Mirror of the World: A New History of Art


Julian Bell - 2007
    He follows the changing trends in the making and significance of art in different cultures, and explains why the art of the day looked and functioned as it did. Key images and objects-some of them familiar works of art; others, less known but equally crucial to the story-act as landmarks on the journey, focal points around which the discussion always centers. Along the way, Bell answers fundamental questions such as "What is art and where does it start?" and "Why do humans make it and how does it serve them?"Previous histories tended to focus only on the masterpieces of Western art, in the process excluding the work of women or non-Western artists, or else considering developments around the world as separate, unrelated phenomena. Bell's achievement is to take a global perspective, bringing the distinct stories together in one convincing narrative. He draws insightful and inspired connections between different continents and cultures and across the millennia, which results in a rich and seamless introduction to the world of visual creativity.Hundreds of carefully selected illustrations show how artists from different ages and societies often shared the same formal, technical, and aesthetic concerns, while others took divergent paths when their vision dictated it.Julian Bell, himself a well-known painter, is the grandson of Vanessa and Clive Bell, key members of the celebrated Bloomsbury group of writers and artists. His books include What is Painting?.

Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts: A Guide to Technical Terms


Michelle P. Brown - 1994
    Concise and readable explanations ofthe technical terms most frequently encountered by the museum-goer are presented in an easily portable format. With numerous illustrations, many of them in color, this volume will be invaluable to all readers wishing to increase their understanding and enjoyment of illuminated manuscripts.

The Second City Almanac of Improvisation


Anne Libera - 2004
    No one could have known that by the next century, The Second City would have established itself as the premier comedy institution in the world. Taking its act north, The Second City would build a second permanent home in Toronto where it would create the Emmy-Award winning television series "SCTV." Pioneering the use of improvisation in developing talent and creating satiric revue comedy, The Second City has become - in the words of the New York Times - "A Comedy Empire."The Second City Almanac of Improvisation - like the theatre itself - is a collection of diverse ideas, viewpoints, and memories, written by a vast array of teachers, actors, and directors who all got their start at the legendary comedy theatre. Fred Willard recalls his introduction to The Second City style in the mid-Sixties; Tim Kazurinsky gives a hilarious visual demonstration on the art of object work; "Saturday Night Live" star Tina Fey talks about re-improvising material as a mode of writing revue comedy; noted director Mick Napier takes on the thorny debate between long-form improvisation and short-form improvisation. Anne Libera guides the reader through each essay by providing a road map for understanding how The Second City method of improv-based comedy has become the industry standard.Mike Nichols, Elaine May, Alan Arkin, Joan Rivers, Robert Klein, Peter Boyle, Harold Ramis, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, John Candy, Martin Short, Gilda Radner, George Wendt, Jim Belushi, Bonnie Hunt, Mike Myers, Ryan Stiles, Rachel Dratch, Nia Vardalos - no other theatre can boast an alumni list of this magnitude. The Second City Almanac of Improvisation provides practical instruction, personal details, and inspiration to both improvisers and their fans.

Artistic Anatomy: The Great French Classic on Artistic Anatomy


Paul Richer - 1971
    The original French edition, now a rare collector's item, was published in 1889 and was probably used as a resource by Renoir, Braque, Degas, Bazille, and many others. The English-language edition, first published 35 years ago, brings together the nineteenth century's greatest teacher of artistic anatomy, Paul Richer, and the twentieth century's most renowned teacher of anatomy and figure drawing, Robert Beverly Hale, who translated and edited the book for the modern reader. Now Watson-Guptill is proud to reissue this dynamic classic with an anniversary sticker, sure to inspire drawing students well into our century.

History of the Theatre


Oscar Gross Brockett - 1964
    Franklin J. Hildy contributes his scholarship and experience throughout the book and, in particular, to a discussion of English Theatre/Shakespeare (Ch. 5). Reorganized with more uniform chapter lengths and a clearer chronology, the ninth edition continues to provide the most thorough and accurate assessment of theatre history available. For anyone involved with, or interested in, the theatre.

Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy


Lawrence Lessig - 2008
    Lessig reveals the solutions to this impasse offered by a collaborative yet profitable “hybrid economy”.Lawrence Lessig, the reigning authority on intellectual property in the Internet age, spotlights the newest and possibly the most harmful culture war—a war waged against our kids and others who create and consume art. America’s copyright laws have ceased to perform their original, beneficial role: protecting artists’ creations while allowing them to build on previous creative works. In fact, our system now criminalizes those very actions. For many, new technologies have made it irresistible to flout these unreasonable and ultimately untenable laws. Some of today’s most talented artists are felons, and so are our kids, who see no reason why they shouldn’t do what their computers and the Web let them do, from burning a copyrighted CD for a friend to “biting” riffs from films, videos, songs, etc and making new art from them.Criminalizing our children and others is exactly what our society should not do, and Lessig shows how we can and must end this conflict—a war as ill conceived and unwinnable as the war on drugs. By embracing “read-write culture,” which allows its users to create art as readily as they consume it, we can ensure that creators get the support—artistic, commercial, and ethical—that they deserve and need. Indeed, we can already see glimmers of a new hybrid economy that combines the profit motives of traditional business with the “sharing economy” evident in such Web sites as Wikipedia and YouTube. The hybrid economy will become ever more prominent in every creative realm—from news to music—and Lessig shows how we can and should use it to benefit those who make and consume culture.Remix is an urgent, eloquent plea to end a war that harms our children and other intrepid creative users of new technologies. It also offers an inspiring vision of the post-war world where enormous opportunities await those who view art as a resource to be shared openly rather than a commodity to be hoarded.

Bernini


Howard Hibbard - 1966
    He has left his greatest mark on Rome where Papal patronage provided him with enormous architectural commissions.TABLE OF CONTENTSBerniniList of PlatesList of Text FiguresForewordIntroduction1. The Prodigy2. Bernini in Command3. Disaster and Triumph4. Two Churches and St. Peter’s5. Le Cavalier en France6. The Late WorksBibliographical NoteNotes to the TextIndex

The Willie Lynch Letter And the Making of A Slave


Willie Lynch - 2011
    You see, survival of the colored race in America is at a difficult point where it has to be taught to our youth. The old practices of lynching and segregation which are thought to have been eradicated from our society lives on but in various other forms: police brutality, income inequality, unemployment and single motherhood… designs to keep our communities in perpetual turmoil and slavery.This book should be required reading for the youth and a lesson to any group that man’s inhumanity to man has not ended in America and is practiced around the world.

Planet Earth: As You've Never Seen It Before


Alastair Fothergill - 2006
    Using the latest aerial surveillance, state-of-the-art cameras, and high definition technology, the creators of Planet Earth have assembled more than 400 stunning photographs of wondrous natural landscapes from around the globe, including incredible footage of the rarely spotted, almost mythical creatures that live in these habitats. Many of the images reveal inaccessible places that few have seen and record animal behavior that has never been filmed or photographed before. With the help of this highly advanced technology and the world's premier wildlife photographers, the book takes us on a spectacular journey from the world's greatest rivers and impressive gorges, to its mightiest mountains, hidden caves and caverns, and vast deserts. Planet Earth captures breathtaking sequences of predators and their prey, lush vistas of forests viewed from the tops of towering trees, the oceans and their mysterious creatures viewed from beneath the surface, and much more—in a magnificent adventure that brings unknown wonders of the natural world into our living rooms.Copub: BBC Worldwide Americas

Everything in the Garden


Edward Albee - 1968
    Albee there is a theme beneath the surface, in this case the corruption of money and the rottenness of this bigoted exurbia where conformity to its illiberal standards and its hypocritical show of respectability is all that counts. The scene is the suburban home of Jenny and Richard, beautifully played by Barbara Bel Geddes and Barry Nelson. The only thing that seems to stand in the way of their happiness is a lack of money. The action starts in an entertaining comedy of manners style. Then abruptly there enters a Mrs. Toothe in the menacing and fascinating person of Beatrice Straight who offers Jenny the opportunity to make more money than they have ever had, to buy a greenhouse and all the other luxuries that they require for their garden and their lives. Richard's realization that their newfound money is being earned by his wife's whoring comes almost simultaneously with the return of their fourteen-year-old son from school and a champagne cocktail party which they are giving to impress their country club friends. As a result, his horror, disgust and rage has to be kept under wraps in order to keep up essential appearances until tragedy strikes, and Richard realizes that the assembled wives are all involved and their husbands are aware and condoning." More than that, they are prepared not merely to justify but defend the ends through which their means are attained and the devastated Richard, left in agonized despair by the ironic events that charge the final moments of the play, must face the fact of his own share in their communal guilt.

The Moving Body


Jacques Lecoq - 1997
    Here, for the first time in English, and in Lecoq's own words, are his philosophy and his teaching methods - probably the greatest influence on world theatre over the last thirty years. In chapters entitled Personal Journey, The World and its Movements, The Road to Creativity, & New Perspectives, Lecoq sets out his unique architecture of the body in space and explains his most famous techniques such as neutral mask, acrobatics, bouffons and the grotesque and play, and discusses the actor's approach to situation, character, environment, emotion, physical and vocal preparation and of course movement."In life I want students to be alive, and on the stage I want them to be artists." Jacques Lecoq

Freaks of Fortune: The Emerging World of Capitalism and Risk in America


Jonathan I. Levy - 2012
    "Freaks of Fortune" tells the story of how the modern concept of risk emerged in the United States. Born on the high seas, risk migrated inland and became essential to the financial management of an inherently uncertain capitalist future.Focusing on the hopes and anxieties of ordinary people, Jonathan Levy shows how risk developed through the extraordinary growth of new financial institutions insurance corporations, savings banks, mortgage-backed securities markets, commodities futures markets, and securities markets while posing inescapable moral questions. For at the heart of risk s rise was a new vision of freedom. To be a free individual, whether an emancipated slave, a plains farmer, or a Wall Street financier, was to take, assume, and manage one s own personal risk. Yet this often meant offloading that same risk onto a series of new financial institutions, which together have only recently acquired the name financial services industry. Levy traces the fate of a new vision of personal freedom, as it unfolded in the new economic reality created by the American financial system.Amid the nineteenth-century s waning faith in God s providence, Americans increasingly confronted unanticipated challenges to their independence and security in the boom and bust chance-world of capitalism. "Freaks of Fortune" is one of the first books to excavate the historical origins of our own financialized times and risk-defined lives.

The Keeper


Marguerite Poland - 2014
    Seriously injured, Hannes is evacuated to hospital and nursed back to health by Sister Rika, to whom he haltingly tells the story of his life: of his mother’s mysterious death, of his wild young wife, Aletta, and of the desolate island inhabited only by the lighthouse keepers and guano workers – two communities confined together, yet rigidly separated in one of the bleakest places on earth. With the arrival of a figure from Aletta’s past, her own secrets erupt into the present, just as the simmering tensions and injustices endured for so long by the guano workers erupt into a single, shocking act of violence.Written in the exquisite, haunting prose for which Marguerite Poland is renowned, The Keeper is the story of two generations of lighthouse keepers – men obsessed by their duty to the light – and the wives who accompany them into a life of frightening isolation.The Keeper is a novel about the power of secrets, the power of love, and the power of stories.

Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist


Stephen Rogers Peck - 1951
    It includes sections on bones, muscles, surface anatomy, proportion, equilibrium, and locomotion. Other unique features are sections on the types of human physique, anatomy from birth toold age, an orientation on racial anatomy, and an analysis of facial expressions. The wealth of information offered by the Atlas ensures its place as a classic for the study of the human form.

Subculture: The Meaning of Style


Dick Hebdige - 1979
    Hebdige [...] is concerned with the UK's postwar, music-centred, white working-class subcultures, from teddy boys to mods and rockers to skinheads and punks.' - Rolling StoneWith enviable precision and wit Hebdige has addressed himself to a complex topic - the meanings behind the fashionable exteriors of working-class youth subcultures - approaching them with a sophisticated theoretical apparatus that combines semiotics, the sociology of devience and Marxism and come up with a very stimulating short book - Time OutThis book is an attempt to subject the various youth-protest movements of Britain in the last 15 years to the sort of Marxist, structuralist, semiotic analytical techniques propagated by, above all, Roland Barthes. The book is recommended whole-heartedly to anyone who would like fresh ideas about some of the most stimulating music of the rock era - The New York Times