The global cast includes Marina Abramovic , Matthew Barney, Christian Boltanski, Louise Bourgeois, Maurizio Cattelan, Marlene Dumas, Olafur Eliasson, Andreas Gursky, Cristina Iglesias, On Kawara, Jeff Koons, Ernesto Neto, Gerhard Richter, Pipilotti Rist, Kara Walker, and Ai Weiwei. Many of the pieces reflect the cultural upheavals of recent times, from the collapse of the Berlin Wall to the blossoming of the Arab Spring.A daring yet convincing analysis of which artworks best capture the zeitgeist of our time, Grovier’s list also provides a much-needed map through the landscape of contemporary art. Illustrations of key works are supplemented by comparative images, and short texts offer a biography of each artwork, tracing its inception and impact, and offering a view not only into the imagination of the artist but into the age in which we live.

    David Hockney has worked in almost every medium - painting, drawing, stage design, photography and printmaking. He has undertaken an ambitious experiment with ways of seeing and ways of representing sight - ranging from his paintings, with their challenges to perspective and brilliant colours, to his vivid multi-dimensional photo-collages and his fax art, computer printings and coloured laser prints.

    First published in this English translation in 1913.

    In City of the Soul, William Murray begins to show us why.Growing up in Rome and spending much of his life in the city, William Murray is an expert guide as he takes us on an intimate walking tour of some of Rome’s most glorious achievements, illuminating the history and the mythology that define the city. Murray leads us through the centro, the city’s historic downtown center. He writes about the Villa Borghese, the Piazza di Spagna, and the Trevi Fountain and describes such singular attractions as the Capuchin Church of Santa Maria della Concezione, whose macabre crypt has impressed visitors from Mark Twain to the Marquis de Sade. As he walks, he reveals stories that only a longtime resident would know, capturing the sights, sounds, and flavors that make Rome a combination of the deep past and the ever-sensual present.

    Three years later he was in Naples, where he painted The Seven Acts of Mercy. A year later he died at the age of thirty-eight under mysterious circumstances. Exploring Caravaggio's singular masterwork, in The Guardian of Mercy Terence Ward offers an incredible narrative journey into the heart of his artistry and his metamorphosis from fugitive to visionary.Ward's guide in this journey is a contemporary artist whose own life was transformed by the painting, a simple man named Angelo who shows him where it still hangs in a small church in Naples and whose story helps him see its many layers. As Ward unfolds the structure of the painting, he explains each of the seven mercies and its influence on Caravaggio's troubled existence. Caravaggio encountered the whole range of Naples's vertical social layers, from the lowest ranks of poverty to lofty gilded aristocratic circles, and Ward reveals the old city behind today's metropolis. Fusing elements of history, biography, memoir, travelogue, and journalism, his narrative maps the movement from estrangement to grace, as we witness Caravaggio's bruised life gradually redeemed by art.

    As a writer he has a taste for beauty, a love of language and an enlivening wit.... He contrives, as no English writer has done before, to sustain a continuous interest in that crowded history." —Hugh Trevor-Roper"Will become the standard English work of Venetian history." —C. P. Snow, Financial Times"Lord Norwich has loved and understood Venice as well as any other Englishman has ever done. He has put readers of this generation more in his debt than any other English writer." —Peter Levi, The Sunday Times (London)

    This book explores his work.

    Rejected by his family, hounded by society for his interest in young girls, he expressed through his art a deep and bewildering loneliness and an obsession with sexuality, death and decay. He was only twenty-eight when he died, yet he left behind him a body of work that sustains a huge public reputation--and a myth. This book sets out to examine both. 151 illus., 20 in color.

    LUCIFER HIMSELF IS THE STAR OF THIS BOOK, WHICH CONTAINS IMAGES OF HIM THROUGHOUT THE HISTORY OF ART. ETCHINGS, WOODCUTS, PAINTINGS, ILLUSTRATIONS, DRAWINGS, PHOTOGRAPHS, AND ADVERTISEMENTS FEATURING OF THE DEVIL, BY THE LIKES OF DA VINCI, BOSCH, PIERRE ET GILLES, GIGER, AND MANY MORE, POPULATE THE PAGES OF THIS SUPREMELY "EVIL" BOOK.

    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.

    The experience of maturation was often clumsy and out of step, an evolutionary process that saw the nation's developing at their own pace as they struggled to replace the protection of Rome with their own home-grown strength. What the nations, once they were ready to be described in that manner, did have was the Roman Catholic Church, which defined itself as the spiritual protector of Christian believers. But the dutiful Christians of the Middle Ages who sought orthodoxy and for the most part obeyed the papal rules underwent a change when the Middle Ages ended. The Renaissance, or rebirth, was a period of time when Europeans began to question what they had been told was sacrosanct. Through art, inventions, science, literature, and theology, the separate nations of the European continent sought answers that the Roman Catholic Church was unwilling, or perhaps unable, to offer. Inside you will read about... ✓ The Rebirth of Europe✓ The Italian Renaissance✓ The French Renaissance✓ The Spanish Renaissance✓ The German Renaissance✓ The Low Countries Renaissance✓ The English Renaissance✓ Here Be Dragons: Exploring the UnknownThe Church that had become a powerful political entity was viewed with distrust and skepticism by many Christians; the spread of learning that accompanied the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press meant that bold new ideas were traveling across the boundaries of Europe faster than the Church could silence them. Lascivious, power-brokering popes could not bring a halt to the challenges they encountered when a German priest rebelled against corrupt practices that masqueraded as ecclesiastical authority. As the walls came tumbling down, humanism burst forth, inspiring the art of Michelangelo, the science of Vesalius, the literature of Shakespeare and Cervantes. But with the loss of religious uniformity came terrible conflicts: France suffered the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre; Spain welcomed the Inquisition to purge heresy; the Low Countries were split between Catholic and Protestant. The Renaissance was a triumph of the human spirit and a confirmation of human ability, even as it affirmed the willingness of men and women to die for the right to think freely.

    The text includes a short essay and commentaries on each of the paintings, and incorporates new research on Vermeer's life and extraordinary artistic achievements.

    Among them are his most famous works, Knight, Death and Devil; Melencolia I; and St. Jerome in His Study. Also included are portraits of his contemporaries, including Erasmus of Rotterdam and Frederick the Wise, as well as six engravings formerly attributed to Dürer.

    Unlike The Art Book, it organises the work in chronological order (rather than alphabetical), it covers all cultures (not only western) and, as the title suggests, it covers 30,000 years of art (rather than art since the Renaissance). The book contains over 1000 works of art from all periods and regions in the world and breaks through the usual geographical and cultural boundaries of art history to celebrate the vast range of human artistry across time and space. Each work is accompanied by key caption information (date, title, place of origin, style or culture, medium, dimensions etc.), and a text that provides more information on the work and its art historical context. The book presents art in a way very different from other art history compendia, revealing the huge diversity, or in many cases, similarity, of man's artistic achievements through time and around the globe. Ordered chronologically, the resulting timeline of works will lead to compelling browsing: surprising juxtapositions will offer intellectual pleasure and a sense of wonder and discovery.

    This period of profound evolution in European thought is credited with transforming the West from medieval to modern and producing the most astonishing outpouring of artistic creation the world has ever known. But what was it? In this masterly work, the incomparable Paul Johnson tells us. He explains the economic, technological, and social developments that provide a backdrop to the age’s achievements and focuses closely on the lives and works of its most important figures. A commanding short narrative of this vital period, The Renaissance is also a universally profound meditation on the wellsprings of innovation.