Art 101 cuts out the boring details and lengthy explanations, and instead, gives you a lesson in artistic expression that keeps you engaged as you discover the world's greatest artists and their masterpieces.From color theory and Claude Monet to Jackson Pollock and Cubism, this primer is packed with hundreds of entertaining tidbits and works of art that you won't be able to get anywhere else.So whether you're looking to master classic painting techniques, or just want to learn more about popular styles of art, Art 101 has all the answers--even the ones you didn't know you were looking for.

    First published in 1856, The Grammar of Ornament remains a design classic. Its inspiration came from the pioneering architect and designer Owen Jones. His observations of decorative art on his extensive travels in Europe and the Near East were employed to improve the poor quality of Western design. His goal was to change the Victorian habit of mixing elements from a wide variety of sources and applying this mix indiscriminately to buildings, graphic design, and products. His resulting study is a comprehensive analysis of a remarkable collection of styles of ornamental design -- from Ancient Egypt and Greece to Imperial China and Renaissance Italy. With its sumptuous illustrations, its detailed survey of individual cultures, and its manifesto of "General Principles," it offered guidance to the designers of the future. In this new edition the designs are further illuminated by Iain Zaczek's perceptive commentaries. Hugely influential since its first publication, The Grammar of Ornament inspired great figures such as William Morris and Frank Lloyd Wright. Contemporary designers, entertained by the archaic charm of Jones's descriptions, are struck by the book's enduring relevance and its soundness regarding the essential principles of good design.

    First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the (London) Sunday Times critic commented: "This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures." By now he has."Berger has the ability to cut right through the mystification of the professional art critics . . . He is a liberator of images: and once we have allowed the paintings to work on us directly, we are in a much better position to make a meaningful evaluation" —Peter Fuller, Arts Review"The influence of the series and the book . . . was enormous . . . It opened up for general attention to areas of cultural study that are now commonplace" —Geoff Dyer in Ways of TellingWinner of the 1972 Booker Prize for his novel, G., John Peter Berger (born November 5th, 1926) is an art critic, painter and author of many novels including A Painter of Our Time, From A to X and Bento’s Sketchbook.

    In this book, she explains her method for combining folded-paper units in an insertion fashion that results in an endless sequence of multidimensional variations giving new life and freshness to old-fashioned origami classics. Another dynamic departure is the way she employs a single origami work as an axis around which to assemble various other multidimensional parts.Hours of fascinating fun await the origami devotee who follows her along the path to creating original multidimensional forms that are practically architectural in nature. Ranging from technically simple folds to more demanding ones, the many delightful and varied works in this book are highly stimulating and make wonderful presents for family and friends.

    Chrisman’s twenty-ninth birthday, her husband, Gabriel, presented her with a corset. The material and the design were breathtakingly beautiful, but her mind immediately filled with unwelcome views. Although she had been in love with the Victorian era all her life, she had specifically asked her husband not to buy her a corset—ever. She’d heard how corsets affected the female body and what they represented, and she wanted none of it.However, Chrisman agreed to try on the garment . . . and found it surprisingly enjoyable. The corset, she realized, was a tool of empowerment—not oppression. After a year of wearing a corset on a daily basis, her waist had gone from thirty-two inches to twenty-two inches, she was experiencing fewer migraines, and her posture improved. She had successfully transformed her body, her dress, and her lifestyle into that of a Victorian woman—and everyone was asking about it.In Victorian Secrets, Chrisman explains how a garment from the past led to a change in not only the way she viewed herself, but also the ways she understood the major differences between the cultures of twenty-first-century and nineteenth-century America. The desire to delve further into the Victorian lifestyle provided Chrisman with new insight into issues of body image and how women, past and present, have seen and continue to see themselves.

    The history of art has been, successively, a history of artists and their works, of styles and stylistic change, of images--and now, of context and cultures. Art history at its best makes use of all these. 530 color illustrations. 782 b&w.

    Marked by the Manson murders, rampant inflation, and recession, the decade seemed to usher in a gritty and unsightly reality. The city of glitz and glamour overnight became the city of smog and traffic, a cultural and environmental wasteland.Los Angeles in the 1970s was a complex and complicated city with local cultural touchstones that rarely made it near the silver screen. In Los Angeles in the 1970s, LA natives, transplants, and escapees talk about their personal lives intersecting with the city during a decade of struggle. From The Doors’ John Densmore seeing the titular L.A. Woman on a billboard on Sunset, to Deanne Stillman’s twisting path from Ohioan to New Yorker to finally finding her true home as an Angeleno, to Chip Jacobs’ thrilling retelling of the “snake in the mailbox” attempted murder, to Anthony Davis recounting his time as “Notre Dame Killer” and USC football hero, these are stories of the real Los Angeles—families trying to survive the closing of factories, teens cruising Van Nuys Boulevard, the Chicano Moratorium that killed three protestors, the making of a porn legend.Los Angeles in the 1970s is a love letter to the sprawling and complicatedfabric of a Los Angeles often forgotten and mostly overlooked. Welcome to the Gold Mine.

    Smart, glamorous, media-savvy and remarkably practical, Amanda has spent her entire life constructing a unique, eclectic and intimately personal sense of style. With classic roots, bohemian flair, a taste for designer luxuries, and a love for bargains everywhere, Amanda has looked to every imaginable source of fashion inspiration-from high-fashion runways and magazines, to thrift stores and classic movies, to her neighbors in downtown New York and old family photo albums. In I Love Your Style, Amanda helps women of all ages begin to cull through the frighteningly vast world of fashion, from its staid basics to its trendiest moments. I Love Your Style is a sumptuous full-color look-book and style bible, complete with more than 400 classic and modern photographs, that will both empower and inspire women to dive into the challenge of defining, or refining, their personal style. With fully illustrated chapters, sidebars, shopping lists, and personal stories devoted to a range diverse styles and shopping techniques-Classic, Bohemian, Minimalist, Street, High-Fashion, Cheap Chic, Vintage-Brooks walks readers through every angle of the fashion world, from the basic pieces and accessories that define a style, to the small details, combinations, and adaptations that can make it your own. With its focus on embracing creativity, personal history, originality, and the freedom to pick and choose aspects from any distinct "style"-and with no "rules," "commandments," or lengthy lists of "don′ts" in sight-I Love Your Style is a must-read for budding fashionistas, or anyone who finds herself frustrated in front of the mirror each morning.

    A layman's guide to art history provides the reader with a basic working knowledge of art and its influence on society.

    With imagination and insight, the author brings Impressionism into focus by showing it through the eyes of the artists and their contemporaries, using letters, critical reviews and reminiscences of the people who were part of the story. As we see in Bernard Denvir's compelling survey, the Impressionists had new ways of painting, but they also had a new world to paint: a world of stream tricycles, emergent photography, and modern ideas about perception. 195 illus., 17 in color.

    A comprehensive, fun to browse, and easy-to-use source for everything you need to know about movies and the people behind them. From Hollywood to Bollywood, this book's unique approach will explore every aspect of film and provide pointers on how to watch and understand films of different types, styles, and periods.

    The Chanel toe. Jackie O's pump. Marilyn's stiletto. And lotus shoes and fetish shoes, shoes made for coronations and inaugurations, Cinderella's slipper, shoes of tulle, brocade, rhinestone, python, fish scales, and feathers, and much, much, more, including the two-foot-high wooden chopines of the 16th century and their resurgence as the platform shoes of the 1960s and 1970s.Shoes, now with over 357,000 copies in print, is an obsessive, over-the-top extravaganza-chunky, full-color, and irresistible, it contains page after page of seductive photographs and information about women's shoes.Created for the woman who's a passionate shoe lover-and what woman isn't?--Shoes features over 1,000 glorious photographs, most of them taken for the book. Includes Footnotes (fascinating facts about shoes); Foot Soldiers (profiles of master shoemakers from David Little to Andrea Pfister); and The Shoe that Left an Imprint, focusing on one shoe that changed history-remember Courrage's futuristic go-go boot? Shoes is, as they say, to die for.

    The text investigates all aspects of photography - aesthetic, documentary, commercial and technical - while placing it in historical context. It includes three technical sections with detailed information about equipment and processes. This edition also updates important new international work from the 1980s and 1990s.

    In the 1st edition, published in 1962, he spoke to that perennial reader he gently called "the troubled layman." His opening paragraph revealed his sympathy: "Why is this supposed to be art?" he quoted rhetorically. "How often have we heard this question asked--or asked it ourselves, perhaps--in front of one of the strange, disquieting works that we are likely to find nowadays in the museum or art exhibition?" Keeping that curious, questioning perspective in mind, he wrote a history of art from cave painting to Picasso that was singularly welcoming, illuminating & exciting. Sojourning thru this book, a reader is offered every amenity for a comfortable trip. Because he never assumes knowledge on the part of the reader, a recent immigrant from Mars could comprehend Western art from this text. The only assumption the Jansons have made is that with a little guidance everyone can come to understand the artifacts that centuries of architecture, sculpture, design & painting have deposited in our paths. Countless readers have proven the Jansons right & found their lives enriched in the process.

    A new version of Phaidon classic published in 1937, this evocative and fascinating book presents 500 of the world's greatest self portraits, arranged in a simple chronological sequence from ancient time to the late 20th century.