Focusing on the youth-driven phenomenon of otaku (roughly translated as “geek culture” or “pop cult fanaticism”), Takashi Murakami and a notable group of contributors explore the complex historical influences that shape Japanese contemporary art and its distinct graphic languages. The book’s title, Little Boy, is a reference to the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, thus clearly locating the birth of these new cultural forms in the trauma and generational aftershock of the atomic bomb.This generously illustrated book showcases the work of key otaku artists and designers, many of whom are cult celebrities in Japan, and discusses their feature film and video animations, video games and internet sites, music, toys, fashion, and more. In the process, the following questions are posed: What is otaku, and what does it tell us about contemporary social, economic, and cultural life in Japan and throughout the world? How is it related to the pervasive and curious fixation on “cuteness” evident in Japanese popular culture? What impact did the atomic devastation of World War II have on the development of Japanese art and culture?This brilliantly designed, bilingual (English and Japanese) publication examines these themes to explore how contemporary Japanese art has become inseparable from the subcultural realms of manga and animé (Japanese animation)—a world where meticulous technique, apocalyptic imagery, and high and low cultures meet.Little Boy concludes Murakami’s “Superflat” trilogy, a project conceived in 2000 to introduce a new wave of Japanese artists and to place their work in the historical context of traditional styles and concepts.

    While paintings of Picasso and Jackson Pollock sell for a hundred million dollars or more, and lines from T. S. Eliot are quoted on the yearbook pages of alienated teenagers across the land, twentieth-century classical music still sends ripples of unease through audiences. At the same time, its influence can be felt everywhere. Atonal chords crop up in jazz. Avant-garde sounds populate the soundtracks of Hollywood thrillers. Minimalism has had a huge effect on rock, pop, and dance music from the Velvet Underground onward.The Rest Is Noise shows why twentieth-century composers felt compelled to create a famously bewildering variety of sounds, from the purest beauty to the purest noise. It tells of a remarkable array of maverick personalities who resisted the cult of the classical past, struggled against the indifference of a wide public, and defied the will of dictators. Whether they have charmed audiences with sweet sounds or battered them with dissonance, composers have always been exuberantly of the present, defying the stereotype of classical music as a dying art. The narrative goes from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties, from Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies. We follow the rise of mass culture and mass politics, of dramatic new technologies, of hot and cold wars, of experiments, revolutions, riots, and friendships forged and broken. The end result is not so much a history of twentieth-century music as a history of the twentieth century through its music.

    An analysis of the medium in terms of aesthetics, science and politics provided him with new ways of understanding both the cultural crises of the past and the new social forms nascent within them. Flusser showed how the transformation of textual into visual culture (from the linearity of history into the two-dimensionality of magic) and of industrial into post-industrial society (from work into leisure) went hand in hand, and how photography allows us to read and interpret these changes with particular clarity.

    Human tastes in the arts, Dutton argues, are evolutionary traits, shaped by Darwinian selection. They are not, as the past century of art criticism and academic theory would have it, just "socially constructed."Our love of beauty is inborn, and many aesthetic tastes are shared across remote cultures—just one example is the widespread preference for landscapes with water and distant trees, like the savannas where we evolved. Using forceful logic and hard evidence, Dutton shows that we must premise art criticism on an understanding of evolution, not on abstract "theory." He restores the place of beauty, pleasure, and skill as artistic values.Sure to provoke discussion in scientific circles and uproar in the art world, The Art Instinct offers radical new insights into both the nature of art and the workings of the human mind.

    Containing 4,789 photographs, it illustrates some 163 different types of action: elderly man lifting log, woman sweeping, woman climbing ladder, men boxing and wrestling, child crawling, man lifting weight, man jumping, and 155 other types of action, some of which are illustrated by as many as 62 different photographs. Taken at speeds ranging up to 1/6000th of a second, these photographs show bone and muscle positions against ruled backgrounds. Almost all subjects are undraped, and all actions are shown from three angles: front, rear, and three-quarter view. These historic photographs, one of the great monuments of nineteenth-century photography, are reproduced original size, with all the clarity and detail of the originals. As a complete thesaurus of human action, it has never been superseded. Muybridge was a genius of photography, who had unlimited financial, technical, and scientific backing at the University of Pennsylvania. This volume presents the final selection from more than 100,000 negatives made at an expenditure of more than $50,000. It has never been superseded as a sourcebook for artists, students, animators, and art directors. "An unparalleled dictionary of action for all artists, photographers." — American Artist."Impressive and valuable collection." — Scientific American.

    It includes sections on bones, muscles, surface anatomy, proportion, equilibrium, and locomotion. Other unique features are sections on the types of human physique, anatomy from birth toold age, an orientation on racial anatomy, and an analysis of facial expressions. The wealth of information offered by the Atlas ensures its place as a classic for the study of the human form.

    The photographs show the ambiguities and dramas of family life and hauntingly evoke the mysteries of childhood. Sally Mann herself says in the introduction: 'These are photographs of my children ... many of these pictures are intimate, some are fictions and some are fantastic, but most are of ordinary things every mother has seen. I take pictures when they are bloodied or sick or naked or angry. They dress up, they pout and posture, they paint their bodies, they dive like otters in the dark river.' The result is a book that is ethereal, tender and sometimes disquieting.

    Betty Edwards's bestseller The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Now, much as artists progress from drawing to painting, Edwards moves from black-and-white into color. This much-awaited new guide distills the enormous existing knowledge about color theory into a practical method of working with color to produce harmonious combinations.Using techniques tested and honed in her five-day intensive color workshops, Edwards provides a basic understanding of how to see color, how to use it, and-for those involved in art, painting, or design-how to mix and combine hues. Including more than 125 color images and exercises that move from simple to challenging, this volume explains how to:see what is really there rather than what you "know" in your mind about colored objectsperceive how light affects color, and how colors affect one anothermanipulate hue, value, and intensity of color and transform colors into their oppositesbalance color in still-life, landscape, figure, and portrait paintingunderstand the psychology of colorharmonize color in your surroundingsWhile we recognize and treasure the beautiful use of color, reproducing what we see can be a challenge. Accessibly unweaving color's complexity, this must-have primer is destined to be an instant classic.

    . .In You Are Here, bestselling author and celebrated astronaut Chris Hadfield creates a virtual orbit of Earth, giving us the really big picture: this is our home, from space. The millions of us who followed Hadfield's news-making Twitter feed from the ISS thought we knew what we were looking at when we first saw his photos. But we may have caught the beauty and missed the full meaning. Now, through photographs - many of which have never been shared - Hadfield unveils a fresh and insightful look at our planet. He sees astonishing detail and importance in these images, not just because he's spent months in space but because his in-depth knowledge of geology, geography and meteorology allows him to reveal the photos' mysteries.Featuring Hadfield's favourite images, You Are Here is divided by continent and represents one (idealized) orbit of the ISS. This planetary photo tour - surprising, playful, thought-provoking and visually delightful - provides a breathtakingly beautiful perspective on the wonders of the world. You Are Here opens a singular window on our planet, using remarkable photographs to illuminate the history and consequences of human settlement, the magnificence of newly uncovered landscapes, and the power of the natural forces shaping our world and the future of our species.

    With detailed analytical captions and diagrams, every lesson is clearly delineated and illustrated. Throughout, also, is commentary that sheds light on the creative process of drawing and offers deep insight into the unsurpassed achievements of the masters.

    An excellent, comprehensive overview of the life and work of the groundbreaking artist who broke down the boundaries between photography and graphic design with his innovative techniques.

    in Japan.

    Coupling in-depth analysis of designers - from Jan Tschichold to Romek Marber - with a broad survey of the range of series and titles published - from early Penguins and Pelicans, to wartime and 1960s Specials, Classics, fiction and reference - this is a distinctive picture of how Penguin has consistently established its identity through its covers, influenced by - and influencing - the wider development of graphic design and the changing fashions in typography, photography, illustration and printing techniques.

    From anatomically correct rendering of the body systems, Grey moves to the spiritual/energetic systems with such images as "Universal Mind Lattice," envisioning the sacred and esoteric symbolism of the body and the forces that define its living field of energy. Includes essays on the significance of Grey's work by Ken Wilber, the eminent transpersonal psychologist, and by the noted New York art critic, Carlo McCormick.