Best of
Art-History

2012

What Are You Looking At?: 150 Years of Modern Art in a Nutshell


Will Gompertz - 2012
    Rich with extraordinary tales and anecdotes, What Are You Looking At? entertains as it arms readers with the knowledge to truly understand and enjoy what it is they’re looking at.

Gustav Klimt: Complete Paintings (XXL)


Tobias G. Natter - 2012
    He stood for Modernism but he also embodied tradition. His pictures polarized and divided the art-loving world. The press and general public alike were split over the question: For or against Klimt? This monograph explores Klimt’s oeuvre with particular emphasis upon such contemporary voices. With a complete catalogue of his paintings, including new photographs of the Stoclet Frieze commissioned exclusively for this book, it examines the reactions to Klimt’s work throughout his career. Subjects range from Klimt’s portrayal of women to his adoption of landscape painting. The theory that Klimt was a man of few words who rarely put pen to paper is also dispelled with the inclusion of 179 letters, cards, writings, and other documents from the artist.Contributing authors: Evelyn Benesch, Marian Bisanz-Prakken, Rainald Franz, Anette Freytag, Christoph Grunenberg, Hansjörg Krug, Susanna Partsch, Angelina Pötschner, and Michaela ReichelThe Editor and Author:Tobias G. Natter is an internationally acknowledged expert on art in “Vienna around 1900.” For many years he worked at the Austrian Belvedere Gallery in Vienna, latterly as head curator. He also worked as guest curator at the Tate Liverpool, the Neue Galerie New York, the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the Schirn in Frankfurt am Main, and the Jewish Museum in Vienna. From 2006 to 2011, he directed the Vorarlberg Museum in Bregenz, and from 2011 to 2013 was director of the Leopold Museum in Vienna. In 2014 he founded Natter Fine Arts, which specializes in assessing works of art and developing exhibition concepts. He is the author of TASCHEN’s Gustav Klimt: The Complete Paintings; Art for All: The Colour Woodcut in Vienna around 1900; and Egon Schiele: The Complete Paintings, 1909–1918.Details:Gustav Klimt: The Complete PaintingsTobias G. NatterHardcover with fold-outs, 29 x 39.5 cm, 676 pagesISBN 978-3-8365-2795-8Edition: EnglishSUZY MENKES:“Surely TASCHEN’s Klimt: The Complete Paintings. Each unfolding page — with its strokeable surface of intense paintwork and its meld of Byzantine imagery and Venetian mosaics — brings to life the exotic eroticism of an exceptional artist.”

The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain from Vienna 1900 to the Present


Eric R. Kandel - 2012
    Kandel, The Age of Insight takes us to Vienna 1900, where leaders in science, medicine, and art began a revolution that changed forever how we think about the human mind—our conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions—and how mind and brain relate to art.   At the turn of the century, Vienna was the cultural capital of Europe. Artists and scientists met in glittering salons, where they freely exchanged ideas that led to revolutionary breakthroughs in psychology, brain science, literature, and art. Kandel takes us into the world of Vienna to trace, in rich and rewarding detail, the ideas and advances made then, and their enduring influence today.   The Vienna School of Medicine led the way with its realization that truth lies hidden beneath the surface. That principle infused Viennese culture and strongly influenced the other pioneers of Vienna 1900. Sigmund Freud shocked the world with his insights into how our everyday unconscious aggressive and erotic desires are repressed and disguised in symbols, dreams, and behavior. Arthur Schnitzler revealed women’s unconscious sexuality in his novels through his innovative use of the interior monologue. Gustav Klimt, Oscar Kokoschka, and Egon Schiele created startlingly evocative and honest portraits that expressed unconscious lust, desire, anxiety, and the fear of death.   Kandel tells the story of how these pioneers—Freud, Schnitzler, Klimt, Kokoschka, and Schiele—inspired by the Vienna School of Medicine, in turn influenced the founders of the Vienna School of Art History to ask pivotal questions such as What does the viewer bring to a work of art? How does the beholder respond to it? These questions prompted new and ongoing discoveries in psychology and brain biology, leading to revelations about how we see and perceive, how we think and feel, and how we respond to and create works of art. Kandel, one of the leading scientific thinkers of our time, places these five innovators in the context of today’s cutting-edge science and gives us a new understanding of the modernist art of Klimt, Kokoschka, and Schiele, as well as the school of thought of Freud and Schnitzler. Reinvigorating the intellectual enquiry that began in Vienna 1900, The Age of Insight is a wonderfully written, superbly researched, and beautifully illustrated book that also provides a foundation for future work in neuroscience and the humanities. It is an extraordinary book from an international leader in neuroscience and intellectual history.

Sorolla: The Masterworks


Blanca Pons-Sorolla - 2012
    Often compared to his contemporary, the American artist John Singer Sargent, Joaquín Sorolla (1863–1923) was a master draftsman and painter of landscapes, formal portraits, and monumental, historically themed canvases. Highly influenced by French Impressionism, the Valencian artist was a master plein-air painter known for his luminous seaside scenes of frolicking youths and for vivid depictions of Spanish rural life and its pleasures and customs. This beautifully designed and produced volume brings together one hundred of Sorolla’s major paintings, selected by his great-granddaughter Blanca Pons-Sorolla, the foremost authority on the artist. Benefiting from close proximity to the artist and his personal archives, she presents an in-depth essay that explores Sorolla’s life, work, and remarkable international legacy. With virtually all of the artist’s previous publications now out of print, this much-anticipated volume is an important addition to the literature on this great Spanish master.

The Barnes Foundation: Masterworks


Judith F. Dolkart - 2012
    Albert C. Barnes in 1922, is home to a legendary art collection. Barnes assembled one of the world’s largest and finest groups of post-impressionist and early modern paintings, with holdings by such luminaries as Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso, Rousseau, Modigliani, Soutine, Manet, Monet, Seurat, Degas, Van Gogh, and Gauguin.The Foundation’s collection also holds significant examples of American art, including works by Demuth, Glackens, and the Prendergasts; African sculpture; Native American ceramics, jewelry, and textiles; Asian paintings, prints, and sculptures; medieval manuscripts and sculptures; Old Master paintings by El Greco, Rubens, Titian, and others; ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman art; and American and European decorative arts and metalwork. The presentation of the collection reflects Barnes’s educational and aesthetic approach: symmetrical “ensembles,” or wall compositions, combine works of different periods, mediums, cultures, and styles for the purpose of comparison and study.Texts by Judith F. Dolkart and Martha Lucy explore the Barnes Foundation’s collection, educational mission, ensembles, and individual works. Large color plates, little-seen archival photographs, and numerous gatefolds illustrate 150 of the greatest hits of the collection and twenty gallery ensembles.

Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship


Claire Bishop - 2012
    Around the world, the champions of this form of expression are numerous, ranging from art historians such as Grant Kester, curators such as Nicolas Bourriaud and Nato Thompson, to performance theorists such as Shannon Jackson. Artificial Hells is the first historical and theoretical overview of socially engaged participatory art, known in the US as “social practice.” Claire Bishop follows the trajectory of twentieth-century art and examines key moments in the development of a participatory aesthetic. This itinerary takes in Futurism and Dada; the Situationist International; Happenings in Eastern Europe, Argentina and Paris; the 1970s Community Arts Movement; and the Artists Placement Group. It concludes with a discussion of long-term educational projects by contemporary artists such as Thomas Hirschhorn, Tania Bruguera, Pawe? Althamer and Paul Chan.Since her controversial essay in Artforum in 2006, Claire Bishop has been one of the few to challenge the political and aesthetic ambitions of participatory art. In Artificial Hells, she not only scrutinizes the emancipatory claims made for these projects, but also provides an alternative to the ethical (rather than artistic) criteria invited by such artworks. Artificial Hells calls for a less prescriptive approach to art and politics, and for more compelling, troubling and bolder forms of participatory art and criticism.

Mark Hearld: Workbook


Simon Martin - 2012
    Hearld admires such twentieth-century artists as Edward Bawden, John Piper, Eric Ravilious and Enid Marx, and, like them, he chooses to work in a range of media – paint, print, collage, textiles and ceramics. Workbook is the first collection of Hearld’s beguiling art. The works are grouped into nature-related themes introduced by Hearld, who narrates the story behind some of his creations and discusses his influences. He explains his particular love of collage, which he favours for its graphic quality and potential for strong composition. Art historian Simon Martin contributes an essay on Hearld’s place in the English popular-art tradition, and also meets Hearld in his museum-like home to explore the artist’s passion for collecting objects, his working methods and his startling ability to view the wonders of the natural world as if through a child’s eyes.

Works of Vincent van Gogh (Masters of Art)


Vincent van Gogh - 2012
    A first of its kind in digital print, the ‘Masters of Art’ series allows Kindle readers to explore the works of the world’s greatest artists in comprehensive detail. This volume presents the complete paintings and letters of the Dutch master Vincent van Gogh. For all art lovers, this stunning collection offers a personal and unique digital portrait of one of the world’s greatest artists.Features:* the complete paintings of Vincent van Gogh — over 800 paintings, fully indexed and arranged in chronological order* features a special ‘Highlights’ section, with concise introductions to the masterpieces, giving valuable contextual information* beautiful 'detail' images, allowing you to explore van Gogh's celebrated works in detail* numerous images relating to van Gogh’s life and works* includes over 800 letters — explore the artist’s vast and scholarly correspondence with his brother Theo* EVEN includes the detailed biography by van Gogh’s sister-in-law* hundreds of images in stunning colour - highly recommended for Kindle Fire, iPhone and iPad users, or as a valuable reference tool on traditional KindlesCONTENTS:The HighlightsSTILL LIFE WITH CABBAGE AND CLOGSAVENUE OF POPLARS IN AUTUMNTHE POTATO EATERSSKULL WITH BURNING CIGARETTESELF-PORTRAIT WITH STRAW HATTHE WHITE ORCHARDPORTRAIT OF THE POSTMAN JOSEPH ROULINSTILL LIFE: VASE WITH TWELVE SUNFLOWERSVINCENT’S HOUSE IN ARLES (THE YELLOW HOUSE)THE CAFÉ TERRACE ON THE PLACE DU FORUM, ARLES, AT NIGHTPORTRAIT OF DR. GACHETVINCENT’S BEDROOM IN ARLESVINCENT’S CHAIR WITH HIS PIPETHE RED VINEYARDSELF-PORTRAIT WITH BANDAGED EARTHE STARRY NIGHTWHEAT FIELD WITH CYPRESSESIRISESWHEAT FIELD WITH CROWSThe PaintingsTHE COMPLETE PAINTINGSALPHABETICAL LIST OF PAINTINGSThe LettersTHE CORRESPONDENCE OF VINCENT VAN GOGHThe BiographyMEMOIR OF VINCENT VAN GOGH by Johanna Gesina van Gogh

In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States


Ilene Susan Fort - 2012
    The surrealist movement in art is most often identified with male artists, many of whom objectified women in their paintings, casting them as sexual or symbolic ideals. Conversely, the female artists of the movement delved primarily into their own subconscious and dreams. This volume features the work of48 Mexican and U.S.-based women artists whose contributions to the surrealist movement span more than four decades and whose work was both influential and radical in its own right. Thematically arranged, it includes more than 250 full-color images along with several essays exploring the effects ofgeography and gender on the movement. This unique book illustrates surrealism as a gateway to self-discovery, especially in North America, where women artists were freed from oppressive European traditions and the vagaries of war. From 1931, the year of Lee Miller's first surreal photograph, to 1968, when Yayoi Kusama presented her landmark happening "Alice in Wonderland" in New York's Central Park, the artists and works depicted here are both significant and extraordinary in their explorations of personal and universal truths.

Lucian Freud Portraits


Sarah Howgate - 2012
    Working only from life, the artist claimed, "I could never put anything into a picture that wasn't actually there in front of me." This major retrospective catalogue surveys Freud's portraits across the seven decades of his career. Featuring the finest portraits from public and private collections around the world, the book explores the stylistic development and remarkable technical virtuosity of an artist regarded as one of the most innovative figurative painters the medium has known.Freud's chosen subjects were often his intimates - family members, friends, and artistic colleagues such as Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, Leigh Bowery, and David Hockney.  Freud was private man who rarely gave interviews, and his thoughts on the complex relationship between artist and sitter and the challenges of painting nudes and self-portraits are published here for the first time, documented in a series of interviews with Michael Auping, conducted between May 2009 and January 2011. An illustrated chronology of the artist's life provides fascinating insights into Freud's background as a grandson of Sigmund Freud, and his unorthodox artistic education.An essential book for every personal art library, this lavishly illustrated volume celebrates the work and career of an artist who overturned traditional portraiture and offered a new approach to figurative art.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide


Thomas P. Campbell - 2012
    It features a compelling and accessible design, beautiful color reproductions, and up-to-date descriptions written by the Museum's own experts.More than a simple souvenir book, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide provides a comprehensive view of art history spanning five millennia and the entire globe, beginning with the Ancient World and ending in contemporary times. It includes media as varied as painting, photography, costume, sculpture, decorative arts, musical instruments, arms and armor, works on paper, and many more. Presenting works ranging from the ancient Egyptian Temple of Dendur to Canova's Perseus with the Head of Medusa to Sargent's Madame X, this is an indispensable volume for lovers of art and art history, and for anyone who has ever dreamed of lingering over the most iconic works in the Metropolitan's unparalleled collection.Now available as an eBook!The guide is now available to read on your tablet, mobile phone or personal computer. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide eBook provides the same features as the printed version along with digital enhancements such as a linked table of contents for easy navigation, a double-click to zoom on works of art, and additional views of artworks. Like the print version, this eBook features a compelling and accessible design, beautiful photography, and up-to-date descriptions written by the Museum's own experts.The eBook is now available on Amazon Kindle, Apple iBooks and Google Play.

Art and Queer Culture


Catherine Lord - 2012
    Not a book exclusively about artists who identify themselves as gay or lesbian, Art and Queer Culture instead traces the shifting possibilities and constraints of sexual identity that have provided visual artists with a rich creative resource over the last 125 years.

George Barbier: Master of Art Deco: Fashion, Illustration and Graphic Design


Hiroshi Unno - 2012
    He is famous for his elegant art deco works that were heavily influenced by orientalism and Parisian couture. Born in Nantes, France in 1882, he skyrocketed to fame and notoriety after his first exhibition in 1911. Known as one of “the knights of the bracelet” for his luxurious and glamorous lifestyle and work, George Barbier also received renown for costumes and set designs he did for theater, film, and ballet. Even today, his modern and stylish illustrations are popular all over the world.With critical essays on such topics as coloration and composition, this volume is a complete compendium of Barbier’s work. This valuable reference book is categorized by Barbier’s major projects in fashion, book illustration, theater art, and editorial design and is perfect for illustrators and graphic designers as well as a beautiful gift for someone very special.

Andrew Wyeth: Christina's World


Laura Hoptman - 2012
    She suffered from polio, and was paralyzed from the waist down; Wyeth was moved to portray her when he saw her one day crawling through the field towards her house. "Christina's World" was to become one of the most well-loved and most scorned works of the twentieth century, igniting heated arguments about parochialism, sentimentality, kitsch and elitism that have continued to dog the art world and Wyeth's own reputation, even after the artist's death in 2009. An essay by MoMA curator Laura Hoptman revisits the genesis of the painting, discussing Wyeth's curious focus, over the course of his career, on a deliberately delimited range of subjects and exploring the mystery that continues to surround the enigmatic painting.

Museum Without Walls


Jonathan Meades - 2012
    Places" Jonathan Meades has an obsessive preoccupation with places. He has spent thirty years constructing sixty films, two novels and hundreds of pieces of journalism that explore an extraordinary range of them, from natural landscapes to man-made buildings and 'the gaps between them', drawing attention to what he calls 'the rich oddness of what we take for granted'. This book collects 54 pieces and six film scripts that dissolve the barriers between high and low culture, good and bad taste, deep seriousness and black comedy. Meades delivers 'heavy entertainment' - strong opinions backed up by an astonishing depth of knowledge. To read Meades on places, buildings, politics, or cultural history is an exhilarating workout for the mind. He leaves you better informed, more alert, less gullible. "Everything is fantastical if you stare at it for long enough. Everything is interesting."

Caspar David Friedrich


Johannes Grave - 2012
    This breathtaking monograph, filled with glorious reproductions and details of his paintings, argues for Friedrich's reputation as a sublime artist and interpreter of nature. In his thoughtful and well researched commentary, author Johannes Grave explores Friedrich's unique approach to landscape painting as well as his revolutionary thoughts about how these paintings should be received by their viewers. Looking closely at pieces such as Monk by the Sea, The Abbey in the Oakwood, and the Tetschen Altar, Graves shows how Friedrich developed an innovative approach to landscape painting, one that communicated a new sense of space and time, and which draws the viewer into a unique aesthetic experience. Readable, insightful, and copiously illustrated in a deluxe volume, this compelling new perspective sheds crucial light on Friedrich's celebrated body of work.

Marco Anelli: Portraits in the Presence of Marina Abramovic


Marina Abramović - 2012
    The centerpiece of the landmark retrospective Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present was Abramovic herself, who sat silently in the museum's atrium, inviting visitors to take a seat across from her for as long as they chose. She sat every day for the run of the show--716 hours and 30 minutes--and faced more than 1,500 people, whose participation completed the work. Marco Anelli's photographic project captured every interaction, taking a portrait of each participant and noting the time they spent in the chair. Just as Abramovic's piece concerned duration, the photographs give the viewer a chance to experience the performance from Abramovic's perspective. They reveal both dramatic and mundane moments, and speak to the humanity of such interactions, just as the performance itself did. The resultant photographs are mesmerizing and intense, putting a face to the world of art lovers while capturing what they shared during their contact with the artist.

Titian: His Life


Sheila Hale - 2012
    Brilliant in its interpretation of the 16th-century master's paintings, this monumental biography of Titian draws on contemporary accounts and recent art historical research and scholarship, some of it previously unpublished, providing an unparalleled portrait of the artist, as well as a fascinating rendering of Venice as a center of culture, commerce, and power. Sheila Hale's Titian is destined to be this century's authoritative text on the life of greatest painter of the Italian High Renaissance.

Doris Duke's Shangri-La: A House in Paradise: Architecture, Landscape, and Islamic Art


Donald Albrecht - 2012
    Situated on five acres of terraced gardens and pools overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Honolulu’s Diamond Head, Shangri La was the idyllic paradise of philanthropist Doris Duke, reflecting her personal passion for the art, architecture, and design of the Islamic world. The estate incorporates unique architectural features, such as carved marble doorways, jalis, and floral ceramic tiles, and the decor includes artifacts, such as silk textiles, jewel-toned chandeliers, and gilt and coffered ceilings, many collected during her travels. This volume presents an exclusive tour of Shangri La’s breathtaking interiors and landscape, including the splendid furnishings and art. Archival photographs of Duke and friends as well as correspondence and drawings provide a view into a lifestyle defined by the highest sense of aesthetics. Doris Duke’s Shangri La is sure to inspire both art and design lovers.

Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind


Jill Cook - 2012
    

Nordic Light: Modern Scandinavian Architecture


Henry Plummer - 2012
    Fifty projects are featured in detail, ordered according to the way in which different light conditions have imparted particular qualities on the buildings. Henry Plummer treats his subject from a uniquely authoritative perspective in which his words resonate directly with his artfully taken images. Books that give a true sense of the magical light that have shaped great buildings are rare: this is a publication to savour. Nine chapters present established icons, newly discovered gems and contemporary masterworks, according to the way in which different light conditions have imparted particular qualities to buildings. Among the buildings featured are Arne Jacobsens town hall in Arhus, Denmark, Alvar Aaltos Villa Mairea in Finland, Klas Anshelms Malmo Konsthall in Sweden, and many others. Each chapter features an introduction, which traces the nature, quality and cultural history of that aspect of light.

Hammershoi and Europe


Kasper Monrad - 2012
    This generously illustrated volume examines Hammershoi's work as a whole and in relation to the artists of his generation. Hammershoi's enigmatic paintings, with their rich and muted palettes, have always enjoyed enormous popularity in Scandinavia, and recently his work has received renewed attention across the globe. Thematically arranged, this volume includes beautiful reproductions and essays that focus on London and Germany; and comparisons between him and such notable painters as Seurat, Gauguin, and Whistler. Fans of this remarkable painter, and anyone interested in modern art, will enjoy this celebration of Hammershoi as a part of the pantheon of great European painters.

George Bellows


Sarah Cash - 2012
    Published in conjunction with a major retrospective exhibition, this book documents the artist's career from his youthful meteoric rise to the largely unexplored period preceding his death. Mentored by Robert Henri, leader of the Ashcan school in New York in the early part of the twentieth century, Bellows skillfully and audaciously painted the world around him: street children, tenements, boxers, urban and rural landscapes, seascapes, war scenes, and family portraiture. He was also an accomplished graphic artist whose illustrations and lithographs addressed a wide array of social, religious, and political subjects. More than 200 reproductions from every stage of Bellows' career are accompanied by a series of essays that offer a substantial reconsideration of the artist, drawing comparisons to Manet, Goya, El Greco, and Picasso, and tracing his rise to the emergence of other American greats such as Edward Hopper. A chronology and two appendices devoted to Bellows' personal record book and his published illustrations for periodicals such as The Masses and Harper's Weekly reveal the full range of his remarkable artistic achievements. Authoritative and exhaustive, this groundbreaking book firmly establishes Bellows' unique place in the history of both American art and Western art in general.

The Textile Reader


Jessica Hemmings - 2012
    Revealing the full diversity of approaches to the study of textiles, the Reader introduces students to the theoretical frameworks essential to the exploration of the textile from both a critical and a creative perspective.Content is drawn from a wide range of genres - blogs, artists' statements and fiction, as well as critical writings - and organized in themed sections covering touch, memory, structure, politics, production and use. Each thematic section is separately introduced and concludes with a bibliography for further reading. The Textile Reader will be an invaluable resource for students of textile design, textile art, applied arts and crafts and material culture. Selected authors include Glenn Adamson, Anni Albers, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Sarat Maharaj, Rozsika Parker, Sadie Plant, Peter Stallybrass, Alice Walker and Catherine de Zegher.

Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity


Gloria Groom - 2012
    Although they have depicted fashionable subjects throughout history, for many artists and writers, including Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, Émile Zola, Gustave Caillebotte, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, fashion became integral to the search for new literary and visual expression. In a series of essays that examine fashion and its social, cultural, and artistic context during some of the most important years of the Impressionist era—years that also gave birth to the modern fashion industry—a group of fifteen scholars, drawn from five interdisciplinary fields, examine approximately 140 Impressionist-era artworks, including those by dedicated fashion portraitists, in light of the rise of the department store, new working methods for designing clothing, and new social and technological changes that led to the democratization of fashion and, simultaneously, its ascendance as a vehicle for modernity.

Cabinets of Wonder


Christine Davenne - 2012
    A centuries-old tradition developed in Europe during the Renaissance, cabinets of wonder (also known as curiosity cabinets) are once again in fashion. Shops, restaurants, and private residences echo these cabinets in their interior design, by making use of the eclectic vintage objects commonly featured in such collections. "Cabinets of Wonder "showcases exceptional collections in homes and museums, with more than 180 photographs, while also explaining the history behind the tradition, the best-known collections, and the types of objects typically displayed. Offering both a historical overview and a look into contemporary interior design, this extravagantly illustrated book celebrates the wonderfully odd world of cabinets of wonder.

Pictures and Progress: Early Photography and the Making of African American Identity


Maurice O. Wallace - 2012
    They sought both to counter widely circulating racist imagery and to use self-representation as a means of empowerment. In this collection of essays, scholars from various disciplines consider figures including Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and W. E. B. Du Bois as important and innovative theorists and practitioners of photography. In addition, brief interpretive essays, or "snapshots," highlight and analyze the work of four early African American photographers. Featuring more than seventy images, Pictures and Progress brings to light the wide-ranging practices of early African American photography, as well as the effects of photography on racialized thinking.Contributors. Michael A. Chaney, Cheryl Finley, P. Gabrielle Foreman, Ginger Hill, Leigh Raiford, Augusta Rohrbach, Ray Sapirstein, Suzanne N. Schneider, Shawn Michelle Smith, Laura Wexler, Maurice O. WallaceMaurice O. Wallace is Associate Professor of English and African & African American Studies at Duke University. He is the author of Constructing the Black Masculine: Identity and Ideality in African American Men's Literature and Culture, 1775–1995, also published by Duke University Press. Shawn Michelle Smith is Associate Professor of Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is the author of Photography on the Color Line: W. E. B. Du Bois, Race, and Visual Culture, also published by Duke University Press, and American Archives: Gender, Race, and Class in Visual Culture. Smith is coauthor (with Dora Apel) of Lynching Photographs."Pictures and Progress offers a new understanding of visual representations of black Americans in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through its compelling essays, this work reframes the archive of images of death, beauty, and suffering of black subjects in photography."—Deborah Willis, New York University"With its emphasis on the often radical roles that black sitters and makers assumed in the history of photography, Pictures and Progress offers a bold approach to the study of American visual culture, one that places black agency at its center. The collection's intriguing and persuasive essays elucidate the importance of photography to the creation of free, black personhood in the nineteenth century and early twentieth and reveal the myriad and sometimes surprising ways that early black photographers sought to wield 'the pencil of nature' in an effort to assert self-possessed, and therefore revolutionary, subjectivities during an era in which the dominant culture preferred to represent them as otherwise."—Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, author of Portraits of a People: Picturing African Americans in the Nineteenth Century

A Legacy of Shetland Lace


Shetland Guild of Spinners - 2012
    While some are strictly traditional others are modernised and the patterns featured have designs planned for all levels of skill and experience.

The Value of Art: Money, Power, Beauty


Michael Findlay - 2012
    In straightforward prose that doesn't mystify art or deny its special allure, prominent art dealer and market expert Michael Findlay offers a close up and personal view of almost a half century in the business of art. He engagingly explains art's three kinds of value: commercial; social; and what he terms its essential value--the range of responses to art that we as individuals have depending on our culture, education, and life experience. Few avid collectors are immune to the thrill of rising market value, but Findlay argues that buying for investment alone is seldom smart. A genuine love of art and the ways it may enrich one's social life also play important roles. Down-to-earth and with a touch of dry wit, he explains exactly how artworks are valued and reveals the workings of the art market. Enhancing his narrative are wise advice, insider anecdotes, and tales of scoundrels and scams, celebrity collectors, and remarkable discoveries. Generously illustrated, Findlay's distillation of a lifetime's experience makes this insider's guide indispensable for all who love art, not only collectors but true "amateurs" as well.

Ancestral Modern: Australian Aboriginal Art


Pamela McClusky - 2012
    Instead of making art primarily for each other-whether painted or inscribed on rock walls, on the ground, on bark, or on bodies as part of ceremonies-artists began rephrasing their practices to inform outsiders about the complexities of their cultures and the remarkable lands that Aboriginal communities have managed for centuries.Many of the paintings in Ancestral Modern initially appear abstract but communicate surprisingly specific observations about places and people, flora and fauna, and Aboriginal history. In three wide-ranging essays and illuminating discussions of fifty individual works, the authors consider how deceptively simple means yield richly multilayered meanings. What appears to be a geometric maze turns into the path of ancestral beings establishing features of the landscape. Canvases resembling maps record memories of sacred ceremonies. Dazzling linear patterns conjure up leaves blown across a windswept desert, and herringbone hatching designates clan identities. Along the way, this collection offers many new visions of Australia-peering underground to see yams grow, trekking over vast salt lakes, following the trail of a blue-tongued lizard, and encountering a lightning-spitting serpent in swirling water.Two Australian and two American curators each contribute a distinct perspective on this collection of over one hundred artworks that span the Australian continent and the varying approaches to art pursued by diverse Aboriginal communities. Acrylic paintings from the desert, bark canvases from the north, and ochre-painted canvases from the west are joined by new uses of fiber, clay, and photography. Complementing the fully illustrated essays and catalogue entries are a visual glossary, which offers glimpses of the real-life creatures and landscapes that helped inspire the artworks, and a glossary of terms defining some of the essential concepts of Aboriginal culture. Ancestral Modern is dedicated to a vanguard effort by artists who are showing the world another way to experience not only their own country and worldviews but nature itself, wherever it is encountered.

Valentin Serov


Dmitri Sarabyanov - 2012
    Benefi ting from the instruction of his teachers, Repine and Tchistiakov, he became the fi nest Russian portraitist of his generation. His skill is evident in some of his most beautiful paintings, “Young girl with peaches” or “Ulysses and Nausicaa”. Serov’s creative work and experience opened the way for Russian painting to become part of pictorial art in the 20th century.

Gods in Print: Masterpieces of India's Mythological Art


Richard H. Davis - 2012
    India’s love of gods in print began in the 1870s with the founding of the Calcutta Art Studio and the Chitrashala Press. In 1894, artists Ravi and Raja Varma set up the Ravi Varma Fine Art Lithographic Press outside Bombay. By the early 1900s, these presses had begun selling their prints throughout the subcontinent. Collectors Mark Baron and Elise Boisante have traveled to remote corners of India to document and preserve this fragile and beautiful popular art form. Their diligence in tracking down “God prints” and restoring them to their original brilliance has resulted in the extraordinary and comprehensive collection featured in this volume. For the first time, the full scope of India’s sacred imagery in print can be viewed from its earliest days.

Caribbean: Art at the Crossroads of the World


Deborah CullenGerald Alexis - 2012
    Featuring 500 color illustrations of artworks from the late 18th through the 21st century, the book explores modern and contemporary art, ranging from the Haitian revolution to the present.Acknowledging both the individuality of each island, the richness of the coastal regions, and the reach of the Diaspora, Caribbean looks at the vital visual and cultural links that exist among these diverse constituencies. The authors examine how the Caribbean has been imagined and pictured, and the role of art in the development of national identity. Essays by leading scholars cover such topics as the interconnections between Caribbean artistic production to its colonial contexts; between various generations of artists; and between the so-called high and low arts and religion, music, and carnival celebrations. Primary source documents crucial to understanding the region provide an important complement.Edited by Deborah Cullen and Elvis Fuentes, and featuring essays by Katherine Manthorne, Mari Carmen Ramírez, Lowery Stokes Sims, and Edward J. Sullivan, among many others, this book will serve as the definitive volume on Caribbean visual culture for many decades to come.

Fashion in Impressionist Paris


Debra N. Mancoff - 2012
    During the second half of the nineteenth century, when the capital was transformed by an ambitious urban plan, its residents responded in kind, wearing styles as polished and modern as the city itself in order to participate in the exciting new social scene. Featuring famed paintings by such Impressionist masters as Degas, Cassatt, Manet, Monet and Morisot, this delightful book revisits the world of Parisian fashion through the eyes of first-hand observers. Thematic chapters present a gallery-like ensemble of paintings that follow in the footsteps of stylish Parisians as they stroll in the parks and boulevards, meet friends at cafés, take in the theatre, relax at home and go on holiday. In an extended narrative-style caption to accompany each image, fashion and art historian Debra N. Mancoff offers a detailed discussion of what men and women wore and how their dress defined them. To complete the picture, illustrated interludes, providing glimpses into dressmaking, corsetry and millinery, the origins of couture and the rise of the department store, reveal how Paris became the fashion capital of the world.

Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde


Timothy J. Barringer - 2012
    Today the works of the Pre-Raphaelites are among the best known of all English paintings, and yet they have sometimes been dismissed as Victoriana or mere escapism. This book corrects that view. Accompanying a major international touring exhibition, it examines works in a wide variety of media, demonstrating the broad scope of the movement's revolutionary ideas about art, design and society. Led by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, the Pre-Raphaelites rebelled against the art establishment of their day and were committed to the idea of art's potential to change society. Their unflinchingly radical style, inspired by the purity of early renaissance painting, defied convention, provoked critics and entranced audiences. Many of the most famous Pre-Raphaelite paintings are featured, including Millais' "Ophelia" and Madox Brown's "The Last of England", alongside less familiar works. In contrast with previous Pre-Raphaelite surveys, this book also includes sculpture, photography and the applied arts, the latter showing the important role the "Brotherhood" played in the early development of the Arts and Crafts movement and the socialist ideas of the poet, designer and theorist, William Morris (1834-1896). Extensively illustrated, with essays by leading international authorities in the field, this will be the key work on the Pre-Raphaelites for years to come.

The Civil War and American Art


Eleanor Jones Harvey - 2012
    Its grim reality, captured through the new medium of photography, was laid bare. American artists could not approach the conflict with the conventions of European history painting, which glamorized the hero on the battlefield. Instead, many artists found ways to weave the war into works of art that considered the human narrative—the daily experiences of soldiers, slaves, and families left behind. Artists and writers wrestled with the ambiguity and anxiety of the Civil War and used landscape imagery to give voice to their misgivings as well as their hopes for themselves and the nation.This important book looks at the range of artwork created before, during, and following the war, in the years between 1852 and 1877. Author Eleanor Jones Harvey surveys paintings made by some of America's finest artists, including Frederic Church, Sanford Gifford, Winslow Homer, and Eastman Johnson, and photographs taken by George Barnard, Alexander Gardner, and Timothy H. O'Sullivan.  Harvey examines American landscape and genre painting and the new medium of photography to understand both how artists made sense of the war and how they portrayed what was a deeply painful, complex period in American history. Enriched by firsthand accounts of the war by soldiers, former slaves, abolitionists, and statesmen, Harvey's research demonstrates how these artists used painting and photography to reshape American culture. Alongside the artworks, period voices (notably those of Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, and Walt Whitman) amplify the anxiety and dilemmas of wartime America.

Selected Correspondence of Kenneth Patchen


Kenneth Patchen - 2012
    Selected Correspondence of Kenneth Patchen

The Summer Palaces of the Romanovs: Treasures from Tsarskoye Selo


Emmanuel Ducamp - 2012
    Petersburg, the Russian imperial residence ofTsarskoye Selo is now more than three hundred years old. TsarskoyeSelo (“Tsar’s Village”) was once a modest estate housing a summerresidence for Catherine I, second wife of Peter the Great. The buildingnow known as the Catherine Palace was extensively rebuilt by EmpressElizabeth and then lavishly refurbished by Catherine the Great. Thisempress's love of art and decoration is evident in the sumptuous interiorsand in the extensive park, filled with fanciful pavilions, bridges, andmonuments. Catherine also commissioned the neoclassical AlexanderPalace for her favorite grandson, the future Alexander I; this laterbecame home to the last tsar, Nicholas II, and his family until theirexile to Siberia.The palace is a glorious showcase for Russian art and craftsmanshipin a huge variety of materials and techniques, from the mirrors and lavishgilding of the Great Hall to the blood-red beauty of the Agate Rooms,their walls lined with Siberian jasper. Tsarskoye Selo is not only a pieceof art history but a living testimony to the tastes and private passionsof the Romanov family. Their clothes and porcelain, their desks and bookshelvesbuild an intimate and involving portrait of life in imperial Russia.

Dark Romanticism: From Goya to Max Ernst


Felix Krämer - 2012
    In 1930, the famous literary theorist Mario Praz named this strain in literature "Dark Romanticism," but its equivalent in art has never been thoroughly assessed in art history. This volume is the first to examine a current that runs from Goya's war etchings through Symbolism and up to Surrealism, presenting Romanticism as an intellectual position that was embraced throughout Europe and that endured into the twentieth century. Among the artists included are Henry Fuseli, William Blake, Caspar David Friedrich, Victor Hugo, Arnold Böcklin, Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon, Félicien Rops, James Ensor, Max Klinger, Edvard Munch, Hans Bellmer and Max Ernst.

The Usborne Book of Famous Artists


Ruth Brocklehurst - 2012
    Explores the lives and works of 35 of the world's best-known artists, including reproductions of their works.

The Postcard Age: Selections from the Leonard A. Lauder Collection


Lynda Klich - 2012
    A postcard craze swept the world, and billions of cards were bought, mailed and pasted into albums. Many famous artists turned to the new medium, but one of the great pleasures and enigmas of postcards is how some of the most beautiful and interesting examples were made by artists whose names we barely know. Drawing on the riches of the Leonard A. Lauder Postcard Collection (probably the finest and most comprehensive collection of its type), this gorgeous book traces the historical and cultural themes--enthralling, exciting, and sometimes disturbing--of the modern age. The first general publication on the postcard as an artistic medium since the mid-1970s, The Postcard Age is organized thematically, with chapters devoted to urban life, the changing role of women, sports, celebrity, new technologies, the stylish collectors' cards of Art Nouveau and World War I. The result is at once a vivid picture of the concerns and pastimes of the turn of the century and a sampler from the Lauder's vast archives.

The Glory of Byzantium and Early Christendom


Antony Eastmond - 2012
    Presenting 300 artworks from the years 240 to 1453, The Glory of Byzantium and Early Christendom encapsulates the development of art in eastern Europe and eastern Mediterranean from the very early days of Christianity to the fall of Constantinople. From architecture to jewellery, from coins to paintings, from mosaics to book illuminations, Byzantine art in all its forms is explored. Unique not only for its extensive variety of art forms, the book also has a vast geographic scope, including art from Britain to Syria, from Spain to Turkey, from Egypt to Georgia. A sumptuous volume with stunning illustrations and concise descriptions, it places each artwork in its social, religious and political context, with an informative survey of its significance in this history of Byzantine art. A book for dipping into, as well as an inspiring, authoritative appraisal of this magnificent millennium of artistic culture.

The Bitter Years: Edward Steichen and the Farm Security Administration Photographs


Francoise Poos - 2012
    The show featured 209 images by photographers who worked under the aegis of the U.S. Farm Security Administration (FSA) in 1935-41, as part of Roosevelt's New Deal. The FSA, set up to combat rural poverty during the Great Depression, included an ambitious photography project that launched many photographic careers, most notably those of Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange. The exhibition featured their work as well as that of ten other FSA photographers, including Ben Shahn, Carl Mydans and Arthur Rothstein. Their images are among the most remarkable in documentary photography--testimonies of a people in crisis, hit by the full force of economic turmoil and the effects of drought and dust storms. This volume includes all the photographs in the original show, in a structure and sequence that reflect those devised by Steichen for the exhibition. The Bitter Years was the last exhibition curated by Steichen as Director of the Department of Photography at MoMA, in which role he had won international acclaim for his 1955 The Family of Man exhibition. Essays by Jean Back, Gabriel Bauret, Ariane Pollet, Miles Orvell and Antoinette Lorang discuss the FSA, its place in the history of twentieth-century photography and the continuing role of its archive, and Steichen and the origins, impact and legacy of the exhibition. The Bitter Years celebrates some of the most iconic photographs of the twentieth century, and--since no proper catalogue was produced at the time--provides a whole new insight into Steichen's impact on the history of documentary photography.

John Singer Sargent: Figures and Landscapes, 1900-1907: The Complete Paintings, Volume VII


Richard Ormond - 2012
    In Palestine in 1905, he painted a significant group of oils and watercolors as well as a group of studies of the Bedouin. It was during this burst of artistic production that he painted The Mountains of Moab (Tate Gallery, London), which was the first pure landscape he ever exhibited (Royal Academy, 1906). In Italy and Spain, Sargent painted parks, gardens, fountains, and statues, subjects that reveal his taste for the high style of Renaissance and Mannerist art and for the romantic grandeur of deserted spaces.As evidenced by the works in this new volume, Sargent reinvented himself as a landscape painter during his travels. Expressing a finely developed sense of modernity, he selected quirky angles of vision and used a range of compositional strategies—compression, foreshortening, abrupt croppings, and receding perspectives—in a manner that is quasi-photographic. He exploited the material qualities of pigment, and the impasto is often so thickly applied that figure and landscape seem to dissolve together creating rich, near abstract surface patterns. The restless handling and dynamic compositional rhythms act in creative tension with the artist's more traditional subject matter, generating notions of instability and ambiguity that are distinctly modern in character.

360 Color Paintings of Joaquin (Joaquín) Sorolla y Bastida - Valencian Spanish Painter (February 27, 1863 - August 10, 1923)


Jacek Michalak - 2012
    Joaquin Sorolla book includes 360 high quality reproductions of his greatest masterpieces with title and date.

Visible Empire: Botanical Expeditions and Visual Culture in the Hispanic Enlightenment


Daniela Bleichmar - 2012
    While these voyages produced written texts and compiled collections of specimens, they dedicated an overwhelming proportion of their resources and energy to the creation of visual materials. European and American naturalists and artists collaborated to manufacture a staggering total of more than 12,000 botanical illustrations. Yet these images have remained largely overlooked—until now.In this lavishly illustrated volume, Daniela Bleichmar gives this archive its due, finding in these botanical images a window into the worlds of Enlightenment science, visual culture, and empire. Through innovative interdisciplinary scholarship that bridges the histories of science, visual culture, and the Hispanic world, Bleichmar uses these images to trace two related histories: the little-known history of scientific expeditions in the Hispanic Enlightenment and the history of visual evidence in both science and administration in the early modern Spanish empire. As Bleichmar shows, in the Spanish empire visual epistemology operated not only in scientific contexts but also as part of an imperial apparatus that had a long-established tradition of deploying visual evidence for administrative purposes.

Isms: Understanding Modern Art


Sam Phillips - 2012
    From impressionism and the birth of modern art to street art and internationalism of the 21st century, it gives a practical introduction to all the significant 'isms' that have shaped modern art history.

Nature


Jeffrey Kastner - 2012
    With the dislocation of disciplinary boundaries in visual culture, art that is engaged with nature has also forged connections with a new range of scientific, historical, and philosophical ideas. Developing technologies make our interventions into natural systems both increasingly refined and profound. Advances in biological and telecommunication technology continually modify the way we present ourselves. So too are artistic representations of nature (human and otherwise) being transformed.This anthology addresses these issues by considering how the rise of transdisciplinary practices in the postwar era allowed for new kinds of artistic engagement with nature. These include the postminimalist inscriptions associated with Land art; environmentally engaged practices designed to propose novel forms of stewardship; and more recent projects concerned with relationships between the most subtle and minute components of life and the large-scale appearance of the world. These projects unsettle the most basic operations of "natural" personhood and identity.Including a wide range of writings by and about artists, juxtaposed with influential texts from diverse theoretical bases, this collection provides an overview of the eclectic scientific and philosophical sources that inform contemporary art's investigations of nature.

The Seljuks of Anatolia: Court and Society in the Medieval Middle East


A.C.S. Peacock - 2012
    Under Seljuk rule (c. 1081-1308) the formerly Christian Byzantine territories of Anatolia were transformed by the development of Muslim culture, society and politics, and it was then - well before the arrival of the Ottomans - that a Turkish population became firmly established in these lands. Here, Andrew Peacock and Sara Nur Yildiz explore the history of Anatolia under Seljuk rule in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, examining developments in culture, politics, religion and society and shedding new light on the influence of the dynasty within Anatolia and throughout Western Asia. The Seljuks of Anatolia will therefore be of great interest to researchers with interests in Byzantium as well as the material culture and society of the medieval Islamic world.

National Geographic Greatest Photographs of the American West: Capturing 125 Years of Majesty, Spirit, and Adventure


James C. McNutt - 2012
    It's a magical place of extraordinary people, exciting events, and stunning scenery--big sky, wide-open spaces, epic grandeur, and pristine wilderness. National Geographic brings together award-winning photographers to capture this outsized land of majestic dimensions and emotive power. Unparalled images--some iconic, some rarely or never-before-seen--speak to the powerful forces of nature and culture at work in the West and showcase the region as never before.Divided into four chapters--Legends, Encounters, Boundaries, and Visions--renowned National Geographic photography, past and present, brings the magic and the mystery of the American West alive through the best of its collection. From red-rock waves of stone to rugged snow-capped mountains, from ghost towns to prairie dog towns, from cowboys to wild horses, National Geographic Greatest Photographs of the American West captures it all in spectacular color photography augmented by periodic archival photographs. The photographs weave together a visual tapestry--complemented by informative captions--of this rich, varied, and enduring landscape that is the American West.

Strange Beauty: Issues in the Making and Meaning of Reliquaries, 400circa 1204


Cynthia Hahn - 2012
    Until now, however, they have had no treatment in English that considers their history, origins, and place within religious practice, or, above all, their beauty and aesthetic value. In Strange Beauty, Cynthia Hahn treats issues that cut across the class of medieval reliquaries as a whole. She is particularly concerned with portable reliquaries that often contained tiny relic fragments, which purportedly allowed saints to actively exercise power in the world.Above all, Hahn argues, reliquaries are a form of representation. They rarely simply depict what they contain; rather, they prepare the viewer for the appropriate reception of their precious contents and establish the "story" of the relics. They are based on forms originating in the Bible, especially the cross and the Ark of the Covenant, but find ways to renew the vision of such forms. They engage the viewer in many ways that are perhaps best described as persuasive or "rhetorical," and Hahn uses literary terminology--sign, metaphor, and simile--to discuss their operation. At the same time, they make use of unexpected shapes--the purse, the arm or foot, or disembodied heads--to create striking effects and emphatically suggest the presence of the saint.

Southwest Art Defined: An Illustrated Guide


Margaret Moore Booker - 2012
    Comprehensive descriptions of Native American and Hispano art are accompanied by full-color photographs of art from museums, galleries, and private collections. Lose yourself in the stunning pottery, textiles, jewelry, carvings, and architecture of the Southwest.

Ends of the Earth: Art of the Land to 1974


Philipp Kaiser - 2012
    A companion volume to the first large-scale exhibition on Land art, this book traces the emergence of the artistic impulses to use the earth as material, land as medium, and to locate works in remote sites, beyond familiar art contexts. Ends of the Earth challenges many myths about Land art-that it was primarily a North American phenomenon, that it was foremost a sculptural practice, and that it exceeds the confines of the art system. Essays by leading young scholars will offer new insights into Land art's emergence, including its intrinsic connection to media, its dreams of an elsewhere, the attraction of wastelands, and the problems inherent in a historical evaluation of site-specific or ephemeral art. The book will also include a series of reflections from the major curators, critics, and dealers who helped to make Land art both as work and discourse in the 1960s and 1970s.

Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance: Painting and Illumination, 1300-1350


Christine Sciacca - 2012
    With more than 200 illustrations, Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance reveals the full complexity and enduring beauty of the art of this period, including panel paintings, illuminated manuscripts, and stained glass panels. The book considers not only the work of Giotto and other influential artists, including Bernardo Daddi, Taddeo Gaddi, and Pacino di Bonaguida, but also that of the larger community of illuminators and panel painters who collectively contributed to Florence's artistic legacy. It places particular emphasis on those artists who worked in both panel painting and manuscript illumination, and presents new conservation research and scientific analyses that shed light on artists' techniques and workshop practices of the times. Reunited here for the first time are twenty-six leaves of the most important illuminated manuscript commission of the period: the Laudario of Sant' Agnese. The splendor of this book of hymns exemplifies the spiritual and artistic aspirations of early Renaissance Florence.

Jenny Saville: Continuum


John Richardson - 2012
    Fascinated by the endless aesthetic and formal possibilities that the materiality of the human body offers, Jenny Saville remits a highly sensuous and tactile impression of surface and mass in her monumental oil paintings. She captures the contours and features of the face and the nuances of skin texture and color in strokes both bold and meticulous. Enlarging the facial features of her human subjects to a vast scale and rendering them in layer upon layer of paint, she imbues them with a sense of mass and weight that is almost sculptural and at times wholly abstract. Intense pinks, reds, and blues erupt through pale skin tones, disclosing the internal workings of the painting like the flesh and blood of a living organism. Continuum includes monumental paintings and drawings from her recent exhibition held at Gagosian Gallery in New York as well as highlights from the past six years of the artist’s work, which have not been exhibited or published.

Nostalgia: The Russian Empire of Czar Nicholas II Captured in Colored Photographs by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii


Sergey Mikhaylovich Prokudin-Gorsky - 2012
    Since 1905 he had planned to systematically document the empire with the color photography technique he had developed in order to give all Russians, particularly schoolchildren, a deeper connection to their country. He petitioned Nicholas II long enough that the czar finally provided him with a specially equipped railroad-car darkroom and the necessary travel permits. Before he commenced what would become a six-year expedition, Prokudin- Gorskii--like most of his contemporaries--had no idea what his fellow countrymen from the distant regions of Russia looked like or how they lived. His color images were not only meant to document the diverse citizens, ethnicities, settlements, folklore, and landscapes of a vast empire, but to create nothing less than a common identity for its populace. The subjects of Prokudin-Gorskii's landscape photography range from the medieval churches and monasteries of old Russia to the railroads and factories of an emerging industrial power. Although one of his first and most famous portraits was of the prominent writer Leo Tolstoy, Prokudin-Gorskii also captured an impressive range of Russia's heterogeneous population: from day laborers to owners of large estates, from a simple ferryman to an elegant emir, from Jewish families to proud Don Cossacks. Prokudin-Gorskii's expert use of color and his skilled eye make his images especially vibrant and timeless. A century later, they have not lost any of their original beauty and intensity. Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii fled Russia in 1918 in the aftermath of the October Revolution. After traveling through Norway and England, he settled in Paris, where he died in 1944. The United States Library of Congress purchased his work in 1948, but it was only recently laboriously restored. Nostalgia showcases these restored masterpieces of early color photography that are a milestone in Russia's cultural history.

A New History of Italian Renaissance Art


Stephen J. Campbell - 2012
    Rather than emphasizing artists’ biographies, this new account concentrates on the works, discussing the means of production; the places for which images were made; the concerns of patrons; and the expectations and responses of the works’ first viewers. Renaissance art is seen as decidedly new, a moment in the history of art whose concerns still persist.Stephen J. Campbell is Henry and Elizabeth Wiesenfeld Professor at Johns Hopkins University. He taught previously at the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania. Michael W. Cole has taught at the University of North Carolina, at the University of Pennsylvania, and at Williams College; he is currently Professor of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University.

Women of the Underground: Art: Cultural Innovators Speak for Themselves


Zora Von Burden - 2012
    Contains interviews with Lady Pink, Marina Abramovic, Orlan, Aleksandra Mir, Penny Arcade, Johanna Went, the Guerrilla Girls, and many others.Editor Zora von Burden was born and raised in San Francisco, California. A frequent contributor to The San Francisco Herald, von Burden also wrote the screenplay for Geoff Cordner’s underground cult classic film, Hotel Hopscotch.

Baroque and Rococo Art and Architecture


Robert Neuman - 2012
    The text provides readers with a close look into individual artworks and an analysis of the methods of architectural design KEY TOPICS: Understand and analyze individual artworks. Identify and interpret key monuments with essential data. MARKET For those interested in learning and understanding Baroque and Rococo Art.

Persian Art and Architecture


Henri Stierlin - 2012
    When the ancient landof Persia was conquered by the Arabs, its people embraced Islam but strovealso to retain their own language and culture. The merging of influencesresulted in a distinctive artistic style that spread through the Middle East.This book follows a historical path across the Iranian world and examinesthe artistic legacies of great rulers and their dynasties, from the rebirth ofPersian art under the Seljuqs to the magnificent structures built by Timur-iLang in Samarqand and the cultural flowering that occurred under the Safaviddynasty and beyond. Palaces, mosques, madrasas, and mausoleums display amesmerizing decorative complexity, with form and ornament combining tocreate an indivisible whole. Spectacular polychrome tiles, intricate brickwork,curling arabesque motifs, and calligraphic inscriptions attain a transcendentbeauty, designed to reflect both the temporal power of the rulers who commissionedthem and the heavenly glory of creation.

Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec and His Contemporaries


Mary Weaver Chapin - 2012
    Thanks to innovations in color lithography, the streets of fin-de-si cle Paris were punctuated with brightly hued posters featuring bold typography and playful imagery. Many of these posters were torn down almost as soon as they were pasted up, finding their way into private homes and, eventually, museums and collections all over the world. Although many artists contributed to the affichomanie, or "poster craze," one of the most famous among them was henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. This gorgeous book offers exquisite reproductions of more than one hundred posters, including those by Lautrec and his contemporaries Bonnard, Picasso, Ch ret and Mucha. Advertising everything from tony theater productions to the licentious cancan, bicycles to biscuits, these posters range from cheerfully exuberant to slyly decadent. In her essay, Mary Weaver Chapin captures the voices of the artists, collectors, and critics who fueled the poster craze of the 1890s. The result is a visual spectacle, a lively discourse on the value and purpose of art, and a celebration of a historically and creatively dynamic era.

An Illustrated History of Islamic Architecture: An Introduction to the Architectural Wonders of Islam, from Mosques, Tombs and Mausolea to Gateways, Palaces and Citadels


Moya Carey - 2012
    Features all the most outstanding examples of Islamic architecture, such as the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the Great Mosque in Damascus, the many richly decorated desert palaces, the Taj Mahal at Agra, Topkapi Palace at Istanbul, and today s modern Dubai skyscrapers."

Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit


Anna O. Marley - 2012
    Tanner (1859–1937). Recognized as the patriarch of African American artists, Tanner forged a path to international success, powerfully influencing younger black artists who came after him. Following a preface by David Driskell, the essays in this book—written by international scholars including Alan Braddock, Michael Leja, Jean-Claude Lesage, Richard Powell, Marc Simpson, Tyler Stovall, and Hélène Valance—explore many facets of Tanner’s life, including his upbringing in post–Civil War Philadelphia, his background as the son of a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal church, and his role as the first major academically trained African American artist. Additional essays discuss Tanner’s expatriate life in France, his depictions of the Holy Land and North Africa, and the scientific and technical innovations reflected in his oeuvre. Edited and introduced by Anna O. Marley, this volume expands our understanding of Tanner’s place in art history, showing that his status as a painter was deeply influenced by his race but not decided by it.Contributors: Brian Baade, Alan Braddock, Marcus Bruce, Adrienne L. Childs, Robert Cozzolino, David Driskell, Amber Kerr-Allison, Michael Leja, Jean-Claude Lesage, Anna O. Marley, Olivier Meslay, Richard Powell, Marc Simpson, Tyler Stovall, Hélène Valance

Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan's Great Earthquake of 1923


Gennifer Weisenfeld - 2012
    The Kanto earthquake triggered cultural responses that ran the gamut from voyeuristic and macabre thrill to the romantic sublime, media spectacle to sacred space, mournful commemoration to emancipatory euphoria, and national solidarity to racist vigilantism and sociopolitical critique. Looking at photography, cinema, painting, postcards, sketching, urban planning, and even scientific visualizations, Weisenfeld demonstrates how visual culture has powerfully mediated the evolving historical understanding of this major national disaster, ultimately enfolding mourning and memory into modernization.

Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist


Martin Clayton - 2012
    Intent on exploring and explaining every aspect of anatomy and physiology, he performed over thirty dissections of humancadavers and many more of animals. He is also among the greatest draftsmen ever to have lived, and his studies of skeletons, musculature, and other visible structures remain to this day largely unsurpassed in their lucidity.In addition to his anatomical drawings, Leonardo meticulously recorded his many findings on the pages of his notebooks with the hope of one day publishing a treatise on anatomy. Among the more than one thousand pages of these notebooks were a number of important discoveries that, had they been published, would have transformed Western understanding of biological sciences. But despite admiration by the likes of Benvenuto Cellini, Giorgio Vasari, and Albrecht Dürer—who made a number of drawings from Leonardo’s anatomical studies—the work was never completed and the drawings remained largely unpublished and little known until around 1900. Since the seventeenth century, the Royal Library at Windsor Castle has housed the world’s most significant collection of Leonardo’s surviving anatomical studies. Generously illustrated throughout, this volume presents ninety of the finest of these astonishing documents—the largest publication of Leonardo’s anatomical drawings to date—accompanied by an informative discussion of their anatomical content and their significance in Leonardo’s pioneering work.

Ai Weiwei: According to What?


Kerry Brougher - 2012
    As a result of his internationally acclaimed work and his direct engagement with Chinese policies and politics, Ai has been thrust into the global spotlight. Featuring his most significant works since 2000, this catalog offers insight into the artist's use of simple forms and artistic methods reminiscent of Conceptual and Minimal art, his preoccupation with the traditional design of furniture and other daily objects, and his iconoclastic attitudes toward traditional values and political authority. The book includes works in sculpture, photography, video, and site-specific architectural installations, making it an invaluable resource on Ai's enormously diverse oeuvre.

Andy Warhol Drawings


Andy Warhol - 2012
    The relatively unknown experiments in commercial illustration collected here were created between 1950 and 1960, pre-dating his more famous paintings and prints. Fanciful, vibrant and bold, these early drawings of fashion, animals, food, and cherubs display the signature bright colors, distinctiveness of line, and repetition of unexpected images that would spark a Pop Art revolution. Beyond demonstrating the playfulness that made Warhol a household name, these illustrations are a visual treat in their own right. Interspersed with quintessential Warhol quotations, this petite volume is a must-have for dedicated Warhol devotees and a delightful discovery for a new generation of fans.

The 1-Hour Van Gogh Book


Liesbeth Heenk - 2012
    Everyone is familiar with paintings such as "The Sunflowers" and "Starry Night" by Vincent van Gogh. The intense vibrant colours and wavy brushworks will almost tell you immediately that the work is by the master. But what do you actually know about his life filled with hardships and sorrow? This book is a smooth introduction to the life and work of Van Gogh, written by an expert who draws from a vast number of letters written by the artist himself to his brother Theo, family and friends, to illustrate how he bravely faced life, art and mental illness. If you want to gain a greater appreciation for one of the most fascinating artists of all time, this book is highly recommended. By spending one hour of your time you will gain a whole new perspective on Van Gogh's life and work. A well-written introduction to understanding the art of Vincent Van Gogh, the Kindle version has been selected many times on the Amazon best seller list. Excerpts from readers: "After you finish reading, you will have a whole new perspective, and appreciation, for the man who cut off his ear!" "I will undoubtedly look at his creations with a much different eye and suggest that all students of the arts read this book before going to see an exhibit of his works." "Loved it and hope to find more quick books like this on famous artists. Wonderful job."

Biennials and Beyond: Exhibitions that Made Art History: 1962-2002


Bruce Altshuler - 2012
    With an introductory essay and concise overviews of each exhibition by art historian Bruce Altshuler, Biennials and Beyond is a unique sourcebook that offers direct access to the most influential exhibitions of the last 50 years.It is the companion volume to Phaidon's 2008 Salon to Biennial – Exhibitions that Made Art History: 1863–1959, winner of the Bannister Fletcher Award for best new book on art or architecture.

Bernini's Beloved: A Portrait of Costanza Piccolomini


Sarah McPhee - 2012
    Carved by Gianlorenzo Bernini in 1636–37 for his own pleasure, the portrait of Costanza is one of his most captivating works, but until now little has been known about its subject.For centuries Costanza was identified only as Bernini's mistress, who later incited his rage by betraying him for his brother. Author Sarah McPhee corrects and expands this story in her remarkable biography of a sculpture and its subject. Bernini's Beloved sets the bust and Costanza's own life—her childhood and noble name, her marriage, affair, fall from grace, and recovery—against the backdrop of Baroque Rome. Beautifully illustrated and written, this fascinating story expands our understanding of the woman whose intelligence and passion served as inspiration for Bernini's celebrated sculpture, and who courageously forged a life for herself in the decades following its creation.

Balinese Art: Paintings and Drawings of Bali 1800 - 2010


Adrian Vickers - 2012
    In fact, the contemporary painter who commands the highest prices in Southeast Asia's hot art market is Bali-born Nyoman Masriadi (1973–). This book demonstrates that his work draws on a long and deeply-rooted tradition of the Bali art scene.Balinese painting has deep local roots and has followed its own distinctive trajectory, yet has been heavily influenced by outsiders. Indian artistic and religious traditions were introduced to Bali over a thousand years ago through the prism of ancient Javanese culture. Beyond the world of Indonesian art, Balinese artists and craftsmen have also interacted with other Asian artists, particularly those of China, and later Western artists. From these sources, an aesthetic tradition developed that depicts stories from the ancient Indian epics as well as themes from Javanese mythology and the religious and communal life of the Balinese themselves. Starting with a discussion of the island's aesthetic traditions and how Balinese art should be viewed and understood, this book goes on to present pre-colonial painting traditions, some of which are still practiced in the village of Kamasan—the home of "classical" Balinese art. However, the main focus is the development of new styles starting in the 1930s and how these gradually evolved in response to the tourist industry that has come to dominate the island. Balinese Art acquaints readers with the masterpieces and master artists of Bali, and the final chapter presents the most important artists who are active today and serves as an introduction to their work.

Afterimage of Empire: Photography in Nineteenth-Century India


Zahid R. Chaudhary - 2012
    Considering photographs from the Sepoy Revolt of 1857 along with landscape, portraiture, and famine photography, Zahid R. Chaudhary explores larger issues of truth, memory, and embodiment.Chaudhary scrutinizes the colonial context to understand the production of sense itself, proposing a new theory of interpreting the historical difference of aesthetic forms. In rereading colonial photographic images, he shows how the histories of colonialism became aesthetically, mimetically, and perceptually generative. He suggests that photography arrived in India not only as a technology of the colonial state but also as an instrument that eventually extended and transformed sight for photographers and the body politic, both British and Indian.Ultimately, Afterimage of Empire uncovers what the colonial history of the medium of photography can teach us about the making of the modern perceptual apparatus, the transformation of aesthetic experience, and the linkages between perception and meaning.

Lineage of Eccentrics Matabei to Kuniyoshi


Nobuo Tsuji - 2012
    

Under the North Light: The Life and Work of Maud and Miska Petersham


Lawrence Webster - 2012
    Maud and Miska met when they were young, aspiring artists working in their first New York City jobs. Maud, a 1912 Vassar graduate, had deep Yankee roots; Miska immigrated from Hungary in 1912 after rigorous study at the Royal National School for Applied Arts in Budapest. They met while working at a commercial design studio in New York City and married in 1917. They moved to Woodstock, New York, in 1920.Pioneers in a golden age of children's book publishing in America, the Petershams were among a handful of people who set the direction for illustrated children's books as we know them today. They worked closely with such legendary editors as Louise Seaman Bechtel and May Massee, and with such inventive printers as Charles Stringer and William Glaser, greatly advancing the art of the illustrated children's book. Under their studio's north light they produced more than a hundred books, as illustrators or author/illustrators, during a career that spanned five decades.Theirs was a deep collaboration of complementary backgrounds and temperaments, and a marriage that created a warm and welcoming household. Their books were not only immensely popular with children, but also admired by critics, librarians and tastemakers. In the years before the founding of the Caldecott Medal, their contributions were recognized by the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA). Four of the Petershams' books were selected for inclusion in the highly competitive AIGA exhibitions in the late 1920s and early 1930s. During the 1940s the Petershams won a Caldecott Honor (in 1942, for AN AMERICAN ABC) and a Caldecott Medal (in 1946, for THE ROOSTER CROWS.)The abiding value of their work and the principles they espoused are the subjects of this book.

Adobe Photoshop CS6 onDemand


Steve Johnson - 2012
    We will show you exactly what to do through lots of full color illustrations and easy-to-follow instructions.Numbered Steps guide you through each taskSee Also points you to related information in the bookDid You Know alerts you to tips and techniquesIllustrations with matching stepsTasks are presented on one or two pagesInside the Book• Improve productivity with the CS6 adjustable interface and templates• Use automatic saving options for better efficiency and protection• Use automatic layer alignment and blending to work with objects• Use more precise color correction to enhance a photo• Use content-aware options for scaling and fill• Create eye-catching images with special effect filters• Transform plain text into a showstopping image• Create character and paragraph styles to manage and use text• Transform video in Photoshop justlike an image• Create and manipulate 3D models using presets and custom optionsBonus Online ContentRegister your book at queondemand.com to gain access to:• Workshops and related files• Keyboard shortcutsVisit the author site: perspection.com

History of Modern Art, Vol 1


H. Harvard Arnason - 2012
    KEY TOPICS: Traces the trends and influences in painting, sculpture, photography and architecture from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. MARKET: For those interested in an analysis of artworks based on formal and contextual elements

Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam


Venetia Porter - 2012
    Each year, millions of the faithful from around the world make the pilgrimage to Makkah, the birthplace of Islam where the Prophet Muhammad received his revelation.With contributions from renowned experts Muhammad Abdel Haleem, Hugh Kennedy, Robert Irwin, and Ziauddin Sardar, this fascinating book pulls together many strands of Hajj, its rituals, history, and modern manifestations. Travel was once a hazardous gamble, yet devoted Muslims undertook the journey to Makkah, documenting their experiences in manuscripts, wall paintings, and early photographs, many of which are presented here. Through a wealth of illustrations including pilgrims’ personal objects, souvenirs, and maps, Hajj provides a glimpse into this important holy rite for Muslim readers already grounded in the tradition and non-Muslims who cannot otherwise participate.Hajj does not, however, merely trace pilgrimages of the past. The Hajj is a living tradition, influenced by new conveniences and obstacles. Graffiti, consumerism, and state lotteries all now play a role in this time-honored practice. This book opens out onto the full sweep of the Hajj: a sacred path walked by early Islamic devotees and pre-Islamic Arabians; a sumptuous site of worship under the care of sultans; and an expression of faith in the modern world.

Earthen Pigments: Hand-Gathering & Using Natural Colors in Art


Sandy Webster - 2012
    Starting with the equipment and tools needed for gathering soils, the author takes the reader from the field to the studio where the processes of cleaning, sifting, and mulling result in beautiful colored pigments. Through recipes and illustrations, learn how to turn these pigments into a variety of artist mediums from water-based paints, to pastels and oil/wax crayons, casein solutions, printmaking inks, and even spun into paper threads for weaving, stitching, and tying. Several pigment samples are shown throughout, and a gallery of the artist's works using hand-gathered pigments will inspire your own creative ideas. This guidebook is a wonderful resource for all artists, craftspeople, journalers, and hobbyists.

The Uffizi Gallery: The Top 30 Paintings to Visit in Florence's Greatest Art Museum


Samuel Hilt - 2012
    My goal has been to help make these paintings come alive for you, and to make the experience of visiting them interesting, stimulating and memorable.I hope you find this guide useful as you make your way through the amazing worlds of imagination that are housed in the Uffizi.Buon viaggio!Sam HiltSiena, Italywww.TuscanyTours.com

Edward Hopper in Vermont


Bonnie Tocher Clause - 2012
    In 1935 and 1936 the Hoppers again traveled to Vermont, this time from their summer home in Cape Cod, in Edward's continuing search for new places to paint. During these quests they identified the White River and what Edward considered to be Vermont's "finest" river valley, and they returned there for longer visits in 1937 and 1938, boarding at Robert and Irene Slater's Wagon Wheels farm in South Royalton. These "vacations" were a change from the usual tempo of their lives, a break from the studio-bound easels, canvas, and oils, and an opportunity to paint something different, to be in a new place and paint en plein air. Over the course of his Vermont sojourns, Edward Hopper produced some two dozen paintings, watercolors that are among the most distinctive of his regional works, strongly characterized by place. In this accessible volume, Bonnie Tocher Clause tells the story of the Hoppers' visits to Vermont, their stays on the Slater farm, and their introduction to farm life. She locates the sites shown in Hopper's Vermont paintings, identifies two watercolors not previously recognized as Vermont scenes, and traces the development of Hopper's singular interpretations of the Vermont landscape. In Edward Hopper in Vermont, Clause details the provenance of the Vermont paintings through the years, tracking the history of sales leading to the works' ultimate homes with private collectors and museums. Showcasing all the Vermont paintings in color, this volume will delight both fans of Hopper's work and those who are fascinated by the story of the creation, collection, and business of producing great art.

Pop Art


Bradford Collins - 2012
    Bradford Collins explains the essence of Pop art and examines its full history in contemporary cultural and political context – the origins of the movement during the 1950s, the flourishing of Pop art in America and the UK during the 1960s, and its further incarnations and more widespread impact. The 250 illustrations include all the most classic examples of Pop art by such well-known figures as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, as well as lesser known works that have been neglected in recent years but are essential to a thorough understanding of Pop. Contemporary source material used by artists to make their works and consideration of what was in the media at the time support discussions of the inspiration, creation and impact of the art.

Becoming van Gogh


Timothy J. Standring - 2012
    Focusing on the early stages of van Gogh's artistic development, Becoming van Gogh illustrates the artist's efforts to master draftsmanship, understand the challenges of materials and techniques, incorporate color theory, and fold myriad influences into his artistic vocabulary. Van Gogh was aware of avant-garde trends including Georges Seurat's divisionism, Paul Signac's and Camille Pissarro's pointillism, Émile Bernard's synthetism, and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec's immersion in the bohemian culture of Montmartre.This handsome book features works by van Gogh alongside works by the artists who influenced him, showing how he incorporated elements of their techniques into a style that became, eventually, uniquely his own. It features essays exploring how van Gogh imbued his early works with energy as he strove to master drawing with graphite, ink, and washes; how he began to understand color with watercolor paintings; and how he tested his skill with oils on canvas. The distinguished contributors to this volume offer insight into van Gogh's temperament, memory, typography, and relationship with his critics, among other topics. Generously illustrated with 262 color images, the book also includes a chronology charting the artist's stylistic development.

THE THIRD TABLE


Graham Harman - 2012
    The English text occupies just eleven and a half pages (p4-15). The content is quite engaging as he manages to expound his ideas in the form of a response to Sir Arthur Eddington’s famous two table argument, which can be found in the introduction to his book THE NATURE OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD, first published in 1928. This allows him to couch his arguments in terms of a running engagement with reductionism, in what Harman sees as its humanistic and scientistic forms.

Chantal Akerman: Too Far, Too Close


Anders Kreuger - 2012
    Her work since then has continued to investigate ideas of biography, gender, identity and memory.

Manifestations: New Native Art Criticism


Nancy Marie Mithlo - 2012
    It includes an overview of the last 20 years of Native American art scholarship; addresses the ways in which laws and policies imposed by Federal, tribal and state governments have molded tribal expression; argues for the exercise of indigenous knowledge systems in art criticism; and examines the way in which the memory and knowledge that is encoded within objects can offer a narrative bridge to historic indigenous arts. Ultimately, Manifestations presents more than the history, appraisal and understanding of contemporary indigenous art; it offers an alternative tradition that can broaden the perspectives of contemporary art as a whole.

Elegance and Refinement: The Still-Life Paintings of Willem van Aelst


Tanya Paul - 2012
    Published on the occasion of an unprecedented traveling exhibition, this book celebrates Van Aelst’s achievements and his significant impact on Dutch still-life painting. Van Aelst masterfully depicted arrangements of fresh fruit and flowers, displays of dead game, and evocations of the forest floor, as well as elegant objects such as nautilus cups, distinctive silver vessels, and Venetian glassware. This book features twenty-five paintings from throughout his career. Catalog entries and a biographical essay are provided by Tanya Paul, James Clifton writes about the Medici court, Julie Berger Hochstrasser analyzes Van Aelst’s choice of subject matter, Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. discusses Van Aelst’s time in Amsterdam, and a team of conservators reveals his technical process.

Shaky Ground: Context, Connoisseurship and the History of Roman Art


Elizabeth Marlowe - 2012
    This new scrutiny is applied to works currently on the market as well as to those acquired since (and despite) the 1970 UNESCO Convention, which aimed to prevent the trafficking in cultural property. When it comes to famous works that have been in major museums for many generations, however, the matter of their origins is rarely considered. Canonical pieces like the Barberini Togatus or the Fonseca bust of a Flavian lady appear in many scholarly studies and virtually every textbook on Roman art. But we have no more certainty about these works' archaeological contexts than we do about those that surface on the market today. This book argues that the current legal and ethical debates over looting, ownership and cultural property have distracted us from the epistemological problems inherent in all (ostensibly) ancient artworks lacking a known findspot, problems that should be of great concern to those who seek to understand the past through its material remains.

Kiki de Montparnasse: Paris in the 1920s


Xavier Girard - 2012
    Many revolutionary artists of the early twentieth century flourished on Paris's Left Bank, and Kiki, the Queen of Montparnasse, was the thread connecting them. Every image tells a fascinating story in this lavishly illustrated volume. Xavier Girard, former curator of the Matisse Museum, reveals the artistic, social, and historical events that created and surrounded the incredible artistic flowering of the mythical Montparnasse neighborhood after World War I. An oversize luxury edition in a slipcase.

Light Years: Conceptual Art and the Photograph, 1964-1977


Matthew S. Witkovsky - 2012
    Light Years offers the first major survey of the key artists of this period who used photography to new and inventive ends. Whereas some employed photographic images to create slide projections, photographic canvases, and artists' books, others integrated them into sculptural assemblages and multimedia installations. This book highlights the work of acclaimed international artists such as Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Mel Bochner, Sol LeWitt, Bruce Nauman, Giuseppe Penone, and Ed Ruscha. Matthew Witkovsky's essay provides the larger context for photography within conceptual art, a theme that is further elaborated in texts by Mark Godfrey, Anne Rorimer, and Joshua Shannon. An essay by Robin Kelsey focuses on the pioneering work of John Baldessari in which he explored the element of chance, and an essay by Giuliano Sergio illuminates the lesser-known work of Arte Povera, an Italian movement that sought to dismantle established conventions in both the making and presentation of art.

Natural Histories: Extraordinary Rare Book Selections from the American Museum of Natural History Library: Essays & Plates


Tom Baione - 2012
    

The Art of the Salon: The Triumph of 19th-Century Painting


Norbert Wolf - 2012
    The rejected works form today's canon of art history and are regarded as heralds of a modern age. This book looks to reassess the other side of the art history of the 19th century. Salon painting has often been dismissed as overly academic or staid. Art historian Norbert Wolf turns back the pages of history as he reintroduces readers to the artistry and excellence of Salon painting in Europe, Britain, Russia and the US. In an opulent new book, illustrated throughout with gorgeous reproductions of masterpieces by Cabanel, Manet, Biertstadt, the Pre-Raphaelites, and Sargent, naming a few, Wolf looks at Salon painting from a variety of perspectives, such as the rise of the bourgeoisie and Paris's position as Europe's cultural capital. He explores styles and themes that were especially prevalent in Salon painting: history painting; portraits from home and in society; the rise of -Orientalism-; and the nationalism of landscape. Readers will come away from this well-researched and absorbing book with a steadfast appreciation of the Salon's disciplined and academic approach to painting, and an understanding of why these works were once so revered by the general public.

Ferdinand Hodler


Ferdinand Hodler - 2012
    Working in series and variations, he gave new, liberated form to some of his life's great themes: the beauty of the Swiss mountains and lakes, his fascination with women, self-scrutiny and confrontation with death. This is the first publication to provide an extensive overview of Hodler's late works from the years 1913 to 1918. It surveys the self-portraits, the famous and extremely moving series of paintings addressing the suffering and death of his lover, Valentine Gode-Darel, and many gorgeous panoramas of the Alps and Lake Geneva, painted in close-up or at a distance at various times of the day and year. A particular highlight of the period and this volume is Hodler's monumental mural, View to Infinity.

The Hammock: A novel based on the true story of French painter James Tissot


Lucy Paquette - 2012
    Handsome and charming, his friends included the painters James McNeill Whistler, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Lawrence Alma-Tadema and John Everett Millais. When the Prussians attacked Paris that year, Tissot became a sharpshooter in the artists’ brigade defending the besieged capital. After a bloody Communist rebellion, fought virtually at the doorstep of his mansion, he fled to London.Amid suspicions that he was a Communist, he quickly rebuilt his brilliant career among the Industrial Age’s nouveaux riches. In 1876, Tissot took a young Irish divorcée as his mistress and muse. He referred to her only as “La Mystérieuse” and withdrew from Society to paint her in his garden paradise in the suburbs. Within three years, his pictures had pushed the boundaries of Victorian morality, and the British art establishment turned against him. In a debacle of friendship, fame and loss, his artistic heyday of painting a decade of glamour and leisure in London came to an end. Celebrated during his lifetime, Tissot has been nearly forgotten by all but art historians.THE HAMMOCK is a psychological portrait, exploring the forces that unwound the career of this complex man. Based on contemporary sources, the novel brings Tissot’s world alive in a story of war, art, Society glamour, love, scandal, and tragedy.Illustrated with 17 stunning, high-resolution fine art images in full color, courtesy of The Bridgeman Art Library. QED seal for quality in e-book design.

Performing Queer Latinidad: Dance, Sexuality, Politics


Ramón H. Rivera-Servera - 2012
    Performances---from concert dance and street protest to the choreographic strategies deployed by dancers at nightclubs---served as critical meeting points and practices through which LGBT and other nonnormative sex practitioners of Latin American descent (individuals with greatly differing cultures, histories of migration or annexation to the United States, and contemporary living conditions) encountered each other and forged social, cultural, and political bonds. At a time when latinidad ascended to the national public sphere in mainstream commercial and political venues and Latina/o public space was increasingly threatened by the redevelopment of urban centers and a revived anti-immigrant campaign, queer Latinas/os in places such as the Bronx, San Antonio, Austin, Phoenix, and Rochester, NY, returned to performance to claim spaces and ways of being that allowed their queerness and latinidad to coexist. These social events of performance and their attendant aesthetic communication strategies served as critical sites and tactics for creating and sustaining queer latinidad.

Danger! Women Artists at Work


Debra N. Mancoff - 2012
    Women, however, have had a role, often working behind the scenes, out of sight or in resistance to prevailing attitudes and practices. And it is in these exceptions to the rules of the masculine world of art-making that women artists have been perceived as groundbreaking, defiant and even subversive. A compelling selection of more than 60 artists from the early Renaissance to the present day, among them Judith Leyster, Mary Cassatt, Frida Kahlo and Louise Bourgeois, Danger! Women Artists at Work explores the most intriguing and provocative aspects of art by women who shook up the art world. Through a lively introduction and six thematic chapters dealing with such subjects as the ways in which women have challenged the boundaries of expression and how they have viewed the human body, Debra N. Mancoff presents an absorbing tale of those who have struggled and triumphed in their efforts to transform the visual arts.

The Art of Punk


Russell Bestley - 2012
    Featuring classics bands such as The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, The Damned and The Clash, this book is a comprehensive review of punk flyers, posters and artworks.

Humor in Craft


Brigitte Martin - 2012
    Hundreds of images and essays from all over the world allow you to gain insight into the creative minds of contemporary artists like never before. A variety of traditional craft media are shown in this book, such as furniture, ceramics, glass, fiber, jewelry, and metal, as well as a number of unique, nontraditional techniques. Even a bus shelter in London gets a creative make-over that's sure to make you smile! The topics range from the playful to the serious, but the message is always most enjoyable. Humor in Craft is a treasure trove for craft aficionados and humor enthusiasts alike.

Materializing "six Years": Lucy R. Lippard and the Emergence of Conceptual Art


Catherine Morris - 2012
    Lippard's famous book, itself resembling an exhibition, is now brought full circle in an exhibition (and catalog) resembling her book. "Conceptual art, for me, means work in which the idea is paramount and the material form is secondary, lightweight, ephemeral, cheap, unpretentious and/or 'dematerialized.'"--Lucy R. Lippard, Six YearsIn 1973 the critic and curator Lucy R. Lippard published Six Years, a book with possibly the longest subtitle in the bibliography of art: The dematerialization of the art object from 1966 to 1972: a cross-reference book of information on some esthetic boundaries: consisting of a bibliography into which are inserted a fragmented text, art works, documents, interviews, and symposia, arranged chronologically and focused on so-called conceptual or information or idea art with mentions of such vaguely designated areas as minimal, anti-form, systems, earth, or process art, occurring now in the Americas, Europe, England, Australia, and Asia (with occasional political overtones) edited and annotated by Lucy R. Lippard. Six Years, sometimes referred to as a conceptual art object itself, not only described and embodied the new type of art-making that Lippard was intent on identifying and cataloging, it also exemplified a new way of criticizing and curating art. Nearly forty years later, the Brooklyn Museum takes Lippard's celebrated experiment in curated concatenation as a template, turning a book that resembled an exhibition into an exhibition materializing the ideas in her book.The artworks and essays featured in this publication recall the thrill that was tangible in Lippard's original documentation, reminding us that during the late sixties and early seventies all possible social and material parameters of art (making) were played with, worked over, inverted, reduced, expanded, and rejected. By tracing Lippard's own activities in those years, the book also documents the early blurring of boundaries among critical, curatorial, and artistic practices.With more than 200 images of work by dozens of artists (printed in color throughout), this book brings Lippard's curatorial experiment full circle.

Monet in Giverney Landscapes of Reflection


Benedict Leca - 2012
    His depiction of iconic motifs such as the Japanese footbridge, water lilies, and wisterias are characterized by subtle colouring and expressive brushwork, making these paintings among the most innovative of late 19th and early 20th-century French art.Monet in Giverny: Landscapes of Reflection takes reflection in all of its meanings as the governing theme: as a literal motif as well as a metaphor for both Monet’s experimentation and a reflection of his own theories on art. Four illustrated essays explore the importance of Monet’s garden as a continuing source of inspiration, and examine his work in Giverny in the context of developments in painting and photography. A firsthand account of the garden, written in 1891 by French author and art critic Octave Mirbeau has been translated for this book by author Benedict Leca.Features 12 famous paintings from Allen Memorial Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Columbus Museum of Art, the Dayton Art Institute, the Denver Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art,

Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza: Guide to the Collection


Mar Borobia - 2012
    The Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum offers a guide that aims to bring the public the masterpieces from the permanent collection of the Museum and The Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, on loan from 2004.Written by the curators of the Museum, this guide brings together the scientific soundness with a direct and concise language that will appreciate all the fans and enthusiasts of the history of art.