Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) is not only one of the giants of Japanese art and a legend of the Edo period, but also a founding father of Western modernism, whose prolific gamut of prints, illustrations, paintings, and beyond forms one of the most comprehensive oeuvres of ukiyo-e art and a benchmark of japonisme. His influence spread through Impressionism, Art Nouveau, Jugendstil, and beyond, enrapturing the likes of Claude Monet (who bought 23 of his prints), Berthe Morisot, Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt, and Vincent van Gogh. Hokusai was always a man on the move. He changed domicile more than 90 times during his lifetime and changed his own name through at least seven professional pseudonyms. In his art, he adopted the same restlessness, covering the complete spectrum of Japanese ukiyo-e ("pictures of the floating world") practice in painting and woodblock, from single-sheet prints of landscapes and actors to erotic books, album prints, illustrations for verse anthologies and historical novels, and surimono, which were privately issued prints for special occasions. Hokusai's print series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, published between 1826 and 1833 is the artist's most renowned work and, with its soaring peak through different seasons and from different vantage points, marked the towering summit of the Japanese landscape print. The series' The Great Wave off Kanagawa, also known simply as The Great Wave , is one of the most recognized images of Japanese art in the world. This TASCHEN introduction spans the length and breadth of Hokusai's career with key pieces from his far-reaching portfolio. Through these meticulous, majestic works and series, we trace the variety of Hokusai's subjects, from erotic books to historical novels, and the evolution of his vivid formalism and decisive delineation of space through color and line that would go on to liberate Western art from the constraints of its one-point perspective and unleash the modernist momentum.

     M.K. Hume tells the story of Myrddion Merlinus from birth to boyhood, as he attempts to surpass evil and corruption to fulfil his destiny. The Prophecy Trilogy is the perfect read for fans of Justin Hill and Anthony Riches. 'Hume deftly navigates the Arthurian legends, populating them with likable and despicable characters, and casting them in a fully realized historical setting' - Publishers WeeklyIn the kingdom of Dyfed, Vortigern, Celtic High King of Cymru and the North, rules in relative peace. Yet his choice of wife - a Saxon queen - fuels tension between the Saxon and Celtic tribes. In the town of Segontium, a young boy is raised by his grandmother. The product of a brutal rape, he is spurned by his mother as a demon child. The boy is Myrddion - prince of the Deceangli and apprentice to a skilled healer. Far away, Vortigern oversees the resurrection of ancient Dinas Emrys. According to prophecy, the king will perish if the fort does not rise again. But the foundations refuse to hold and Vortigern needs the blood of a demon seed - a human sacrifice - to make the towers stand firm. Myrddion's life is in danger. Yet the child has a prophecy of his own and a greater destiny to fulfil... What readers are saying about Prophecy: Clash of Kings: 'An exciting and thrilling story about Celtic life, of evil and power, and tribal wars that rule this Kingdom of the Celts. A very engrossing and entertaining tale from an author worthy following' 'A captivating start to the Merlin Legend''Excellent and well worth reading. The narrative carries you along at pace and the plot is action-packed, never giving you a moments pause from either action of emotional content'

    Gothic monuments bear witness to a dynamic age, when old values were being redefined, often with great drama and debate. Here is a richly-illustrated overview of the period's architecture, sculpture, painting, stained glass, and jewelry, from its 12th-century French origins to its early 16th-century conclusion.

    He examines its relation to religion, science, philosophy, art, literature and politics before introducing us to the different types of magic, the kinds of people who practiced magic, and the reasoning behind their beliefs. This book places magic at the crossroads of medieval culture, shedding light on many other aspects of life in the Middle Ages.

    It tells of the exploits of King Hrolf and of his famous champions, including Bodvar Bjarki, the 'bear-warrior': a powerful figure whose might and bear-like nature are inspired by the same legendary heritage as Beowulf. Depicting a world of wizards, sorceresses and 'berserker' fighters - originally members of a cult of Odin - this is a compelling tale of ancient magic. A work of timeless power and beauty, it offers both a treasury of Icelandic prose and a masterful gathering of epic, cultic memory, traditional folk tale and myths from the Viking age and far earlier.

    Author Lucia Impelluso has drawn from a variety of sources, including the plays of Euripides and Aeschylus, the epics of Homer and Virgil, Aesop’s fables, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Petrarch’s sonnets, and the works of Pindar, Sophocles, Plutarch, Pliny the Elder, and Bocaccio.  Beginning with the stories of Earth’s creation and its early rulers, the Titans, Impelluso recounts the major episodes and figures of Greek and Roman mythology, with sections on the gods of the sky, the sea, the earth, and the underworld; the Fates and the Muses; monsters; human heroes; and the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid. Here are beloved stories, retold and illustrated in a wonderful, giftable format.

    Governments have sought to control, censor, or bend art to their own purposes; artists have resisted and subverted such efforts. But what happens when artists work on behalf of a political program? When does art become propaganda? Is art tainted, diminished, or elevated by its political content?Toby Clark argues that propaganda art appears in many guises, and that the desire to persuade is not always at odds with aesthetic aims. He examines these many forms: the state propaganda of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Stalin's Soviet Union; democratic governments' representation of enemies in wartime; and anti-government protest art around the world, uncovering the complex rhetoric, high beauty, and ambiguous role of art that dwells in the political realm.

    It takes into account new finds as well as new ideas and attitudes to the subject, and emphasizes that Greek art should be seen in its proper context, not that of galleries and museums. 302 illustrations, 73 in color

    Painter, sculptor, writer, and filmmaker, Salvador Dali (1904-1989) was one of the century's greatest exhibitionists and eccentrics - and was rewarded with fierce controversy wherever he went. He was one of the first to apply the insights of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis to the art of painting, approaching the subconscious with extraordinary sensitivity and imagination. This lively monograph presents the infamous Surrealist in full color and in his own words. His provocative imagery is all here, from the soft watches to the notorious burning giraffe. A friend of the artist for over thirty years, privy to the reality behind Dali's public image, author Robert Descharnes is uniquely qualified to analyze Dali - both the man and the myth.

    Did they bring their treasure to North America, as some legends say? This definitive work about the Templars and their presumed hidden knowledge addresses many such fascinating questions, with rare photos from the Rosslyn Chapel Museum (Scotland) included.

    Designed to provide insight and an overview about each text for students and teachers, these guides endeavor to develop knowledge and understanding rather than just provide answers and summaries.

    They give a crucial new impetus to the story of the Grail by establishing a provenance for the sacred vessel - and for the Round Table itself - in the Biblical past; and through the controlling figure of Merlin they link the story of Joseph of Arimathea with the mythical British history of Vortigern and Utherpendragon, the birth of Arthur, and the sword in the stone, and then with the knightly adventures of Perceval's Grail quest and the betrayal and death of Arthur, creating the very first Arthurian cycle. Ambitious, original and complete in its conception, this trilogy - translated here for the first time - is a finely paced, vigorous piece of storytelling that provides an outstanding example of the essentially oral nature of early prose. NIGEL BRYANT is head of drama at Marlborough College. He has also provided editions in English of the anonymous thirteenth-century romance Perlesvaus, published as The High Book of the Grail, and Chretien's Perceval: The Story of the Grail.

    Cream, published by Phaidon in 1998, was a sensational cultural event. Fresh Cream consolidates the biennial status of Cream as a frame of reference and an essential source of new art for art professionals and newcomers alike. Pursuing the theme of its predecessor, with 10 new world-class contemporary curators each choosing ten emerging artists, the book presents in its entirety the works of 100 artists and an up-to-the-minute global overview of the contemporary art world, not only for now but also for the future. These artists have risen to intense international acclaim since the 1990s or, in the opinion of the curators who have selected them, are about to emerge internationally in the near future. Fresh Cream contains the enormous breadth of ideas and forms that exist in contemporary art. The artists' spreads are arranged in an A-Z order, featuring numerous examples of each artist's work alongside a concise text from the selecting curator and vital biographical information about the artist. A conversation between the 10 curators and the commissioning editor gives a penetrative insight into their selections and of the key issues in contemporary art. The cultural context in which the artists work - from philosophy to fiction - is presented through recent texts from 10 contemporary writers, one selected by each curator. Itself embodying the creative originality and innovation of its content, Fresh Cream is packaged in an incredible, inflated, clear plastic pillow.

    His wide cultural tastes, his apparent tolerance of Jews and Muslims, his defiance of the papacy, and his supposed aim of creating a new, secular world order make him a figure especially attractive to contemporary historians. But as David Abulafia shows in this powerfully written biography, Frederick was much less tolerant and far-sighted in his cultural, religious, and political ambitions than is generally thought. Here, Frederick is revealed as the thorough traditionalist he really was: a man who espoused the same principles of government as his twelfth-century predecessors, an ardent leader of the Crusades, and a king as willing to make a deal with Rome as any other ruler in medieval Europe. Frederick's realm was vast. Besides ruling the region of Europe that encompasses modern Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, eastern France, and northern Italy, he also inherited the Kingdom of Sicily and parts of the Mediterranean that include what are now Israel, Lebanon, Malta, and Cyprus. In addition, his Teutonic knights conquered the present-day Baltic States, and he even won influence along the coasts of Tunisia. Abulafia is the first to place Frederick in the wider historical context his enormous empire demands. Frederick's reign, Abulafia clearly shows, marked the climax of the power struggle between the medieval popes and the Holy Roman Emperors, and the book stresses Frederick's steadfast dedication to the task of preserving both dynasty and empire. Through the course of this rich, groundbreaking narrative, Frederick emerges as less of the innovator than he is usually portrayed. Rather than instituting a centralized autocracy, he was content to guarantee the continued existence of the customary style of government in each area he ruled: in Sicily he appeared a mighty despot, but in Germany he placed his trust in regional princes, and never dreamed of usurping their power. Abulafia shows that this pragmatism helped bring about the eventual transformation of medieval Europe into modern nation-states. The book also sheds new light on the aims of Frederick in Italy and the Near East, and concentrates as well on the last fifteen years of the Emperor's life, a period until now little understood. In addition, Abulfia has mined the papal registers in the Secret Archive of the Vatican to provide a new interpretation of Frederick's relations with the papacy. And his attention to Frederick's register of documents from 1239-40--a collection hitherto neglected--has yielded new insights into the cultural life of the German court. In the end, a fresh and fascinating picture develops of the most enigmatic of German rulers, a man whose accomplishments have been grossly distorted over the centuries.

    Throughout Europe and America, artists and intellectuals banded together to portray women as static and unindividuated beings who functioned solely in a sexual and reproductive capacity, thus formulating many of the anti-feminine platitudes that today still constrain women's potential. Bram Dijkstra's Idols of Perversity explores the nature and development of turn-of-the-century misogyny in the works of hundreds of writers, artists, and scientists, including Zola, Strindberg, Wedekind, Henry James, Rossetti, Renoir, Moreau, Klimt, Darwin, and Spencer. Dijkstra demonstrates that the most prejudicial aspects of Evolutionary Theory helped to justify this wave of anti-feminine sentiment. The theory claimed that the female of the species could not participate in the great evolutionary process that would guide the intellectual male to his ultimate, predestined role as a disembodied spiritual essence. Darwinists argued that women hindered this process by their willingness to lure men back to a sham paradise of erotic materialism. To protect the male's continued evolution, artists and intellectuals produced a flood of pseudo-scientific tracts, novels, and paintings which warned the world's males of the evils lying beneath the surface elegance of woman's tempting skin. Reproducing hundreds of pictures from the period and including in-depth discussions of such key works as Dracula and Venus in Furs, this fascinating book not only exposes the crucial links between misogyny then and now, but also connects it to the racism and anti-semitism that led to catastrophic genocidal delusions in the first half of the twentieth century. Crossing the conventional boundaries of art history, sociology, the history of scientific theory, and literary analysis, Dijkstra unveils a startling view of a grim and largely one-sided war on women still being fought today.