This funny, personal journey through the art world answers the basic questions that might occur to us in an art gallery but that we’re too embarrassed to ask. Questions such as: What is “good” or “bad” art—and does it even matter? Is art still capable of shocking us or have we seen it all before? And what happens if you place apiece of art in a rubbish dump?

    Focusing on art before 1520, this edition organizes the material chronologically. It now incorporates considerable new material on the history of music and theatre, and updates scholarship on ancient art.

    Soon, she finds herself sitting before Leonardo da Vinci, who wants to ensure his own place in the ducal palace by painting his most ambitious portrait to date.Munich, World War II: After a modest conservator unwittingly places a priceless Italian Renaissance portrait into the hands of a high-ranking Nazi leader, she risks her life to recover it, working with an American soldier, part of the famed Monuments Men team, to get it back. Two women, separated by 500 years, are swept up in the tide of history as one painting stands at the center of their quests for their own destinies.

    When Ella and her husband move to a small town in France, Ella hopes to brush up on her French, qualify to practice as a midwife, and start a family of her own. Village life turns out to be less idyllic than she expected, however, and a peculiar dream of the color blue propels her on a quest to uncover her family’s French ancestry. As the novel unfolds—alternating between Ella’s story and that of Isabelle du Moulin four hundred years earlier—a common thread emerges that unexpectedly links the two women. Part detective story, part historical fiction, The Virgin Blue is a novel of passion and intrigue that compels readers to the very last page.

    Instead, she embarks on an illicit affair with her art teacher, Keyvan, and they tentatively imagine a future together.But the sudden death of her uncle, an outspoken journalist, raises many unanswered questions and when Layla’s cousin, who is visiting from America, is arrested by the morality police, the komiteh, Layla’s plans for the future begin to unravel. “I was totally captivated by this novel. Layla is torn between her heart and the restrictions of her culture. She obeys her heart though not without a price. This wonderfully poetic story keeps you hooked right to the very end.”  -  Stephanie Hale, author and broadcaster   “a bittersweet tale of betrayed trust and ruptured innocence… the feel for colour and language is vibrant” -  Guardian first novel choice   “Vividly written, fresh and eloquent, a girl’s poignant tale of love and menace in contemporary Iran.” -  Fay Weldon   “I loved this book. It gives you real insight into the world of educated middle-class Iranians in the early 21st century. We are so used to the Iranians we meet in the UK that we do not realise how hard it is to live under their political regime at home. A joy to read.” -  www.openingthebook.com   Louise Soraya Black Born in England in 1977 to an English mother and Iranian father. Her father worked for UNICEF so she spent 17 years living overseas, in countries including Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia. In spite of all this travel, she had strong roots: the family spent their summers in England and winter holidays in Iran.She began an English degree at University College London, but after a year switched to Law. She spent 8 years in corporate law but was unfulfilled so began writing in her spare time. She felt it was important to write about Iran because Iran is portrayed in the media as a bleak and oppressive place.  She wanted to show Iran as a beautiful country, where the food is delicious, and Iranians are warm and hospitable. And while the media tends to paint a portrait of Iranian women as submissive and voiceless, this was not at all her experience so she created resilient and brave female characters in her novel.She had just about given up hope of finding a publisher for this novel, when she found out that Pomegranate Sky had won the Virginia Prize, a new literary prize for unpublished women writers. She was astonished and overjoyed, particularly when the novel received excellent reviews. After the birth of her son, she didn't return to law and instead, decided to focus on her writing. She has just completed her second novel.

    Following their father's sudden death, the van Goethem sisters find their lives upended. Without his wages, and with the small amount their laundress mother earns disappearing into the absinthe bottle, eviction from their lodgings seems imminent. With few options for work, Marie is dispatched to the Paris Opéra, where for a scant seventeen francs a week, she will be trained to enter the famous ballet. Her older sister, Antoinette, finds work as an extra in a stage adaptation of Émile Zola's naturalist masterpiece L'Assommoir. Marie throws herself into dance and is soon modeling in the studio of Edgar Degas, where her image will forever be immortalized as Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. There she meets a wealthy male patron of the ballet, but might the assistance he offers come with strings attached? Meanwhile Antoinette, derailed by her love for the dangerous Émile Abadie, must choose between honest labor and the more profitable avenues open to a young woman of the Parisian demimonde. Set at a moment of profound artistic, cultural, and societal change, The Painted Girls is a tale of two remarkable sisters rendered uniquely vulnerable to the darker impulses of "civilized society." In the end, each will come to realize that her salvation, if not survival, lies with the other.

    In a body of work spanning over a half-century, he was variously a draughtsman, a printmaker, a sculptor and a painter. This short book is both a biography and a guide to his art. It focuses on the extraordinary works that Henri Matisse made during the last period of his life - the large-scale cut-outs on coloured paper, including his famous Blue Nudes, The Snail and Large Composition with Masks.

    She’s Frida Kahlo, Loïs Mailou Jones and Amrita Sher-Gil en route to Mexico City, Paris or Bombay. She’s Suzanne Valadon and Gwen John, craving city lights, the sea and solitude; she’s Artemisia Gentileschi striding through the streets of Naples and Paula Modersohn-Becker in Worpswede. She’s haunting museums in her paint-stained dress, scrutinising how El Greco or Titian or Van Dyck or Cézanne solved the problems that she too is facing. She’s railing against her corsets, her chaperones, her husband and her brothers; she’s hammering on doors, dreaming in her bedroom, working day and night in her studio. Despite the immense hurdles that have been placed in her way, she sits at her easel, picks up a mirror and paints a self-portrait because, as a subject, she is always available.Until the twentieth century, art history was, in the main, written by white men who tended to write about other white men. The idea that women in the West have always made art was rarely cited as a possibility. Yet they have – and, of course, continue to do so – often against tremendous odds, from laws and religion to the pressures of family and public disapproval.In THE MIRROR AND THE PALETTE, Jennifer Higgie introduces us to a cross-section of women artists who embody the fact that there is more than one way to understand our planet, more than one way to live in it and more than one way to make art about it. Spanning 500 years, biography and cultural history intertwine in a narrative packed with tales of rebellion, adventure, revolution, travel and tragedy enacted by women who turned their back on convention and lived lives of great resilience, creativity and bravery. This is a dazzlingly original and ambitious book by one of the most well-respected art critics at work today.

    And the masterpieces of Rembrandt van Rijn are some of the most frequently targeted.In Stealing Rembrandts, art security expert Anthony M. Amore and award-winning investigative reporter Tom Mashberg reveal the actors behind the major Rembrandt heists in the last century. Through thefts around the world - from Stockholm to Boston, Worcester to Ohio - the authors track daring entries and escapes from the world's most renowned museums. There are robbers who coolly walk off with multimillion dollar paintings; self-styled art experts who fall in love with the Dutch master and desire to own his art at all costs; and international criminal masterminds who don't hesitate to resort to violence. They also show how museums are thwarted in their ability to pursue the thieves - even going so far as to conduct investigations on their own, far away from the maddening crowd of police intervention, sparing no expense to save the priceless masterpieces.Stealing Rembrandts is an exhilarating, one-of-a-kind look at the black market of art theft, and how it compromises some of the greatest treasures the world has ever known.

    Pop Art's profound influence on contemporary art and culture remains prominent today. Nowhere else can you find so much Pop Art in such a compact, stylish book!

    When renowned painter Robert Oliver attacks a canvas in the National Gallery of Art and becomes his patient, Marlow finds that order destroyed. Desperate to understand the secret that torments the genius, he embarks on a journey that leads him into the lives of the women closest to Oliver and a tragedy at the heart of French Impressionism. Kostova's masterful new novel travels from American cities to the coast of Normandy, from the late 19th century to the late 20th, from young love to last love. The Swan Thieves is a story of obsession, history's losses, and the power of art to preserve human hope.

    Today, museums are staging exhibitions of encaustic art, workshops in the technique are thriving, and art collectors and dealers are assimilating encaustic art into their collections and galleries. The word encaustic is taken from the Greek and means “to burn in.” In the encaustic process, pigmented wax is applied and then fused to a surface with heat. The result is a broad range of surface effects and a luminous translucency that is unique to the encaustic medium. Encaustic Art is a complete resource for artists who wish to learn to create fine art with wax. It features step-by-step techniques with easy-to-understand instructions and detailed illustrations, stunning examples of encaustic works of art (including sculpture), along with practical advice and thoughtful aesthetic observations from more than 60 professional artists working in the encaustic medium.

    The Art of Forgery: The Minds, Motives and Methods of Master Forgers explores the stories, dramas and human intrigues surrounding the world's most famous forgeries - investigating the motivations of the artists and criminals who have faked great works of art, and in doing so conned the public and the art establishment alike.

    I never dreamt it would be like this.'Frequently affecting...intriguing, almost incantatory' TelegraphTracey Emin's Strangeland is her own space, lying between the Margate of her childhood, the Turkey of her forefathers and her own, private-public life in present-day London. Her writings, a combination of memoirs and confessions, are deeply intimate, yet powerfully engaging. Tracey retains a profoundly romantic world view, paired with an uncompromising honesty. Her capacity both to create controversies and to strike chords is unequalled in British life. A remarkable book - and an original, beautiful mind.'As spare and poignant as one of Emin's line drawings' Marie Claire

    Catering to this modern dilemma, we've concocted the perfect remedy for over-burdened artists. The Daily Book of Art includes a year's worth of brief daily readings and lessons about the visual arts that entertain as they inform. Ten exciting categories of discussion rotate throughout the course of a year, giving readers a well-rounded experience in the art world. From color psychology and aesthetic philosophy to the proverbial argument over whether elephants really can paint, art-starved readers will encounter a broad range of inspiring subjects. The book also features a ribbon bookmark so readers can keep their place throughout the year. The ten categories of discussion include Art 101, Philosophy of Art, Art Through the Ages, Profiles in Art, A Picture’s Worth 200 Words, Art from the Inside Out, Art Around the World, Artistic Oddities, Unexpected Art Forms, and Step-by-Step Exercises.