The drip paintings of Jackson Pollock, trailblazing Abstract Expressionist, appear to be the polar opposite of Thomas Hart Benton’s highly figurative Americana. Yet the two men had a close and highly charged relationship dating from Pollock’s days as a student under Benton. Pollock’s first and only formal training came from Benton, and the older man soon became a surrogate father to Pollock. In true Oedipal fashion, Pollock even fell in love with Benton’s wife.Pollock later broke away from his mentor artistically, rocketing to superstardom with his stunning drip compositions. But he never lost touch with Benton or his ideas—in fact, his breakthrough abstractions reveal a strong debt to Benton’s teachings. In an epic story that ranges from the cafés and salons of Gertrude Stein’s Paris to the highways of the American West, Henry Adams, acclaimed author of Eakins Revealed, unfolds a poignant personal drama that provides new insights into two of the greatest artists of the twentieth century.

    In the detached, back-fence gossip style he was famous for, Warhol tells all—the ultimate inside story of a decade of cultural revolution.

    "New Art City "takes us from the solitude of the artist's studio to the uproarious bars where artists gathered, from the ramshackle bohemian neighborhoods of downtown Manhattan to the Midtown streets where steel-and-glass skyscrapers were rising and art galleries were proliferating. We encounter a kaleidoscopic range of artists. There are legendary figures-Jackson Pollock, David Smith, Willem de Kooning, Joseph Cornell, Andy Warhol, and Donald Judd-as well as still undervalued ones, such as the galvanic teacher Hans Hofmann, the lyric expressionist Joan Mitchell, the adventuresome realist Fairfield Porter, and the eccentric thinker John Graham. We encounter, too, the writers, critics, patrons, and hangers-on who rounded out the artists' world. Jed Perl helps us see what the artists were creating and understand how they confronted an exploding art audience. And he makes clear how the economic boom of the late 1950s and the increasingly enthusiastic response to Abstract Expressionism ushered in the rapacious art world of the 1960s and the theatricality of Pop Art. Artists drew strength from the dizzying onslaught of Manhattan, and produced a tidal wave of new forms. These included Hofmann's brazen flourishes of color; Pollock's quicksilver skeins of paint unfurling panoramic arabesques; and the crushed, jagged, turning-back-on-itself calligraphy of de Kooning's gnomic alphabets. And there was much more: Burgoyne Diller's levitating rectangles; Nell Blaine's explosive renderings of quotidian scenes; Ellsworth Kelly's extraordinary simplifications, suggesting sails or semaphores. A brilliant tapestry of social history, biographical portraiture, and criticism, "New Art City" illuminates a revolutionary, unprecedented time and place in American culture.

    What makes the Book of Kells such an extraordinary example of the illuminated manuscript? Why is Durer's self-portrait so iconic? How did Turner's Rain, Steam, Speed turn the art world on its head? What's so great about Jasper Johns's Flag? And who was Whistler's mother, anyway? Art history is filled with paintings that shocked, intrigued, enraged, and mystified their audiences--paintings that exemplified the period in which they were created and forever changed the way we think. Here, 100 examples of these icons of art are presented in beautiful, high-quality reproductions. Each spread features comparative illustrations and details as well as an engaging text that explains why that particular painting belongs in the pantheon of world-changing art.

    Some pictures are easily appreciated at first glance, but others - often the most rewarding - require some explanation before they can be fully understood. This clearly written and enjoyable book is intended to increase pleasure and stimulate thought. It tackles many aspects of looking at paintings as well. Starting with familiar ideas, Dr Susan Woodford moves on to explore subtler, less obvious concepts. For example, she shows how paintings can be appreciated as patterns on a flat surface emotional effect; how ordinary objects can conceal hidden meanings and how knowledge of tradition improves our understanding of revolutionary works.

    In Filmish, Ross's cartoon alter-ego guides readers through the annals of cinematic history, introducing us to some of the strange and fascinating concepts at work in the movies. Each chapter focuses on a particular theme - the body, architecture, language - and explores an eclectic mix of cinematic triumphs, from A Trip to the Moon to Aliens. Sitting within the tradition of bestselling non-fiction graphic novels like Scott McClouds Understanding Comics and the Introducing...series, Filmish tackles serious issues - sexuality, race, censorship, propaganda - with authority and wit, throwing new light on some of the greatest films ever made.

    It is a popular lovers' tale, rather unique in India. Marriages in India have traditionally been set by parents. However, princely families sometimes held bride's choice contests. In the case of Rukmini, daughter of the king of Vidarbha. Her father and brother had settled on Shishupala whom she detested. Her mind was set on Krishna of whose exploits she had heard. But there was to be no bride's choice event. So Rukmini takes the initiative by writing a letter to Krishna and sends it through a confidant. Krishna who also had heard of her, decides to act on the letter. Krishna and Balarama arrive in Rukmini's town and whisk her away on their chariot to their capital Dvaraka. Balarama fights Shishupala and defeats him.

    When she married Theo van Gogh, Johanna had everything she wanted - a husband who adored her, an exciting life as part of Paris's thriving art scene, and escape from a doting but oppressive father. Her happiness evaporated with Vincent's suicide. Shattered by his brother's death, Theo suffered a mental collapse from which he never recovered. When he died, Johanna was left with an infant son and an art collection most thought worthless. The Impressionist and Independent artists Theo had championed, such as Monet and Gauguin, were considered incompetents by all but the most avant-garde critics. Determined not to live with her parents, Johanna supported herself and her child by opening a boardinghouse, which shortly became a gathering place for the literati and modern artists of Amsterdam, as well as the feminists of that period.

    In Bohemian Paris, Dan Franck leads us on a vivid and magical tour of the Paris of 1900-1930, a hotbed of artistic creation where we encounter the likes of Apollinaire, Modigliani, Cocteau, Matisse, Picasso, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald, working, loving, and struggling to stay afloat. 16 pages of black-and-white illustrations are also featured.

    Since then, painting has been declared dead several times over, and contemporary art has now expanded to include just about any object, action, or event: dance routines, slideshows, functional hair salons, seemingly random accretions of waste. In the meantime, being an artist has gone from a join-the-circus fantasy to a plausible vocation for scores of young people in America.But why--and how and by whom--does all this art get made? How is it evaluated? And for what, if anything, will today's artists be remembered? In The Contemporaries, Roger White, himself a young painter, serves as our spirited, skeptical guide through this diffuse creative world.White takes us into the halls of the RISD graduate program, where students learn critical lessons that go far beyond how to apply paint to canvases. In New York, we meet the neophytes who assist established artists--and who walk the fine line between "assistance" and "making the art." In Milwaukee, White trails a group of friends trying to create a viable scene where rent is cheap, but where the spotlight rarely shines. And he gives us an intimate perspective on three wildly different careers: that of Dana Schutz, an emerging star who is revitalizing painting; Mary Walling Blackburn, whose challenging art defies market forces; and Stephen Kaltenbach, a '70s wunderkind who is back on the critical radar, perhaps in spite of his own willful obscurity.From young artists trying to elbow their way in to those working hard at dropping out, White's essential book offers a once-in-a-generation glimpse of the inner workings of the American art world at a moment of unparalleled ambition, uncertainty, and creative exuberance.

    Rejected by his family, hounded by society for his interest in young girls, he expressed through his art a deep and bewildering loneliness and an obsession with sexuality, death and decay. He was only twenty-eight when he died, yet he left behind him a body of work that sustains a huge public reputation--and a myth. This book sets out to examine both. 151 illus., 20 in color.

    The end of the sixteenth century was marked by the Inquisition and Counter-Reformation, a background of ideological war against which, despite all odds, brilliant feats of art and science were achieved. No artist captured the dark, violent spirit of the time better than Caravaggio, variously known as Marisi, Moriggia, Merigi, and sometimes, simply M. As art critic Robert Hughes has said, "There was art before him and art after him, and they were not the same." Robb's masterful biography "re-creates the mirror Cravaggio held up to nature," as Hilary Spurling wrote in The New York Times Book Review, "with singular delicacy as well as passion and panache."

    As seen here, his color harmonies can be analogous to musical compositions, complex and expressive. Full-color reproductions and thorough text provide a quick yet solid introduction to this master.

    In a rich weave of images and text, each chapter offers an intimate look at the artist's expression in a different medium. This volume includes beautiful photographs of Micheangelo's works but here also are never before seen details of his sculpture and architecture that invite us to linger. The black-and-white photographs printed in lush doutones that add depth, show in the marks of the chisel, the hand of Michangelo at work - the rough but deliberate strokes of a man struggling to express himself in an unyielding and unforgiving medium.

    But as soon as he gets on campus, Ben finds out that Spy School is way more deadly than debonair. And given his total lack of coordination and failure to grasp even the most basic spying skills, Ben begins to wonder what he’s doing here in the first place.Luckily, through a series of hilarious misadventures, Ben realizes he could actually become a halfway decent spy…if he can survive all the attempts being made on his life!Ideal for newcomers to the series and loyal fans alike, this collection includes paperback editions of Spy School, Spy Camp, Evil Spy School, Spy Ski School, and Spy School Secret Service.