the Kinsey Institute for Sex Research. The ability of the photograph to show us our powerlessness in the face of madness, lust, disease, and death, survives in these brittle and arresting images.

The Complete Etchings of Rembrandt: Reproduced in Original Size


Rembrandt - 1994
    His work in etching spanned most of his career and embraced the wide range of subjects he pursued in his painting: portraits, landscapes, biblical scenes, pictures with allegorical and mythological themes, and more. This comprehensive collection contains Rembrandt's complete etchings — over 300 works — shown in their original size. They have been reproduced directly from a rare collection famed for its pristine condition, fresh, clean impressions, rich contrasts, and brilliant printing. Among the etchings included are: Self portrait drawing at a window (1648); Abraham's sacrifice (1655); Christ preaching ["The undered-guilder print"] (ca. 1643–49); Christ crucified between the two thieves ["The three crosses"] (1653); The return of the prodigal son (1636); The three trees (1643); Faust (ca. 1652); Jan Six (1647); The great Jewish bride (1635); The strolling musicians (ca. 1635). The etchings are reproduced in their actual size rather than from reduced photographs, which can depart significantly in quality from the originals. This handsome volume is filled with information critical to fully appreciating the extraordinary images it contains. Detailed captions point out features of special interest and provide vital information such as title, signature, date, collection, Bartsch number, state of impression reproduced, and total number of states. Also included are a chronology of Rembrandt's life and etchings, a discussion of the technique of etching in his time, and an excellent bibliography. Art lovers, scholars, students of etching, and anyone with an interest in Rembrandt and his work will find in this beautiful book a rare and exciting visual experience.

German Expressionist Woodcuts


Shane Weller - 1994
    One of the most popular media used by the German Expressionists was the woodcut, important in the history of German art from the time of Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), and especially suited to Expressionism's bold graphics.This superb collection presents over 100 finely reproduced woodcuts from the work of nearly 30 major artists in the movement who worked in the woodcut medium. Among them are Ernst Barlach, Max Beckmann, Lyonel Feininger, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Käthe Kollwitz, Franz Marc, Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein, and many others. Most of the woodcuts reproduced here date from the first three decades of the twentieth century. They are powerful works, ranging in mood from Felix Müller's pensive portrait of Carl Sternheim (1925) to Franz Marc's electric Riding School (1913) and Ernst Barlach's profoundly moving Christ on the Mount of Olives (1920).Readers interested in the art of the woodcut as well as students and enthusiasts of twentieth-century art will find this volume ideal for browsing and study. Individual captions for each selection, notes on each artist, and an informative introduction to the art of the woodcut and the German Expressionist movement add to the book's value as a reference work.

Expressionism: A Revolution in German Art


Dietmar Elger - 1994
    In six chapters -- The Brucke Group of Artists, Northern German Expressionism, The Blaue Reiter, Rhenish Expressionism, The City and Expressionism in Vienna -- this publication deals with a specifically German artistic revolution, a phenomenon that has quite accurately been described as "the most significant German contribution to 20th century European art." Beside a number of famous names, including Beckmann, Heckel, Kandinsky, Kirchner, Kokoschka, Macke, Marc, Mueller, Nolde, Schiele, and Schmidt-Rottluff, the author also introduces several lesser-known artists, such as Campendonk, FelixMuller, Meidner, Morgner, Munter, and von Werefkin.

Toulouse-Lautrec: A Life


Julia Frey - 1994
    Debauched aristocrat, cabaret painter, accidental dwarf? Julia Frey's definitive, superbly researched biography strips away the myth of Toulouse-Lautrec to reveal the tortured man beneath. This is a remarkable and compelling portrait, featuring 135 photos and illustrations.

Egon Schiele


Erwin Mitsch - 1994
    His uncompromising style of expression gave form to the anxieties and insecurities that beset Western culture at the turn of the nineteenth century, stigmatizing modern art to this day.

Gustav Klimt: From Drawing to Painting


Christian M. Nebehay - 1994
    Explores the turn-of-the-century Viennese painter's life and work, highlights the utopian Seccession movement of which Klimt was a leader, and reproduces the artist's paintings, sketches, and correspondence.

Sister Wendy's Grand Tour: Discovering Europe's Great Art


Wendy Beckett - 1994
    Petersburg, featuring the art of such masters as Goya, Rembrandt, El Greco, Titian, and Caravaggio.

Spirit Faces: Contemporary Native American Masks from the Northwest Coast


Gary Wyatt - 1994
    Masks are an important part of ceremonlal life on the Northwest Coast; they make the supernatural world visible and bring it to life in dance dramas performed at feasts and potlatches, or at winter ceremonies held by secret societies. Some masks embody mythology or history. Others depict shamanic experiences, or are portrait masks that represent personal experience. The most elaborate are transformation masks, which are used to display the transition from one form to another, such as Wolf to Human. At the high point of the dance, the dancer will open the outer mask to reveal another one inside.The introduction by Gary Wyatt outlines the place of art inside Northwest Coast societies and the place of Northwest Coast art in the outside art world. He also explains the importance, meaning and ceremonial use of masks. Each mask is accompanied by the artist's own words describing its creation and meaning.

Willem de Kooning: Paintings


David Sylvester - 1994
    The book reassesses de Kooning's critical status as one of America's greatest and most influential artists, examines the complexity of his painting techniques, and places him in the context of other artists and art movements of his era. The book serves as the catalogue for a major exhibition of de Kooning's work presented at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and the Tate Gallery in London.

Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts: A Guide to Technical Terms


Michelle P. Brown - 1994
    Concise and readable explanations ofthe technical terms most frequently encountered by the museum-goer are presented in an easily portable format. With numerous illustrations, many of them in color, this volume will be invaluable to all readers wishing to increase their understanding and enjoyment of illuminated manuscripts.

A Study of Vermeer, Revised and Enlarged edition


Edward Snow - 1994
    Our desire for images, the distances that separate us, the validations we seek from the still world, the traces of ghostliness in our own human presence—these, the book proposes, are Vermeer's themes, which he pursues with a realism always in touch with the uncanny. As Snow traces the many counterpoised sensations that make up Vermeer's equanimity, he leads us into a world of nuances and surprise.A Study of Vermeer is passionate and visual in its commitments. Snow works from the conviction that viewing pictures is a reciprocal act—symbiotic, consequential, real. His discussions of Vermeer's paintings are conducted in a language of patient observation, and they involve the reader in an experience of deepening relation and ongoing visual discovery. The book has been designed to facilitate this process: over eighty illustrations, fifty-nine in color (including two full-page foldouts), accompany the text so that the details Snow illuminates will be continally in view. Here is a book to enthrall not only students of Vermeer, but anyone who feels the exhilaration of what Cézanne called "thinking in images."

The Sistine Chapel: A Glorious Restoration


Pierluigi de Vecchi - 1994
    Now, another revolutionary event has occurred: a nine-year restoration, carried out by experts at the Vatican Museums and described and illustrated in this incredible work. 312 illustrations, 293 in full color; gatefold.

Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies


Kobena Mercer - 1994
    The ten essays collected here examine new forms of cultural expression in black film, photography and visual art exerging with a new generation of black British artists, and interprets this prolific creativity within a sociological framework that reveals fresh perspectives on the bewildering complexity of identity and diversity in an era of postmodernity. Kobena Mercer documents a wealth of insights opened up by the overlapping of Asian, African and Caribbean cultures that constitute Black Britain as a unique domain of diaspora.

The Spirit of Abstract Expressionism: Selected Writings


Elaine de Kooning - 1994
    

The Art Of Dora Carrington


Jane Hill - 1994
    The association with Lytton and his Bloomsbury friends, combined with her own modesty have tended to overshadow Carrington's contribution to modern British painting. This book aims to redress the balance by looking at the immense range of her work: portraits, landscapes, glass paintings, letter illustrations and decorative work.

Karl Blossfeldt: Art Forms in Nature


Karl Blossfeldt - 1994
    His images influenced artists of the time and continue to affect the work of visual artists, craftsmen, and architects to the present day. A pioneer of Neue Sachlichkeit, his pictures are classics in the history of photography. Neither a trained photographer nor a botanist, Blossfeldt was interested in plants for didactic reasons. By enlarging the inner structures of plants he revealed their organic configuration and their consummate artistic forms that arose from biological necessity. Blossfeldt's aim was to produce a pure catalogue of forms, and yet he created one of the most stunning oeuvres in the history of photography. Gert Mattenklott in his essay explores the origin of Blossfeldt's work and its subsequent influence. Georges Bataille's historical article "The Language of Flower," first published in 1929 with illustrations by Blossfeldt, defines plants as occupying a space between profanity and sanctity.

Mapping the Terrain: New Genre Public Art


Suzanne Lacy - 1994
    Departing from the traditional definition of public art as sculpture in parks and plazas, new genre public art brings artists into direct engagement with audiences; definitive collection of writings on the subject.[art][current events][culture]

Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy


Paula Findlen - 1994
    Yet fifty years later the first museums of natural history had appeared in Italy, dedicated to the marvels of nature. Italian patricians, their curiosity fueled by new voyages of exploration and the humanist rediscovery of nature, created vast collections as a means of knowing the world and used this knowledge to their greater glory.Drawing on extensive archives of visitors' books, letters, travel journals, memoirs, and pleas for patronage, Paula Findlen reconstructs the lost social world of Renaissance and Baroque museums. She follows the new study of natural history as it moved out of the universities and into sixteenth- and seventeenth-century scientific societies, religious orders, and princely courts. Findlen argues convincingly that natural history as a discipline blurred the border between the ancients and the moderns, between collecting in order to recover ancient wisdom and the development of new textual and experimental scholarship. Her vivid account reveals how the scientific revolution grew from the constant mediation between the old forms of knowledge and the new.

But Is It Art?: The Spirit of Art as Activism


Nina Felshin - 1994
    Art. Activisim. Criticism and Theory. An anthology that explores the rise of activist public art that agitates for social change. Included are discussions of such leading and controversial artists as: the Guerrilla Girls, Gran Fury, Group Material, Women's Action Coalition, and the Artist and Homeless Collaborative.

Wood Engraving: How to Do It


Simon Brett - 1994
    The processes of printing and engraving are clearly explained, together with their material requirements. Up-to-date variations on techniques, and all the tips and methods that the author has found helpful in 30 years as a practitioner are included. The book is also a beautiful object in its own right and as the author Simon Brett's work is highly collectible. It is a must have for all those who treasure his work and fine wood engraving in general.

Alban Berg: Master of the Smallest Link


Theodor W. Adorno - 1994
    In addition to Adorno's personal account of of the life and musical works of his mentor, friend, and composition teacher, the book explores the historical and cultural significance of Berg's music, its relationship to that of other nineteenth- and twentieth-century composers, and to the larger issues of contemporary life.

The Educational Role of the Museum


Eilean Hooper-Greenhill - 1994
    Grounded in the solid strengths of its first edition, this updated and revised second edition, collates recent and important articles that address the relationships of museums and galleries to their audiences.The Educational Role of the Museum has been entirely restructured and new papers have been added which make this an up-to-date presentation of front-running theory and practice.Covering broad themes relevant to providing for all museum visitors, and also focusing specifically on educational groups, the book is set in four sections which sequentially:chart the development of museum communication relate constructivist learning theory to specific audiences with different learning needs apply this learning theory to the development of museum exhibitions pose questions about the way museums conceptualize audiences.For any student of museum studies, and for professionals too, this book fuses theory with practice in a way that can only serve to enhance their knowledge of the field.

Paintings in the Uffizi and Pitti Galleries


Mina Gregori - 1994
    Over 800 color plates. Boxed.

The Renaissance Print: 1470-1550


David Landau - 1994
    Through an examination of material and institutional circumstances, through the study of work shop practices and of technical and aesthetic experimentation, this book seeks to give an account of the ways in which Renaissance prints were realized, distributed, acquired, and handled by their public.

The Visible Word: Experimental Typography and Modern Art, 1909-1923


Johanna Drucker - 1994
    In The Visible Word, Johanna Drucker shows how later art criticism has distorted our understanding of such works. She argues that Futurist, Dadaist, and Cubist artists emphasized materiality as the heart of their experimental approach to both visual and poetic forms of representation; by mid-century, however, the tenets of New Criticism and High Modernism had polarized the visual and the literary.Drucker suggests a methodology closer to the actual practices of the early avant-garde artists, based on a rereading of their critical and theoretical writings. After reviewing theories of signification, the production of meaning, and materiality, she analyzes the work of four poets active in the typographic experimentation of the 1910s and 1920s: Ilia Zdanevich, Filippo Marinetti, Guillaume Apollinaire, and Tristan Tzara.Few studies of avant-garde art and literature in the early twentieth century have acknowledged the degree to which typographic activity furthered debates about the very nature and function of the avant-garde. The Visible Word enriches our understanding of the processes of change in artistic production and reception in the twentieth century.

Albrecht Dürer: Watercolours and Drawings


John Berger - 1994
    His ability to represent a subject with an absolute fidelity to every detail seemed miraculous to his contemporaries, and still astounds us now: we need only think of his watercolours of plants and animals. In addition, Dürer was the first painter to devote such close attention to the art of the self-portrait. No artist before him painted as many as he. The works by Dürer collected in this book show the full range of this artist s unique genius.

American Impressionism and Realism: The Painting of Modern Life, 1885-1915


H. Barbara Weinberg - 1994
    An examination of the continuities and differences between American Impressionism and Realism.

Odilon Redon


Odilon Redon - 1994
    Fractures and contrasts characterize his artistic development, from the black-and-white of his early, dark lithographs and works in charcoal to the veritable explosions of color in his bright pastels and oils. Bizarre monsters appear alongside heavenly creatures in a blend of dream and nightmare, nature and vision. Tending toward internalization, the mythic, sacred and biological motifs in Redon's works underwent a turn toward the mystical, not only on account of his subject matter, but also through the aesthetic aspects of color and form. Greatly admired by contemporaries such as Paul C'zanne and Edgar Degas, Redon influenced artists such as Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse and Marcel Duchamp, as well as the Surrealists. The artist's brilliant ideas and his contextually, technically and materially multifaceted body of work are presented in this catalogue.Born in France to a prosperous family, Odilon Redon (1840-1916) began drawing at an early age and moved to Paris after unsuccessful forays into architecture and sculpture. Redon began his career working primarily in charcoal and lithography, before transitioning to oils and pastels in the 1890s. With his keen interest in literature, Redon found champions and collaborators in Joris-Karl Huysmans, Emile Hennequin and, most significantly, the Symbolist poet St'phane Mallarm'. Redon's work achieved international renown after being exhibited at the American Armory Show in 1913.

One Hundred Saints: Their Lives and Likenesses Drawn from Butler's Lives of the Saints and Great Works of Western Art


Alban Butler - 1994
    Also included are saints whose lives and work provide fascinating, at times horrifying, glimpses into their lives and deaths and into the traditions and beliefs that have grown because of them.

Italian Painting


Keith Christiansen - 1994
    Contains devotional images, portraits, landscapes, allegorical paintings, still-life arrangements, more. 12" x 14". Color plates.

The Cats History of Western Art


Susan Herbert - 1994
    Instantly recognizable to casual museum-goers and anyone who has ever perused Janson's History of Art, the works are captioned with deadpan annotations by a real-life art historian. 32 color illustrations.

Printing, Propaganda, and Martin Luther


Mark U. Edwards Jr. - 1994
    Closely examining Protestant and Catholic pamphletspublished in Strasbourg in the early years of theReformation, Edwards demonstrates Luther's dominance ofthe medium, the challenges posed by Catholic counterattacks, the remarkable success of Luther's New Testament, and theunforeseen effects of the new medium. This volume hasopened an exciting new vista on the European Reformation.

Wireless Imagination: Sound, Radio, and the Avant-Garde


Douglas Kahn - 1994
    Composed of both original essays and several newly translated documents, this book provides a close audition to some of the most telling and soundful moments in the deaf century, conceived and performed by such artists as Raymond Roussel, Antonin Artaud, Marcel Duchamp, Andr� Breton, John Cage, Hugo Ball, Kurt Weill, and William Burroughs. From the late nineteenth century to the 1960s, the essays uncover the fantastic acoustic scenarios projected through the writings of Raymond Roussel; the aural objects of Marcel Duchamp; Dziga Vertov's proposal for a phonographic laboratory of hearing; the ZAUM language and Radio Sorcery conjured by Velimir Khlebnikov; the iconoclastic castaways of F. T. Marinetti's La Radia; the destroyed musics of the Surrealists; the noise bands of Russolo, Foregger, Var�se, and Cage; the contorted radio talk show delivered by Antonin Artaud; the labyrinthine inner journeys invoked by German H�rspiel; and the razor contamination and cut-up ventriloquism of William S. Burroughs.

The Artists of Brown County


Lyn Letsinger-Miller - 1994
    Now back in print, The Artists of Brown County, first published in 1994, is the classic book on the history of this remarkable art colony.Following an introduction to "Peaceful Valley," as the area was affectionately called, chapters are devoted to 16 of the artists, including three couples: T. C. Steele, Will Vawter, Gustave Baumann, Dale Bessire, the photographer Frank M. Hohenberger, Adolph Shulz and Ada Walter Shulz, L. O. Griffith, V. J. Cariani and Marie Goth, Carl C. Graf and Genevieve Goth Graf, Edward K. Williams, Georges LaChance, C. Curry Bohm, and Glen Cooper Henshaw. Lavish color reproductions of the artists' work accompany the biographical sketches. Rachel Berenson Perry's introduction places the Brown County art colony within the broader context of American regional art.

Piero Della Francesca: San Francesco, Arezzo


Marilyn Aronberg Lavin - 1994
    Each book also contains a comprehensive text, a biography of the artist, a bibliography, and a glossary.

A Day with Picasso


Billy Kluver - 1994
    One group in particular, showing Picasso, Max Jacob, Mo�se Kisling, Modigliani, and others at the Caf� de la Rotonde and on Boulevard du Montparnasse, all seemed to have been taken on the same day. The people were wearing the same clothes in each shot and had the same accessories. Their ties were knotted the same way and their collars had the same wrinkles. A total of twenty-four photographs--four rolls of film with six photographs each--were eventually found. With the challenge of identifying the date, photographer, and circumstances, Kl�ver embarked on an inquiry that would illuminate the minute texture of that time and place.Biographical research into the subjects' lives led Kl�ver to focus on the summer of 1916 as the likely time the photos were taken. He then measured buildings and plotted angles and lengths of shadows in the photographs to narrow the time frame to a spread of three weeks. Further investigation eventually allowed Kl�ver to identify the photographer as Jean Cocteau and to determine the day that Cocteau had taken the photographs: August 12, 1916. A computer printout of the sun's positions on that date, obtained from the Bureau des Longitudes, together with the length of the shadows, enabled Klver to calculate the time of day of each photograph, and thus to put them in proper sequence.In a tour de force of art historical research, Kl�ver then reconstructed a scenario of the events of the four hours depicted in the photographs. With evocative attention to detail--noting when Picasso is no longer carrying an envelope or Max Jacob has acquired a decoration in his lapel--Kl�ver recreates a single afternoon in the lives of Picasso and friends, a group of remarkable people in early twentieth-century Paris.Besides the central portfolio of photographs by Cocteau, the book contains additional photographs and drawings, short biographies of all the subjects, and a historical section on the events and activities in the Paris art world at the time.

Toulouse-Lautrec: Scenes of the Night


Claire Frèches - 1994
    Sumptuous reproductions of paintings, prints, and drawings show why his artistic influence was so great. 227 illustrations, many in full color. Bibliography. Index.

The Forbidden Image: An Intellectual History of Iconoclasm


Alain Besançon - 1994
    The Forbidden Image traces the dual strains of “iconophilia” and iconoclasm, the privileging and prohibition of religious images, over a span of two and a half millennia in the West.Alain Besançon’s work begins with a comprehensive examination of the status of the image in Greek, Judaic, Islamic, and Christian thought. The author then addresses arguments regarding the moral authority of the image in European Christianity from the medieval through the early modern periods. Besançon completes The Forbidden Image with an examination of how iconophilia and iconoclasm have been debated in the modern period.“Even the reader who has heard something of the Byzantine quarrels about images and their theological background will be surprised by a learned and convincing interpretation of the works of Mondrian, Kandinsky, and Malevich in terms of religiously inspired iconoclasm. . . . This is an immensely rich and powerful masterpiece.”—Leszek Kolakowski, Times Literary Supplement

Patronage in Renaissance Italy: From 1400 to the Early Sixteenth Century


Mary Hollingsworth - 1994
    In a competitive and violent age, she explains, image and ostentation were essential statements of the patron's power. As a result, perceived cost became more important than artistic quality (and buildings, bronze, or tapestry were considered more eloquent statements than cheaper marble or fresco). Artists in the early Renaissance were employed as craftsmen, Hollingsworth concludes, and only late in the century did their relations with patrons start to adopt a pattern we might recognize today. "Many readers, specialists and nonspecialists alike, will welcome this book as a reliable and straightforward introduction to an important and interesting subject."--Literary Review"A synthesis of the current state of knowledge about Renaissance patronage... The author is particularly well qualified to assess the amount of personal involvement of patrons, and she emphasizes the extent to which Lorenzo de Medici, Ercole d'Este, and Federigo da Montefeltro, as well as several Popes, can be considered their own 'architects.'"--Apollo

Titian


Filippo Pedrocco - 1994
    Showcases the remarkable career of Italian Renaissance master Titian, in a lavishly illustrated look at his complete oeuvre, including his colorful religious works, allegories, and mythological paintings.

Early Cinema in Russia and Its Cultural Reception


Yuri Tsivian - 1994
    In contrast to standard film histories, Yuri Tsivian focuses on reflected images: it features the historical film-goer and early writings on film as well as examining the physical elements of cinematic performance. "Tsivian casts a probing beam of illumination into some of the most obscure areas of film history. And the terrain he lights up with his careful assembly and insightful reading of the records of early film viewing in Russia not only changes our sense of the history of this period but also . . . causes us to re-evaluate some of our most basic theoretical and historical assumptions about what a film is and how it affects its audiences."—Tom Gunning, from the Foreword"Early Cinema in Russia . . . reveals Tsivian's strengths very well and demonstrates why he is . . . the finest film historian of his generation in the former Soviet Union."—Denise Y. Youngblood, Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television"A work of fundamental importance."—Julian Graffy, Recent Studies of Russian and Soviet Cinema

Figuring Jasper Johns


Fred Orton - 1994
    An illuminating look at an enigmatic painter, Figuring Jasper Johns also provides a way of approaching American art of the 1950s and 1960s. Fred Orton's reading of John's oeuvre focuses on three key works - Untitled (1972), Flag (1954-55), and Painted Bronze (1960). Adroitly combining formal theoretical analyses and historical reflection, Orton explores each painting until the distinction between picture and context dissolves and his subject appears in a wholly new frame. Here we see how Johns's work makes use of the modernist opposition between surface and subject, how it manifests both relatively private and relatively public meanings, and how it develops a self-consciously figurative visual language. With reference to ideas in contemporary critical theory, Orton considers Johns's work as allegory and assesses the value and effect of doing so. A practical demonstration of how theory can work to generate new interpretations and unsettle old ones (some of them the product of Johns's own mythologizing), this book offers the clearest and most penetrating picture yet of Jasper Johns and in the process contributes considerably to the continuing rethinking of art history.

The Romantic Spirit in German Art 1790-1990


Keith Hartley - 1994
    It has continued to influence some Western art, but in Germany it assumed a much greater significance, and has been closely linked to perceptions of national characteristics.

The Chapel of the Magi: Benozzo Gozzoli's Frescoes in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, Florence


Cristina Acidini Luchinat - 1994
    The men are dressed in all the luxury of Italian 15th-century fashions, in brilliant colours, damask, gold brocade. They ride horses and camels with various creatures to amuse them - dogs, cheetahs and monkeys. In the background are forests and picturesque towered tows. This is the procession of the Magi on their way to worship the newborn Christ, painted in the chapel of the Medici's palace in Florence by Benozzo Gozzoli in 1459. For their sheer beauty, their precision, and their almost fairy-tale quality, these frescoes have always been among the most popular of all western paintings.The photographs in this book were taken after the chapel's recent cleaning. Not only do the colours glow with a new brilliance, but numerous features have been revealed that could not be seen before. The book illustrates the chapel wall by wall, showing the entire surface and then a series of details reproduced in actual size. Cristina Acidini Luchinat is an art historian and conservationist who has worked on a number of major art restoration projects, including Gozzoli's frescoes. Her lucid texts, complementing the pictures, examine the chapel as a whole, its art-historical context, the individual murals, and the problems and procedures involved in the conservation of the paintings.

Picturing a Nation: Art and Social Change in Nineteenth-Century America


David M. Lubin - 1994
    This study describes how the images in their paintings both embraced and resisted the world around them - including its underlying social conflicts.

Theory and Philosophy of Art: Style, Artist, and Society


Meyer Schapiro - 1994
    Schapiro's highly lucid arguments, graceful prose, and extraordinary erudition guide readers through a rich variety of fields and issues: the roles in society of the artist and art, of the critic and criticism; the relationships between patron and artist, psychoanalysis and art, and philosophy and art. Adapting critical methods from such wide-ranging fields as anthropology, linguistics, philosophy, biology, and other sciences, Schapiro appraises fundamental semantic terms such as "organic style," "pictorial style", "field and vehicle," and "form and content"; he elucidates eclipsed intent in a well-known text by Freud on Leonardo da Vinci, in another by Heidegger on Vincent van Gogh. He reflects on the critical methodology of Bernard Berenson, and on the social philosophy of art in the writings of both Diderot and the nineteenth century French artist/historian Eugene Fromentin. Throughout all of his writings, Meyer Schapiro provides us with a means of ordering our past that is reasoned and passionate, methodical and inventive. In so doing, he revitalizes our faith in the unsurpassed importance of both critical thinking and creative independence.

The Art and Architecture of Islam, 1250-1800


Sheila S. Blair - 1994
    This beautiful book surveys the architecture and arts of the traditional Islamic lands during this era.Conceived as a sequel to The Art and Architecture of Islam: 650-1250, by Richard Ettinghausen and Oleg Grabar, the book follows the general format of the first volume, with chronological and regional divisions and architecture treated separately from the other arts. The authors describe over two hundred works of Islamic art of this period and also investigate broader social and economic contexts, considering such topics as function, patronage, and meaning. They discuss, for example, how the universal caliphs of the first six centuries gave way to regional rulers and how, in this new world order, Iranian forms, techniques, and motifs played a dominant role in the artistic life of most of the Muslim world; the one exception was the Maghrib, an area protected from the full brunt of the Mongol invasions, where traditional models continued to inspire artists and patrons. By the sixteenth century, say the authors, the eastern Mediterranean under the Ottomans and the area of northern India under the Mughals had become more powerful, and the Iranian models of early Ottoman and Mughal art gradually gave way to distinct regional and imperial styles. The authors conclude with a provocative essay on the varied legacies of Islamic art in Europe and the Islamic lands in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Dada And Surrealist Performance


Annabelle Melzer - 1994
    In Dada and Surrealist Performance Annabelle Melzer describes the founding of the movement among the Zurich performance collective known as the Cabaret Voltaire -- including Tristan Tzara, Andre Breton, Louis Aragon, Francois Picabia, and Wassily Kandinksy -- and traces its scandalous history through the rift in the 1920s that separated Dada, with its dedication to political provocation, from the more contemplative Surrealism.

David Hockney: Paintings


Paul Melia - 1994
    Hockney's work is characterized by an underlying seriousness of purpose, as this fresh appraisal of the artist's oeuvre clearly demonstrates.

The Painted Page: Italian Renaissance Book Illumination 1450-1550


Jonathan J.G. Alexander - 1994
    In the century between 1450 and 1550, Italian miniaturists, in collaboration with scribes and bookbinders, produced a series of masterpieces of book illumination which are still too little known and appreciated. Though working on a smaller scale than the great painters and sculptors of the Renaissance, these illuminators created works characterized by unrivaled standards of quality in materials (including frequent use of gold) and design, and by imaginative symbolism and breathtaking creativity. 137 manuscripts, printed books with hand-painted illustrations and single pages are illustrated in full color, ranging from small prayer books to large choir books, and from Greek, Roman, and Italian literature to collections of fables and historical treatises. Many of these volumes were commissioned by powerful wealthy, and discriminating patrons who included members of the ruling Italian families as well as cardinals and popes and many of whom were also prominent bibliophiles. Among other fascinating issues, the mechanics of patronage, patterns of production, and formation of libraries are discussed in three essays and in the catalogue entries - the latter divided into eight thematic sections - written by noted specialists in the history of Renaissance manuscripts and books. And, of course, we are introduced to the artists themselves - their working habits, characteristic styles, and interrelationships.

The Cathedral: The Social and Architectural Dynamics of Construction


Alain Erlande-Brandenburg - 1994
    In this iconoclastic study, the author sets out to reverse some of the romantic myths which have accrued about the medieval cathedral, in particular that the cathedral was a separate entity, self-sufficient, sublime and apart. Here the cathedral is shown to be a dynamic, evolving and unpredictable force in the development of the medieval city. Taking France as the main focus, but including material on England, Germany, Italy, Spain and Bohemia, the author describes the growth of diocesan authority and the consequent experiments in the layout of cathedral plans. Full use is made of recent archaeological research to show how architectural, social, financial and religious considerations combined to form a structure that was above all a practical, functioning concern, a 'city within a city'.

Mud, Mirror and Thread: Folk Traditions of Rural India


Nora Fisher - 1994
    Drawing upon the traditions of India's half million villages, it helps comprehend the inner logic behind the almost numberless acts of Hindu devotion that occur each day, many of which involve the adornmen

The Bible and the Saints (Flammarion Iconographic Guides)


G. Duchet-Suchaux - 1994
    Yet the full complexity of their representation and iconography often remains unknown, even to the most erudite art specialists. This fully illustrated volume-the first in a series of easy-to-use and authoritative Flammarion Iconographic Guides-identifies over five hundred Christian saints and other characters from the Old and New Testaments, providing clear and precise definitions of the attributes by which they are known in Western and Byzantine art. Further subjects covered include the apocrypha, significant religious scenes, and the rich and fascinating symbolism associated with objects, numbers, colors, and a complete bestiary of both real and imaginary beasts-the lion and the lamb, the dragon and the unicorn. The extraordinary array of visual material, drawn exclusively from paintings, engravings, manuscripts, and sculptures from the early Christian era to the Counter-Reformation, and an extensive system of cross-references make this handy and beautifully designed guide an invaluable resource for scholars, students, travellers, museum-goers, and anyone interested in discovering the full significance of the greatest masterpieces of European art.

Byzantine Art and Architecture: An Introduction


Lyn Rodley - 1994
    It covers the whole Byzantine period from the fourth to the fourteenth century in a systematic manner, by period, dealing with material culture under main section headings (such as architecture, sculpture, monumental art, minor arts and manuscripts) for ease of reference. The text is illustrated by well over 300 maps, plans and halftones.

An Illustrated Dictionary of Narrative Painting


Anabel Thomas - 1994
    

Japan: Caught in Time


Hugh Cortazzi - 1994
    

Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel


J.A. Schmoll - 1994
    The author, a Rodin specialist, examines the interplay of passion, self-destruction, and aesthetic development that characterized one of the most artistically fruitful, yet ultimately tragic, turn-of-the-century love affairs.