Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa


R.A. Scotti - 2009
    More than twenty-four hours passed before museum officials realized she was gone. The prime suspects were as shocking as the crime: Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire, young provocateurs of a new art. As French detectives using the latest methods of criminology, including fingerprinting, tried to trace the thieves, a burgeoning international media hyped news of the heist.No story captured the imagination of the world quite like this one. Thousands flocked to the Louvre to see the empty space where the painting had hung. They mourned as if Mona Lisa were a lost loved one, left flowers and notes, and set new attendance records. For more than two years, Mona Lisa’s absence haunted the art world, provoking the question: Was she lost forever? A century later, questions still linger.Part love story, part mystery, Vanished Smile reopens the case of the most audacious and perplexing art theft ever committed. R. A. Scotti’s riveting, ingeniously realized account is itself a masterly portrait of a world in transition. Combining her skills as a historian and a novelist, Scotti turns the tantalizing clues into a story of the painting’s transformation into the most familiar and lasting icon of all time.

Architecture: Form, Space, & Order


Francis D.K. Ching - 1979
    K. Ching. Each page has been meticulously revised to incorporate contemporary examples of the principles of form, space, and order - the fundamental vocabulary of every designer. The result is a beautifully illustrated volume that embraces today's forms and looks at conventional models with a fresh perspective. Here, Ching examines every principal of architecture, juxtaposing images that span centuries and cross cultural boundaries to create a design vocabulary that is both elemental and timeless. Among the topics covered are point, line, plane, volume, proportion, scale, circulation, and the interdependence of form and space. While this revision continues to be a comprehensive primer on the ways form and space are interrelated and organized in the shaping of our environment, it has been refined to amplify and clarify concepts. In addition, the Second Edition contains numerous new hand-rendered drawings; expanded section on openings and scale; examples of contemporary architectural design elements; expanded chapter on design principles; new glossary and index categorized by the author; and new 8 1/2 x 11 upright trim. In the Second Edition of Architecture: Form, Space, and Order, the author has opted for a larger format and crisper images. Mr. Ching has retained the style of his hand-lettered text, a hallmark of each of his books. This rich source of architectural prototypes, each rendered in Mr. Ching's signature style, also serves as a guide to architectural drawing. Doubtless, many will want this handsomevolume for the sheer beauty of it. Architects and students alike will treasure this book for its wealth of practical information and its precise illustrations. Mr. Ching has once again created a visual reference that illuminates the world of architectural form.

Looking at Pictures


Susan Woodford - 1983
    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.

The Industrial Design Reader


Carma Gorman - 2001
    This pioneering guide traces the entire history of industrial design, industrialization, and mass production from 1850 until today. Sixty comprehensive essays written by designers, theorists, advertisers, historians, and curators detail the most crucial movements, issues, and accomplishments of industrial design. They combine news reports on the very first design workshops, aesthetic manifestos, lectures, and more from the biggest names in the field: William Morris, Henry Dreyfuss, and Victor Papanek, to name only a few. The Industrial Design Reader is an excellent resource for educators, students, and practicing designers. • Features design from not only theoretical and aesthetic perspectives, but also from a socio-political point of view, with texts from Karl Marx, Ralph Nader, and others • Copublished with the Design Management Institute, which will actively promote the book to its membership

Dali


Dawn Ades - 1982
    On the occasion of the centenary of his birth comes the definitive retrospective of the artist's work from his early years. Dali explores the development of the artist's technique and style, his relationship with the Surrealists, and his exploitation of Freudian ideas, as well as the image Dali created of himself as the mad genius artist. This catalogue will be the major reference work for Dali for decades to come. It includes illustrations of all the works loaned to the exhibition, as well as comparative illustrations and photographs. The volume contains an introductory essay by Dawn Ades, with scholarly research incorporated in a "Dali Dictionary," in the entries on individual works, and in the chronology, which includes a quantity of new material. The guide draws upon the best scholarship available on Dali, including that of Hank Hine, Director of the Salvador Dali Museum, Jennifer Mundy, Senior Curator of the Tate Museum, and Michael Taylor, Acting Chief Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Sotheby's: The Inside Story


Peter Watson - 1997
    Using leads provided by the tip, and a huge cache of stolen documents, Watson details genuine experts, tomb robbers, as well as false names and claims, evaluations, despoilation of national treasures, and more.

Arcimboldo


Werner Kriegeskorte - 1992
    His talent soon caught the eye of 16th-century rulers, and he moved on to the imperial courts of Ferdinand I, Maximilian II, and Rudolf II in Prague, where he created the scenes for his Seasons. In Arcimboldo's allegorical paintings, Spring appears as a young man composed entirely of flowers, Summer as a composition of fruits, Autumn as a head made of grapes, and Winter as a gnarled old man twined with ivy. Arcimboldo remained true to the allegorical principles informing the artistic and philosophical world view of the 16th century. His paintings are not only full of references to ancient classical gods and goddesses, but above all they reflect the courtly cosmos of the art chambers and wonder cabinets in which countless exotic and bizarre objects were housed. With the decline of this allegorical world vision between the Renaissance and Mannerism, Arcimboldo was forgotten- only to be rediscovered by modern artists.

Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief


David Starkey - 2008
    How can students with widely varied levels of literary experience learn to write poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and drama — over the course of only one semester? In Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief, David Starkey offers some solutions to the challenges of teaching the introductory creative writing course: (1) concise, accessible instruction in literary basics; (2) short models of literature to analyze, admire and emulate; (3) inventive and imaginative assignments that inspire and motivate.

Rick Steves Rome 2018


Rick Steves - 2014
    Rome is called the Eternal City, and ancient ruins and Renaissance masterpieces still dot this modern metropolis: with Rick Steves on your side, Rome can be yours!Inside Rick Steves Rome 2018 you'll find:Comprehensive coverage for spending a week or more exploring RomeRick's strategic advice on how to get the most out of your time and money, with rankings of his must-see favoritesTop sights and hidden gems, from the Colosseum and the Sistine Chapel to corner trattorias serving crispy fresh pizza and that perfect scoop of gelato How to connect with local culture: Savor a plate of cacio e pepe, celebrate with the locals at a festival, or chat with fans about the latest soccer (calico, to locals) match Beat the crowds, skip the lines, and avoid tourist traps with Rick's candid, humorous insightThe best places to eat, sleep, and experience la dolce far nienteSelf-guided walking tours of lively neighborhoods and incredible museums Detailed neighborhood maps and a fold-out city map for exploring on the goUseful resources including a packing list, Italian phrase book, a historical overview, and recommended readingOver 500 bible-thin pages include everything worth seeing without weighing you downAnnually updated information on Central Rome, Vatican City, Trastevere, and more, plus day trips to Ostia Antica, Tivoli, Naples, and PompeiiMake the most of every day and every dollar with Rick Steves Rome 2018.Spending just a few days in the city? Try Rick Steves Pocket Rome.

The Art Spirit


Robert Henri - 1929
    While it embodies the entire system of his teaching, with much technical advice and critical comment for the student, it also contains inspiration for those to whom the happiness to be found through all the arts is important.No other American painter attracted such a large, intensely personal group of followers as Henri, whose death in 1929 brought to an end a life that has been completely devoted to art. He was an inspired artist and teacher who believed that everyone is vitally concerned in the happiness and wisdom to be found through the arts. Many of his paintings have been acquired by museums and private collectors. Among them are the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Wichita Art Museum, and Yale University Art Gallery.

A Brief History of New Music


Hans Ulrich Obrist - 2012
    It brings together leading avant-garde composers of the early postwar period such as Elliot Carter, Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen; pioneers of electroacoustic music such as Francois Bayle, Pauline Oliveros, Iannis Xenakis and Peter Zinovieff; minimalist and Fluxus-inspired artist-musicians such as Tony Conrad, Henry Flynt, Phil Niblock, Yoko Ono, Steve Reich and Terry Riley; and figures that have moved between classical/experimental realms and more pop terrain, such as Brian Eno, Kraftwerk, Howie B., Arto Lindsay and Caetano Veloso. Obrist's interviews map the evolution of the new music in Europe and America across all of its genres, from musique concrete to the recent hybridizations between pop and avant-garde, as techniques from both realms cross-pollinate. A Brief History of New Music is an ideal introduction to the experimental and new classical music of the past half-century.

Amusing the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century


John F. Kasson - 1978
    Amusing the Million examines the historical context in which Coney Island made its reputation as an amusement park and shows how America's changing social and economic conditions formed the basis of a new mass culture. Exploring it afresh in this way, John Kasson shows Coney Island no longer as the object of nostalgia but as a harbinger of modernity--and the many photographs, lithographs, engravings, and other reproductions with which he amplifies his text support this lively thesis.

American Junk


Mary Randolph Carter - 1994
    She introduces us to and takes us into the homes of these unusually creative people, who share her belief that thrift, economy, and ingenuity translate into high style indeed. There are before-and-after pictures, tips on repair and storage hints on how to bargain, ideas for themed collections and even a list of what to bring on junking expeditions. The author reveals the price of almost every one of the hundreds and hundreds of items pictured, and best of all provides a directory to more than two "junking sites" nationwide. American Junk is a one-of-a-kind book for those who appreciate the rare, the idiosyncratic, and the unexpected - those who realize that there are as many kinds of junk as there are individuals.

The Victorians


Jeremy Paxman - 2009
    Using the paintings of the era as his starting point - in his view, the one mode of Victorian art yet to be rescued from indifference - Paxman explores themes of family, urban life, industry, empire, and imagination to uncover truths (and explode some myths) about Victorian Britain.To Paxman, these paintings were the television of their day, immensely popular visual narratives that attracted crowds by the hundreds of thousands: a single picture show featuring Elizabeth Butler's Balaclava (depicting survivors of the Charge of the Light Brigade) drew 50,000 viewers, some of them openly weeping. The Victorians shows how artists like Butler, William Powell Frith, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Luke Fildes, and Ford Madox Brown were chronicling a world changing before their eyes, and his overview ranges across the whole of Victorian life and culture: from high gothic architecture to the birth of the football league, from the novels of Dickens to the technological marvels of Brunel.Published to coincide with a landmark BBC series, The Victorians is an opinionated, informed, surprising, and hugely enthusiastic appraisal of the birth of modern Britain - a glorious reminder of how the Victorians made us who we are today.

On Photography


Susan Sontag - 1973
    Sontag develops further the concept of 'transparency'. When anything can be photographed and photography has destroyed the boundaries and definitions of art, a viewer can approach a photograph freely with no expectations of discovering what it means. This collection of six lucid and invigorating essays, the most famous being "In Plato's Cave", make up a deep exploration of how the image has affected society.