Louvre: All the Paintings


Erich Lessing - 2011
    Comes with an enclosed, supportive DVD-ROM The Louvre is the world's most visited art museum, with 8.5 million visitors annually, and houses the most celebrated and important paintings of all time. For the first time ever, The Louvre: All the Paintings collects all 2,981 paintings currently on display in the permanent collection in one beautifully curated volume. Organized and divided into the four main painting collections of the museum— the Italian School, the Northern School, the Spanish School, and the French School— the paintings are then presented chronologically by the artist's date of birth.Four hundred of the most iconic and significant paintings are illuminated with 300-word discussions by art historians Anja Grebe and Vincent Pomarède on the key attributes of the work, what to look for when viewing the painting, the artist's inspirations and techniques, biographical information on the artist, the artist's impact on the history of art, and more. All 2,981 paintings are fully annotated with the name of the painting and artist, the date of the work, the birth and death dates of the artist, the medium that was used, the size of the painting, the Louvre catalog number, and the room in the Louvre in which the painting is found. The DVD-ROM is easily browsable by artist, date, school, art historical genre, or location in the Louvre. This last feature allows readers to tour the Louvre and its contents room by room, as if they were actually walking through the building.

Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet


Jennifer Homans - 2010
    Its traditions serve as a record of our past. A ballerina dancing The Sleeping Beauty today is a link in a long chain of dancers stretching back to sixteenth-century Italy and France: Her graceful movements recall a lost world of courts, kings, and aristocracy, but her steps and gestures are also marked by the dramatic changes in dance and culture that followed. Ballet has been shaped by the Renaissance and Classicism, the Enlightenment and Romanticism, Bolshevism, Modernism, and the Cold War. Apollo’s Angels is a groundbreaking work—the first cultural history of ballet ever written, lavishly illustrated and beautifully told.Ballet is unique: It has no written texts or standardized notation. It is a storytelling art passed on from teacher to student. The steps are never just the steps—they are a living, breathing document of a culture and a tradition. And while ballet’s language is shared by dancers everywhere, its artists have developed distinct national styles. French, Italian, Danish, Russian, English, and American traditions each have their own expression, often formed in response to political and societal upheavals.From ballet’s origins in the Renaissance and the codification of its basic steps and positions under France’s Louis XIV (himself an avid dancer), the art form wound its way through the courts of Europe, from Paris and Milan to Vienna and St. Petersburg. It was in Russia that dance developed into the form most familiar to American audiences: The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, and The Nutcracker originated at the Imperial court. In the twentieth century, émigré dancers taught their art to a generation in the United States and in Western Europe, setting off a new and radical transformation of dance. Jennifer Homans is a historian and critic who was also a professional dancer: She brings to Apollo’s Angels a knowledge of dance born of dedicated practice. She traces the evolution of technique, choreography, and performance in clean, clear prose, drawing readers into the intricacies of the art with vivid descriptions of dances and the artists who made them. Her admiration and love for the ballet shines through on every page. Apollo’s Angels is an authoritative work, written with a grace and elegance befitting its subject.

Vincent by Himself


Vincent van Gogh - 1985
    The unquestionable appeal of Vincent's paintings and drawings is enhanced by his own account of his life and thought, as contained in his letters. This selection includes more than 230 of his paintings and drawings - all reproduced in full color - as well as extracts of the artist's correspondence to friends and family members.

Tony Northrup's Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 Video Book: Training for Photographers


Tony Northrup - 2014
    VIDEO TRAINING. 12+ HOURS of searchable video training (requires Internet access). If you learn better from videos, watch the videos and use the ebook only for quick reference. If you learn better from books, read the ebook and refer to the videos to see the author demonstrate real world editing techniques. This much video training usually costs over $100 or requires a monthly subscription. 2. 150+ PRESETS. Jump-start your creativity by using the included presets to give your pictures a unique look. Others charge over $200 for this many presets! 3. 50+ RAW PICTURE FILES. Work alongside many of the book's examples, or just learn by experimenting with professional photos. 4. TEACHER & PEER SUPPORT. After buying the book, you get access to the private group on Facebook where you can ask the questions and post pictures for feedback from Tony, Chelsea, and other readers. It’s like being able to raise your hand in class and ask a question! Instructions are in the introduction. With this video book, you ll learn how to instantly find any picture in your library, fix common photography problems, clean up your images, add pop to boring pictures, retouch portraits, make gorgeous prints, create photo books, and even edit your home videos. Tony goes beyond teaching you how to use Lightroom. Tony shows you why and when to use each feature to create stunning, natural photos. When Lightroom is not the best tool, Tony suggests better alternatives. Tony covers every aspect of Lightroom in-depth, but structures his teaching so that both beginner and advanced photographers can learn as efficiently as possible. If you just want a quick start, you can watch the first video or read the first chapter and you'll be organizing and editing your pictures in less than an hour. If you want to know more about a specific feature, switch to that video or jump to that chapter in the ebook. If you want to know everything about Lightroom, watch the videos and read the book from start to finish.

The Book of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary


Caspar Henderson - 2012
    Ranging from the depths of the ocean to the most arid corners of the land, Caspar Henderson captures the beauty and bizzareness of the many living forms we thought we knew and some we could never have contemplated, inviting us to better imagine the precarious world we inhabit.A witty, vivid blend of cutting edge natural history and meditative reflections, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings is infectious and celebratory about the sheer ingenuity and variety of life.

Art of the Western World: From Ancient Greece to Post Modernism


Bruce Cole - 1989
    Art of the Western World -- the companion volume to the nine-part PBS television series -- traces the history of Western art from its classical roots in ancient Greece up to the present day and the international Post-Modernism of artists as diverse as Christo, Hockney, and Kiefer. Along the way experts Bruce Cole and Adelheid Gealt carefully chart the evolution of the Western tradition, from the grandeur of Roman architecture to the symbolic language of medieval art, through the unparalleled achievements of the Renaissance, the turbulent emotionalism of the Romantics like Turner and Constable, the Impressionists' search for a new reality, and the revolution of the Abstract Expressionists of the twentieth century. Art of the Western World integrates the works of each period with the history, values, and ideals that gave birth to them: the influence of the Medicis and other great patrons of Renaissance Italy; the resurgence of the classical style, inspired by the French Revolution; the break with the past evidenced in the works of the Impressionists; and the tortured visions of the modern world devastated by wars depicted in the paintings of Picasso, Marc, Groez, and others. A valuable key to understanding the language of art, Art of the Western World offers fresh insight into what the great works meant at the time they were created and why they maintain their special meaning to us now. It is the perfect guide to the masterpieces of Western art.

Symbolist Art


Edward Lucie-Smith - 1972
    Important Symbolist painters were at work in places as remote from one another as Munch in Oslo, Klimt in Vienna, and the young Picasso in Barcelona. It is through Symbolism, too, that the relationship between the English painting of the later nineteenth century and what was taking place in Europe can be explained. Edward Lucie-Smith's important study throws light upon the origins of Modernism, and upon the development of painting and sculpture in the final years of the century. 185 illus., 24 in color. Bibliography and index.

Backwoods Genius


Julia Scully - 2012
    After his death, the contents of his studio, including thousands of glass negatives, were sold off for five dollars. For years the fragile negatives sat forgotten and deteriorating in cardboard boxes in an open carport. How did it happen, then, that the most implausible of events took place? That Disfarmer’s haunting portraits were retrieved from oblivion, that today they sell for upwards of $12,000 each at posh New York art galleries; his photographs proclaimed works of art by prestigious critics and journals and exhibited around the world? The story of Disfarmer’s rise to fame is a colorful, improbable, and ultimately fascinating one that involves an unlikely assortment of individuals. Would any of this have happened if a young New York photographer hadn't been so in love with a pretty model that he was willing to give up his career for her; if a preacher’s son from Arkansas hadn't spent 30 years in the Army Corps of Engineers mapping the U.S. from an airplane; if a magazine editor hadn't felt a strange and powerful connection to the work? The cast of characters includes these, plus a restless and wealthy young Chicago aristocrat and even a grandson of FDR. It’s a compelling story which reveals how these diverse people were part of a chain of events whose far-reaching consequences none of them could have foreseen, least of all the strange and reclusive genius of Heber Springs. Until now, the whole story has not been told.

Paintings in Proust: A Visual Companion to 'In Search of Lost Time'


Eric Karpeles - 2008
    Not only are there frequent references to specific works of art, but certain characters are also evoked by comparison to particular paintings. Bloch’s appearance as a boy is likened to the portrait of Mehmet II by Gentile Bellini; Odette de Crécy strikes Swann by her resemblance to a figure in a Botticelli fresco. Even the lesser figure of a certain Mme. Blattin becomes the subject of Proustian mischief by being described as “exactly the portrait of Savonarola by Fra Bartolomeo.” Eric Karpeles has identified and located the many paintings to which Proust makes reference and sets them alongside the relevant text from the novel; in other cases, where only a painter’s name is mentioned to indicate a certain style or appearance, Karpeles has chosen a representative work to illustrate the impression that Proust sought to evoke.With some 200 paintings beautifully reproduced in full color and texts drawn from the Moncrieff/Kilmartin/Enright translation, as well as concise commentaries on the evolving narrative, this book is an essential addition to the libraries of Proustians everywhere. The book also includes an authoritative introduction and a comprehensive index of artists and paintings mentioned in the novel.

Live Cinema and Its Techniques


Francis Ford Coppola - 2017
    But the time is not far off, Live Cinema and Its Techniques demonstrates, when a director or a collaborative team of filmmakers working across the internet will create "live" movies that will be sent instantly via satellite for viewing throughout the world.Yet the creative demands posed by airing live sporting contests, as impressive as the final product is, pale in contrast with the ambitions of "cinematic auteurs," who are inspired by great directors, like Serge Eisenstein, Max Ophuls, or Alfred Hitchcock, among many others. As daunting as the challenge is, the process of integrating the highest artistic standards of previous generations into the medium of "live cinema" can, Coppola explains, be achieved, thus creating an entirely new art form for the so-called "screen." Tapping into his own encyclopedic knowledge of twentieth-century film history, Coppola threads his vision of this burgeoning cinematic medium with autobiographical and historical vignettes gleaned from the past, recalling his own boyhood obsession with film and his early fascination with the "Golden Age of Television," when 1950s viewers were treated to live productions of classics, like Days of Wine and Roses and Requiem for a Heavyweight.Especially exciting is the exhilaration and drama that results from retraining actors and using a multitude of cameras to create a film that has the in-the-moment energy of a live event. Having already tried out this new medium with "proof-of-concept workshops" at Oklahoma City Community College and at UCLA, Coppola has created an invaluable guide for students and teachers alike. Filled with discussions of how to rehearse actors, how to choose scenery and location, and how to overcome theatrical, as well as technical, obstacles, Live Cinema and Its Techniques reveals how the spontaneity of this new genre can ultimately transport filmmaking into a new era of creativity still unimaginable today.Featuring chapters on:A Short History of Film and TelevisionThe Actors, Acting, and RehearsalThe Question of Style in the CinemaObstacles and Other Thoughts on Live Cinema No Matter What They May BeEquipment: Now and in the Near Future

A Short Book About Art


Dana Arnold - 2015
    Introducing art in its international context, this accessible book explores core issues about how art is made, interpreted, and displayed, without any of the unnecessary terminology. Divided into themes, A Short Book About Art presents new ways of thinking about the relationship between artists and their work, as well as fresh comparisons between works of art from different periods and places. Thought-provoking and stimulating, it is the ideal companion for anyone who wants to learn about art without a dictionary in their hands.

A History of the World in 100 Objects


Neil MacGregor - 2010
    Encompassing a grand sweep of human history, A History of the World in 100 Objects begins with one of the earliest surviving objects made by human hands, a chopping tool from the Olduvai gorge in Africa, and ends with objects which characterise the world we live in today. Seen through MacGregor's eyes, history is a kaleidoscope - shifting, interconnected, constantly surprising, and shaping our world today in ways that most of us have never imagined. A stone pillar tells us about a great Indian emperor preaching tolerance to his people; Spanish pieces of eight tell us about the beginning of a global currency; and an early Victorian tea-set speaks to us about the impact of empire. An intellectual and visual feast, this is one of the most engrossing and unusual history books published in years. 'Brilliant, engagingly written, deeply researched' Mary Beard, Guardian 'A triumph: hugely popular, and rightly lauded as one of the most effective and intellectually ambitious initiatives in the making of 'public history' for many decades' Sunday Telegraph 'Highly intelligent, delightfully written and utterly absorbing ' Timothy Clifford, Spectator 'This is a story book, vivid and witty, shining with insights, connections, shocks and delights' Gillian Reynolds Daily Telegraph

The Secret Lives of Color


Kassia St. Clair - 2016
    From blonde to ginger, the brown that changed the way battles were fought to the white that protected against the plague, Picasso's blue period to the charcoal on the cave walls at Lascaux, acid yellow to kelly green, and from scarlet women to imperial purple, these surprising stories run like a bright thread throughout history.In this book, Kassia St. Clair has turned her lifelong obsession with colors and where they come from (whether Van Gogh's chrome yellow sunflowers or punk's fluorescent pink) into a unique study of human civilization. Across fashion and politics, art and war, the secret lives of color tell the vivid story of our culture.

The Devil and Dr. Barnes: Portrait of an American Art Collector


Howard Greenfeld - 1987
    The Devil and Dr. Barnes traces the near-mythical journey of a man who was born into poverty, amassed a fortune through the promotion of a popular medicine, and acquired the premier private collection of works by such masters as Renoir, Matisse, Cézanne, and Picasso. Ostentatiously turning his back on the art establishment, Barnes challenged the aesthetic sensibilities of an uninitiated, often resistant and scoffing, American audience. In particular, he championed Matisse, Soutine, and Modigliani when they were obscure or in difficult straits. Analyzing what he saw as the formal relationships underlying all art, linking the old and the new, Barnes applied these principles in a rigorous course of study offered at his Merion foundation. Barnes's own mordant words, culled from the copious printed record, animate the narrative throughout, as do accounts of his associations with notables of the era--Gertrude and Leo Stein, Bertrand Russell, and John Dewey among them--many of whom he alienated with his appetite for passionate, public feuds. In this rounded portrait, Albert Barnes emerges as a complex, flawed man, who--blessed with an astute eye for greatness--has left us an incomparable treasure, gathered in one place and unforgettable to all who have seen it.

This Other London: Adventures in the Overlooked City


John Rogers - 2013
    Nursing two reluctant knees and a can of Stella, he perambulates through the seasons seeking adventure in our city’s remote and forgotten reaches.When John Rogers packed away his rucksack to start a family in London he didn’t stop travelling. But instead of canoeing up the Rejang River to find retired headhunters in Sarawak, he caught the ferry to Woolwich in search of the edge of the city at Crayford Marshes.This Other London recounts that journey and many others – all on foot and epic in their own cartilage-crunching way. Clutching a samosa and a handful of out-of-date A-Zs, he heads out into the wilderness of isolated luxury apartment blocks in Brentford, the ruins of Lesnes Abbey near Thamesmead, and the ancient Lammas Lands in Leyton.Denounced by his young sons as a ‘hippy wizard’, Rogers delves into some of the overlooked stories rumbling beneath the tarmac of the city suburbs. Holy wells in Lewisham; wassailing in Clapton; a heretical fresco in West Ham. He encounters the Highwaymen of Hounslow Heath, Viet Cong vets still fighting Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket in Beckton, Dutch sailors marooned at Erith pier; and cyclists – without Bradley Wiggins’ sideburns – at Herne Hill Velodrome. He heads out to Uxendon Hill to witness the end of the world, Horsenden Hill to learn its legend, and Tulse Hill to the observatory of the Victorian Brian Cox.This Other London will take you into the hinterland of the city. The London that is lived in; the London where workaday dormitory suburbs sit atop a rich history that could rival Westminster and Tower Bridge. In an age when no corner of the globe has been left untrampled-upon by hordes of tourists, it is time to discover the wonders on our doorstep.This Other London is your gateway through the underexplored nooks of London. As Pathfinder wrote in 1911, ‘Adventure begins at home’.