Book picks similar to
The Uffizi Gallery Museum by Alexandra Bonfante-Warren
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The Glassblower of Murano
Marina Fiorato - 2006
Glassblowing is the lifeblood of the Republic, and Venetian mirrors are more precious than gold. Jealously guarded by the murderous Council of Ten, the glassblowers of Murano are virtually imprisoned on their island in the lagoon. But the greatest of the artists, Corradino Manin, sells his methods and his soul to the Sun King, Louis XIV of France, to protect his secret daughter. In the present day his descendant, Leonora Manin, leaves an unhappy life in London to begin a new one as a glassblower in Venice. As she finds new life and love in her adoptive city, her fate becomes inextricably linked with that of her ancestor and the treacherous secrets of his life begin to come to light.
The Meaning of Tango: The History and Steps of the Argentinian Dance
Christine Denniston - 2007
The Meaning of Tango traces the development of the dance, from its birth in poverty-stricken Buenos Aires, through the craze of the early 20th century, right up to its recent revival today thanks to Broadway shows such as Tango Argentino. It also explains the techniques behind the dance and shows why mastering the tango is more like learning a language than a routine. For beginners or experts, dancers or armchair fans, this wonderful book is the perfect partner for enjoying the world's favorite dance.
Street Fight in Naples: A Book of Art and Insurrection
Peter Robb - 2010
Naples is always a shock, flaunting beauty and squalor like nowhere else. Naples is the only city in Europe whose ancient past still lives in its irrepressible people. Their ancestors came from all over the early Mediterranean to the wide bay and its islands, shadowed by a dormant volcano. Not all of them found what they were looking for, but they made a great and terribly human city. Peter Robb's Street Fight in Naples ranges across nearly three thousand years of Neapolitan life and art, from the first Greeklandings in Italy to his own less auspicious arrival thirty-something years ago.In 1503 Naples became the Mediterranean capital of Spain's world empire and the base for the Christian struggle with Islam. It was a European metropolis matched only by Paris and Istanbul, an extraordinary concentration of military power, lavish consumption, poverty and desperation. As the occupying empire went into crisis, exhausted by its wars against Islamists in the Mediterranean and Protestants in the North, the people of Naples paid a dreadful price.Naples was where in 1606 the greatest painter of his age fled from Rome after a fatal street fight. Michelangelo Merisi from Caravaggio found in its teeming streets an image of the age's crisis, and released among the painters of Naples the energies of a great age in European art - until everything erupted in a revolt by the dispossessed, and the people of an occupied city brought Europe into the modern world.
On Painting
Leon Battista Alberti
Inspired by the order and beauty inherent in nature, his groundbreaking work sets out the principles of distance, dimension and proportion; instructs the painter on how to use the rules of composition, representation, light and colour to create work that is graceful and pleasing to the eye; and stipulates the moral and artistic pre-requisites of the successful painter. On Painting had an immediate and profound influence on Italian Renaissance artists including Ghiberti, Fra Angelico and Veneziano and on later figures such as Leonardo da Vinci, and remains a compelling theory of art.
Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art
Laney Salisbury - 2009
Investigative reporters Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo brilliantly recount the tale of a great con man and unforgettable villain, John Drewe, and his sometimes unwitting accomplices. Chief among those was the struggling artist John Myatt, a vulnerable single father who was manipulated by Drewe into becoming a prolific art forger. Once Myatt had painted the pieces, the real fraud began. Drewe managed to infiltrate the archives of the upper echelons of the British art world in order to fake the provenance of Myatt's forged pieces, hoping to irrevocably legitimize the fakes while effectively rewriting art history. The story stretches from London to Paris to New York, from tony Manhattan art galleries to the esteemed Giacometti and Dubuffet associations, to the archives at the Tate Gallery. This enormous swindle resulted in the introduction of at least two hundred forged paintings, some of them breathtakingly good and most of them selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many of these fakes are still out in the world, considered genuine and hung prominently in private houses, large galleries, and prestigious museums. And the sacred archives, undermined by John Drewe, remain tainted to this day. Provenance reads like a well-plotted thriller, filled with unforgettable characters and told at a breakneck pace. But this is most certainly not fiction; Provenance is the meticulously researched and captivating account of one of the greatest cons in the history of art forgery.
The Water and the Wine
Tamar Hodes - 2018
Leonard Cohen is at the start of his career and in love with Marianne, who is also muse to her ex-husband, Axel. Australian authors George Johnston and Charmian Clift write, drink and fight. It is a hedonistic time of love, sex and new ideas. As the island hums with excitement, Jack and Frieda Silver join the community, hoping to mend their broken marriage. However, Greece is overtaken by a military junta and the artistic idyll is threatened.
A World of Art
Henry M. Sayre - 1994
College level text for art appreciation.
Winter's Torment
Katie Wyatt - 2015
it’s the late fall of 1850 and love is starting to blossom in Nearly lawless town of Dodge city!this historical, inspirational Western romance much loved series is about empowered women who turn around their hopeless circumstances in this mid-18th-century tale of the old West, with strong faith and discover authentic men and true love. “BEST SELLING AUTHOR IN ROMANCE” Borrow for Free with Kindle Unlimited or Amazon Prime Meet Winter, she has been scandalize and put to shame in her beloved town of Bangor Maine.Unable to go to her local church, and support herself after the incident she takes the only option she has to seek marriage far away from all of this pain and suffering.She accepts farmer and blacksmith Henry Olson's offer for marriage and a paid for train ticket after just two letters.What happened on that fateful frosty morning that tragically changed her family's lives? Has her heart been irreparably crushed?Will Mr. Henry Olson be all that he seems to be? Can Winter rise above her misfortune and find true love and happiness?"You want me to sleep in the barn?" Henry asked, his expression wary. “On our wedding night?"Winter nodded. "Or the tack shed," she replied. “Whichever you believe would be most comfortable."Will Mother Nature give a devastating blow that will end there love before it starts?Come on down to Dodge city where the bars outnumber the other businesses, you can hang out with the local folks like the massive blacksmith Henry Olson, mustache deputy Bat Masterson and of course the lovely petite 5 foot tall emotionally scarred Winter Lindstrom… “A story of compassion, hope, fear, romance, suspense and true love.”While this book is part of a romance series, it can definitely be read as a standalone book.Take a peek at the “Look Inside” cover picture for a free mail order brides western romance book. A clean novelette American mail order bride historical Western book romance series.
Rick Steves' Mona Winks: Self-Guided Tours of Europe's Top Museums
Rick Steves - 1993
Includes maps and b&w thumbnail illustrations. Indexed by artists and styles. The last edition appeared i
Deceiving a Duke (Historical Romance Novel)
Ryleigh Stone - 2016
Born into the lower-class of society and spit upon by all those above her, it didn’t seem as if life held much in store for a woman of her status. But, all of that was soon to change… As a day arrives when the youthful lass discovers a discarded letter, adorned with ornate markings, right on the side of the street. Upon opening the fancy missive, she learns that it is indeed a marriage proposal – only not addressed to her! It just happens to be for another woman, one who has never met the husband-to-be referenced in the letter. With nothing to lose, Clarissa decides to reinvent herself in the likeness of an upper-class lady and travel to meet the mysterious man… surprisingly, it turns out that he is not only very wealthy, but also a terribly handsome, young, and seductive fellow! A Duke, at that… However, when the original woman receives news of this treachery – it sets off a chain of events that threatens to ruin Clarissa’s wonderful fantasy and unravel a host of family secrets! Will she flee or fight for the fortuitous love that sprang about through her passionate masquerade?
London: The Autobiography
Jon E. Lewis - 2008
From Boudicca's savage raid on Roman London in 60AD to the bombing of 7/7, here is the 2000-year story of one of the world's greatest cities.
This is Caravaggio
Annabel Howard - 2016
He spent a large part of his life on the run, leaving a trail of illuminated chaos wherever he passed, most of it recorded in criminal justice records. When he did settle for long enough to paint, he produced works of staggering creativity and technical innovation. He was famous throughout Italy for his fulminating temper, but also for his radical and sensitive humanization of biblical stories, and in particular his decision to include the brutal and dirty life of the street in his paintings. Caravaggio was a rebel and a violent man, but he eyed the world with deep empathy, realism, and an unrelenting honesty.
Egon Schiele, 1890-1918: The Midnight Soul of the Artist
Reinhard Steiner - 1994
After a short flirtation with Klimt's style, Schiele soon questioned the aesthetic orientation to the beautiful surface of the Viennese Art Nouveau with his rough and not easily accessible paintings. Many contemporaries found his expressive nudes and self-portraits, with their strange movements and morbid colours, to be ugly and even morally objectionable - criticism which culminated in criminalizing the painter as "obscene" and resulted in 1912 in an indictment and short jail sentence. However, not even his harshest critics could dispute however the artist's extraordinary drawing talent.
The Call of the Man-Eater
Kenneth Anderson
In this book the jungle scenario is crowded with a hyena, a jackal, a bear, a barking deer and a few snakes which the hunter-writer tamed and kept as pets around him.Kenneth Anderson (1910-74) hailed from a Scottish family settled in India for six generations. His love for the denizens of Indian jungle led him to big game hunting and eventually to writing real-life adventure stories. His books are hailed as classics of jungle lore.
Good Living Street: Portrait of a Patron Family, Vienna 1900
Tim Bonyhady - 2011
While conversion did not free Jews from anti-Semitism, it allowed them to secure positions otherwise barred to them. Two decades later, as Kristallnacht raged and Vienna burned, the Gallias were having movers pack up the contents of their extraordinary apartment designed by Josef Hoffmann. The family successfully fled to Australia, bringing with them the best private collection of art and design to escape Nazi Austria; included were paintings, furniture, three sets of silver cutlery, chandeliers, letters, diaries, books and bookcases, furs—chinchilla, sable, sealskin—and even two pianos, one upright and one Steinway. Not since the publication of Carl Schorske’s acclaimed portrait of Viennese modernism, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna, has a book so brilliantly—and completely—given us this kind of close-up look at turn-of-the-last-century Viennese culture, art, and daily life—when the Hapsburg Empire was fading and modernism and a new order were coming to the fore. Good Living Street re-creates its world, atmosphere, people, energy, and spirit, and brings it all to vivid life.