It is also a story so filled with intrigues, accusations, international imbroglios, and lasting scandals that it forever altered the way archaeological expeditions were organized and conducted. Hoving's Tutankhamun focuses on Howard Carter, the archaeologist who persisted for six years in his search in the Valley of the Kings for Tutankhamun's tomb. Other major figures in the discovery include: Carter's patron Lord Carnarvon, who died shortly after entering the tomb, thus kindling rumors of a curse; Carter's rival Pierre Lacau, a French Jesuit who headed the Antiquities Service in Cairo and did everything he could to ruin Carter and deny his claim; the Egyptian authorities determined to keep the artifacts of their national heritage in their country; and Arthur Weigall and other Egyptologists who felt slighted by Carter's refusal to admit experts anywhere near his discovery.

     In this classic of art history, both art and history are triumphantly reborn.”—Robert Rosenblum, New York UniversityThis remarkable book will transform the way we look at Impressionist art.  The culmination of twenty years of research by a preeminent scholar in the field, it fundamentally revises the conventional view of the Impressionist movement and shows for the first time how it was fully integrated into the social and cultural life of the times. Robert L. Herbert explores the themes of leisure and entertainment that dominated the great years of Impressionist painting between 1865 and 1885.  Cafes, opera houses, dance halls, theaters, racetracks, and vacations by the sea were the central subjects of the majority of these paintings, and Herbert relates these pursuits to the transformation of Paris under the Second Empire.Sumptuously illustrated with many of the most beautiful Impressionist images, both familiar and unfamiliar, this book presents provocative new interpretations of a wide range of famous masterpieces.  Artists are seen to be active participants in, as well as objective witnesses to, contemporary life, and there are many profound insights into the social and cultural upheaval of the times.“A social history of Impressionist art that is truly about the art, informed by a penetrating analysis of the ways in which its pictorial structure and qualities communicate its social content.  Herbert brings that society to life, but above all he makes some of the most familiar and frequently discussed works in the history of art come wonderfully and vividly to life again.”—Theodore Reff, Columbia UniversityRobert L. Herbert is Robert Lehman Professor of the History of Art at Yale University. He is the author or editor of numerous books and articles on nineteenth-century French art.

    Eyes fixed on a mysterious point in the air, they were mesmerized by something which was invisible to everyone else. What the girls said they saw--and heard--sent shock waves that are still reverberating today. The messages the four girls claimed to receive revealed a picture of a Catholic church in crisis and a world that faced an earth-shattering future that would unfold in their lifetime. The girls’ pronouncements about coming trouble in the church and world were met with fierce skepticism from the first. Some charged the girls with being possessed by demons (based on the girls’ strange physical poses and apparent levitation), and others claimed the girls were putting on an act (revealing their true colors when they chose ordinary married lives instead of the convent). There was also a third body of critics: those who believed that a group of girls on the cusp of adolescence in a remote and insular society conjured up a psychodrama which, fueled by the spotlight and mounting frenzy, gained a frightening life of its own. There was one other possibility--that the strange events in Garabandal, Spain actually did occur, and the girls received an apocalyptic warning for both the church and the modern world. The warning to the world included a prediction that a newly militant Russia would rise again. The prophecies of Garabandal also foretell a World-Wide Warning and a Global Miracle, whose purpose is to convince a world reeling from one catastrophe to the next that God exists. But the Warning and Miracle, dramatic as they sound, are not even the most unsettling of the messages. One night, the young girls dissolved into screams. During this so-called “Night of the Screams,” the girls say they were shown a tragic chastisement that would befall the entire world if the Warning and Miracle failed to trigger global change. As disquieting as those messages were, the most shocking message at Garabandal was for the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. Why were the messages of Garabandal so effectively suppressed? Did it have to do with the fact that the messages presciently warned of coming scandal and turmoil in the Roman Catholic Church itself? Did a portal open between worlds on a Spanish mountaintop in that summer of 1961? And if so, who opened the door--an angel of God or an angel of darkness? Did a young girl's flight of fancy one summer night spin wildly out of control? Or was it a visitation from God? Now that the “girls” at the center of this drama are 60-year-old women, should their claims be discredited or re-examined? Are the apparitions bogus or fast-approaching their fulfillment? If the events are false, Garabandal is a fascinating and perhaps tragic human interest story with several explanations. If the events and warnings are true--then what do we do? By the end of this book, readers can judge whether the visions of four young seers on a mountaintop in Spain were historical fact, a devilish fraud, or the creative confusion of four girls who would spend the rest of their lives trying to escape a human tragicomedy that they themselves had produced.

    Three years later he was in Naples, where he painted The Seven Acts of Mercy. A year later he died at the age of thirty-eight under mysterious circumstances. Exploring Caravaggio's singular masterwork, in The Guardian of Mercy Terence Ward offers an incredible narrative journey into the heart of his artistry and his metamorphosis from fugitive to visionary.Ward's guide in this journey is a contemporary artist whose own life was transformed by the painting, a simple man named Angelo who shows him where it still hangs in a small church in Naples and whose story helps him see its many layers. As Ward unfolds the structure of the painting, he explains each of the seven mercies and its influence on Caravaggio's troubled existence. Caravaggio encountered the whole range of Naples's vertical social layers, from the lowest ranks of poverty to lofty gilded aristocratic circles, and Ward reveals the old city behind today's metropolis. Fusing elements of history, biography, memoir, travelogue, and journalism, his narrative maps the movement from estrangement to grace, as we witness Caravaggio's bruised life gradually redeemed by art.

    He was also a key architect of Layton’s overnight success that was ten years in the making. In Building the Orange Wave, Lavigne recounts the dramatic story of how Layton and his inner circle developed and executed a plan that turned a struggling political party into a major contender for government, defying the odds and the critics every step of the way. The ultimate insider’s account of one of the greatest political accomplishments in modern Canadian history, Building the Orange Wave takes readers behind the scenes, letting them eavesdrop on strategy sessions, crisis-management meetings, private chats with political opponents, and internal battles, revealing new details of some of the most important political events of the last decade.

    Alchemy provides a magical language to explore what it is a painter really does in her or his studio - the smells, the mess, the struggle to control the uncontrollable, the special knowledge only painters hold of how colours will mix, and how they will look.Written from the perspective of a painter-turned-art historian, What Painting Is is like nothing you have ever read about art.

    Over the course of his life, Guston’s wide reading in literature and philosophy deepened his commitment to his art—from his early Abstract Expressionist paintings to his later gritty, intense figurative works. This collection, with many pieces appearing in print for the first time, lets us hear Guston’s voice—as the artist delivers a lecture on Renaissance painting, instructs students in a classroom setting, and discusses such artists and writers as Piero della Francesca, de Chirico, Picasso, Kafka, Beckett, and Gogol.

    Learn how to save money and avoid the lines at the Louvre and Orsay Museums. Enjoy the ambience of Parisian neighborhoods, and take a day trip to the glittering palace of Versailles, or to the Champagne-soaked city of Reims. Then grab a café crème at a sidewalk café and listen to the hum of the city. You'll see why Paris remains at the heart of global culture.Rick's candid, humorous advice will guide you to good-value hotels and restaurants in delightful neighborhoods. You'll learn how to navigate the Paris Métro, and which sights are worth your time and money. More than just reviews and directions, a Rick Steves guidebook is a tour guide in your pocket.

    A true "Renaissance man," Lorenzo dazzled contemporaries with his prodigious talents and magnetic personality. Known to history as Il Magnifico (the Magnificent), Lorenzo was not only the foremost patron of his day but also a renowned poet, equally adept at composing philosophical verses and obscene rhymes to be sung at Carnival. He befriended the greatest artists and writers of the time -- Leonardo, Botticelli, Poliziano, and, especially, Michelangelo, whom he discovered as a young boy and invited to live at his palace -- turning Florence into the cultural capital of Europe. He was the leading statesman of the age, the fulcrum of Italy, but also a cunning and ruthless political operative. Miles Unger's biography of this complex figure draws on primary research in Italian sources and on his intimate knowledge of Florence, where he lived for several years. Lorenzo's grandfather Cosimo had converted the vast wealth of the family bank into political power, but from his earliest days Lorenzo's position was precarious. Bitter rivalries among the leading Florentine families and competition among the squabbling Italian states meant that Lorenzo's life was under constant threat. Those who plotted his death included a pope, a king, and a duke, but Lorenzo used his legendary charm and diplomatic skill -- as well as occasional acts of violence -- to navigate the murderous labyrinth of Italian politics. Against all odds he managed not only to survive but to preside over one of the great moments in the history of civilization. Florence in the age of Lorenzo was a city of contrasts, of unparalleled artistic brilliance and unimaginable squalor in the city's crowded tenements; of both pagan excess and the fire-and-brimstone sermons of the Dominican preacher Savonarola. Florence gave birpth to both the otherworldly perfection of Botticelli's Primavera and the gritty realism of Machiavelli's The Prince. Nowhere was this world of contrasts more perfectly embodied than in the life and character of the man who ruled this most fascinating city.

    A book that breaks new ground, dispels myths, and reinforces the special nature of being a redhead, with a look at multiple disciplines, including science, religion, politics, feminism and sexuality, literature, and art. With an obsessive fascination that is as contagious as it is compelling, author Jacky Colliss Harvey (herself a redhead) begins her exploration of red hair in prehistory and traces the redhead gene as it made its way out of Africa with the early human diaspora to its emergence under Northern skies. She goes on to explore red hair in the ancient world; the prejudice manifested against red hair across medieval Europe; red hair during the Renaissance as both an indicator of Jewishness during the Inquisition and the height of fashion in Protestant England, under the reign of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I; the modern age of art and literature, and the first positive symbols of red hair in children's characters; modern medicine and science and the genetic and chemical decoding of red hair; and finally, red hair in contemporary culture, from advertising and exploitation to "gingerism" and the new movement against bullying.

    There she met the legendary couple Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Welcomed into their home, she immersed herself in their private lives and the cultural and artistic diversity of the country, taking hundreds of photographs. These powerful photographs, among the last taken before Kahlo’s death, bear poignant witness to Frida’s beauty and talent. Showcasing more than 100 of these rare images, many of which have never been published before, the book also includes previously unpublished commentary by Gisèle Freund about Frida Kahlo, texts by Kahlo’s biographer Gérard de Cortanze and art historian Lorraine Audric, as well as a link to a previously unreleased color film, shot by Freund, showing Diego Rivera at work.

    Longtime skateboard artist Sean Cliver put together this staggering survey of over 1,000 skateboard graphics from the last 30 years, creating an indispensable insiders' history as he did so.Alongside his own history, Sean has assembled a wealth of recollections and stories from prominent artists and skateboarders such as: Andy Howell, Barry McGee, Ed Templeton, Steve Caballero, and Tony Hawk.The end result is a fascinating historical account of art in the skateboard subculture, as told by those directly involved with shaping its legendary creative face.

    Soon, she finds herself sitting before Leonardo da Vinci, who wants to ensure his own place in the ducal palace by painting his most ambitious portrait to date.Munich, World War II: After a modest conservator unwittingly places a priceless Italian Renaissance portrait into the hands of a high-ranking Nazi leader, she risks her life to recover it, working with an American soldier, part of the famed Monuments Men team, to get it back. Two women, separated by 500 years, are swept up in the tide of history as one painting stands at the center of their quests for their own destinies.

    Following their father's sudden death, the van Goethem sisters find their lives upended. Without his wages, and with the small amount their laundress mother earns disappearing into the absinthe bottle, eviction from their lodgings seems imminent. With few options for work, Marie is dispatched to the Paris Opéra, where for a scant seventeen francs a week, she will be trained to enter the famous ballet. Her older sister, Antoinette, finds work as an extra in a stage adaptation of Émile Zola's naturalist masterpiece L'Assommoir. Marie throws herself into dance and is soon modeling in the studio of Edgar Degas, where her image will forever be immortalized as Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. There she meets a wealthy male patron of the ballet, but might the assistance he offers come with strings attached? Meanwhile Antoinette, derailed by her love for the dangerous Émile Abadie, must choose between honest labor and the more profitable avenues open to a young woman of the Parisian demimonde. Set at a moment of profound artistic, cultural, and societal change, The Painted Girls is a tale of two remarkable sisters rendered uniquely vulnerable to the darker impulses of "civilized society." In the end, each will come to realize that her salvation, if not survival, lies with the other.

    How could there have been such deft and skillful artists in the world over 30,000 years ago? Noted art historian Nigel Spivey begins with this puzzle to explore the record of humanity’s artistic endeavors and their impact on our own development. Embarking with the motto, “Everyone is an artist,” Spivey takes us on a quest to find out when and how we humans began to explore the deepest questions of life, using visual artforms. With the help of vivid color illustrations of some of the world’s most moving and enduring works of art, Spivey shows how that art has been used as a means of mass persuasion, essential to the creation of hierarchical societies, and finally, the extent to which art has served as a mode of terror management in the face of our inevitable death. Packed with new insights into ancient wonders and fascinating stories from all around the globe, How Art Made the World is a compelling account of how humans made art and how art makes us human.