Book picks similar to
Vermeer and the Delft School by Walter A. Liedtke
art
history
reference
non-fiction
Alias Olympia
Eunice Lipton - 1992
But had this bold and spirited beauty really descended into prostitution, drunkenness, and early death--or did her life, hidden from history, take a different course altogether? Eunice Lipton's search for the answer combines the suspense of a detective story with the revelatory power of art, peeling off layers of lies to reveal startling truths about Victorine Meurent--and about Lipton herself.
Art Nouveau
Klaus-Jürgen Sembach - 1994
Here the reform movement of the turn of the century is not only dealt with as an artistic event, but those economic and political interests which inspired, supported, and handicapped it are also taken into account. In the chapters "Movement," "Unrest", and "Equilibrium," the historical phenomenon as a whole is characterised and is also presented with its own distinct local features. The centres of Brussels, Nancy, Barcelona, Glasgow, Helsinki and Chicago are dealt with in subchapters as are Munich, Darmstadt and Weimar. Finally, Vienna, that city in which the synthesis achieved its culmination, is described separately. The outstanding artists are examined in detail in connection with the respective cities of their greatest activity. The result is a complex picture of the symbiosis of architecture, furniture design, and craftsmanship with their corresponding approaches to artistic revitalization.
The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern
Carol Strickland - 1992
A layman's guide to art history provides the reader with a basic working knowledge of art and its influence on society.
Modernism: The Lure of Heresy from Baudelaire to Beckett and Beyond
Peter Gay - 2007
Beginning his epic study with Baudelaire, whose lurid poetry scandalized French stalwarts, Gay traces the revolutionary path of modernism from its Parisian origins to its emergence as the dominant cultural movement in world capitals such as Berlin and New York. A work unique in its breadth and brilliance, Modernism presents a thrilling pageant of heretics that includes (among others) Oscar Wilde, Pablo Picasso, and D. W. Griffiths; James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and T. S. Eliot; Walter Gropius, Arnold Schoenberg, and (of course!) Andy Warhol. Finally, Gay examines the hostility of totalitarian regimes to modernist freedom and the role of Pop Art in sounding the death knell of a movement that dominated Western culture for 120 years. Lavishly illustrated, Modernism is a superlative achievement by one of our greatest historians.
Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo
Hayden Herrera - 1983
Hailed by readers and critics across the country, this engrossing biography of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo reveals a woman of extreme magnetism and originality, an artist whose sensual vibrancy came straight from her own experiences: her childhood near Mexico City during the Mexican Revolution; a devastating accident at age eighteen that left her crippled and unable to bear children; her tempestuous marriage to muralist Diego Rivera and intermittent love affairs with men as diverse as Isamu Noguchi and Leon Trotsky; her association with the Communist Party; her absorption in Mexican folklore and culture; and her dramatic love of spectacle.Here is the tumultuous life of an extraordinary twentieth-century woman -- with illustrations as rich and haunting as her legend.
Photographing Shadow and Light: Inside the Dramatic Lighting Techniques and Creative Vision of Portrait Photographer Joey L.
Joey L. - 2012
Photographer Joey L. found his vision early, drawing critical acclaim as a brilliant commercial photographer with a distinctive technical expertise for lighting. In Photographing Shadow and Light, Joey lifts the curtain on his dramatic, creatively fearless approach to portraiture, sharing his personal philosophy and a behind-the-scenes look at 15 striking photo sessions—from personal projects shot in Africa, India, and Brooklyn to commercial shoots for 50 Cent, the Jonas Brothers, and Project Runway All Stars. Joey provides readers with a step-by-step description of how he visualized each shoot, formed meaningful connections with his subjects, and “built” his signature dramatic lighting effects—one light at a time. Featuring more than 85 stunning portraits, detailed lighting diagrams, and a foreword from industry icon David Hobby (aka Strobist), Photographing Shadow and Light shares the creative process behind one of today’s most exciting photography talents, providing serious amateurs and professionals a fresh perspective on creating compelling, professional quality portraits. “Joey Lawrence is . . . the future of photography. Get used to it.” —David Hobby (Strobist) Get inside the images of commercial and fine art portrait photographer Joey L. with this behind-the-lens guide to his fearless approach, creative vision, and signature lighting techniques.Also available as an ebook
A Face to the World: On Self Portraits
Laura Cumming - 2009
Self-portraits catch your eye. They seem to do it deliberately. Walk into any art gallery and they draw attention to themselves. Come across them in the world's museums and you get a strange shock of recognition, rather like glimpsing your own reflection. For in picturing themselves artists reveal something far deeper than their own physical looks: the truth about how they hope to be viewed by the world, and how they wish to see themselves. In this beautifully written and lavishly illustrated book, Laura Cumming, art critic of the Observer, investigates the drama of the self-portrait, from Durer, Rembrandt and Velazquez to Munch, Picasso, Warhol and the present day. She considers how and why self-portraits look as they do and what they reveal about the artist's innermost sense of self -- as well as the curious ways in which they may imitate our behaviour in real life. Drawing on art, literature, history, philosophy and biography to examine the creative process in an entirely fresh way, Cumming offers a riveting insight into the intimate truths and elaborate fictions of self-portraiture and the lives of those who practise it. A work of remarkable depth, scope and power, this is a book for anyone who has ever wondered about the strange dichotomy between the innermost self and the self we choose to present for posterity -- our face to the world.
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.
Frida Kahlo: 1907-1954 Pain and Passion
Andrea Kettenmann - 1993
Un retrato de una artista, sobre todo una artista.(Portrait of an artist, always an artist, above all an artist.)
Warhol
Blake Gopnik - 2020
Blake Gopnik's definitive biography digs deep into the contradictions and radical genius that led Andy Warhol to revolutionise our cultural world.Based on years of archival research and on interviews with hundreds of Warhol's surviving friends, lovers and enemies, Warhol traces the artist's path from his origins as the impoverished son of Eastern European immigrants in 1930s Pittsburgh, through his early success as a commercial illustrator and his groundbreaking pivot into fine art, to the society portraiture and popular celebrity of the '70s and '80s, as he reflected and responded to the changing dynamics of commerce and culture.Warhol sought out all the most glamorous figures of his times - Susan Sontag, Mick Jagger, the Barons de Rothschild - despite being burdened with an almost crippling shyness. Behind the public glitter of the artist's Factory, with its superstars, drag queens and socialites, there was a man who lived with his mother for much of his life and guarded the privacy of his home. He overcame the vicious homophobia of his youth to become a symbol of gay achievement, while always seeking the pleasures of traditional romance and coupledom. (Warhol explodes the myth of his asexuality.)Filled with new insights into the artist's work and personality, Warhol asks: Was he a joke or a genius, a radical or a social climber? As Warhol himself would have answered: Yes.
Cartoon Animation
Preston Blair - 1980
By following his lessons, you can make any character—person, animal, or object—come to life through animated movement!Animation is the process of drawing and photographing a character in successive positions to create lifelike movement. Animators bring life to their drawings, making the viewer believe that the drawings actually think and have feelings. Cartoon Animation was written by an animator to help you learn how to animate. The pioneers of the art of animation learned many lessons, most through trial and error, and it is this body of knowledge that has established the fundamentals of animation. This book will teach you these fundamentals. Animators must first know how to draw; good drawing is the cornerstone of their success. The animation process, however, involves much more than just good drawing. This book teaches all the other knowledge and skills animators must have. In chapter one, Preston Blair shows how to construct original cartoon characters, developing a character’s shape, personality, features, and mannerisms. The second chapter explains how to create movements such as running, walking, dancing, posing, skipping, strutting, and more. Chapter three discusses the finer points of animating a character, including creating key character poses and in-betweens. Chapter four is all about dialogue, how to create realistic mouth and body movements, and facial expressions while the character is speaking. There are helpful diagrams in this chapter that show mouth positions, along with a thorough explanation of how sounds are made using the throat, tongue, teeth, and lips. Finally, the fifth chapter has clear explanations of a variety of technical topics, including tinting and spacing patterns, background layout drawings, the cartoon storyboard, and the synchronization of camera, background, characters, sound, and music. Full of expert advice from Preston Blair, as well as helpful drawings and diagrams, Cartoon Animation is a book no animation enthusiast should be without.
The Collector of Lives: Giorgio Vasari and the Invention of Art
Ingrid D. Rowland - 2017
Before Vasari’s extraordinary book, art was considered a technical skill rather than an intellectual pursuit, and artists were mere decorators and craftsmen. It was through Vasari’s visionary writings that artists like Raphael, Leonardo, and Michelangelo came to be regarded as great masters of life as well as art, their creative genius celebrated as a divine gift. Their enduring reputations testify to Vasari’s profound yet unspoken influence on western culture.An advisor to kings and pontiffs—and a confidant to Titian, Donatello, and more—Vasari enjoyed an exhilarating career amid the thrilling culture of Renaissance Italy. In The Collector of Lives, Ingrid Rowland and Noah Charney offer a lively and inviting introduction to this pivotal figure in art history, and immerse readers in the world of the Medici of Florence and the popes of Rome. A narrative of intrigue, scandal, and colorful artistic rivalry, this vivid biography shows the great works of western art taking shape under Vasari’s keen eye—and reveals how one Renaissance scholar completely redefined how we look at art.
Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style
Michael Baxandall - 1972
Serving as both an introduction to fifteenth-century Italian painting and as a text on how to interpret social history from the style of pictures in a given historical period, this new edition to Baxandall's pre-eminent scholarly volume examines early Renaissance painting, and explains how the style of painting in any society reflects the visual skills and habits that evolve out of daily life. Renaissance painting, for example, mirrors the experience of such activities as preaching, dancing, and gauging barrels. The volume includes discussions of a wide variety of painters, including Filippo Lippi, Fra Angelico, Stefano di Giovanni, Sandro Botticelli, Masaccio, Luca Signorelli, Boccaccio, and countless others. Baxandall also defines and illustrates sixteen concepts used by a contemporary critic of painting, thereby assembling the basic equipment needed to explore fifteenth-century art.
Women, Art, and Society
Whitney Chadwick - 1990
While acknowledging the many women whose contributions to visual culture since the Middle Ages have often been neglected, Whitney Chadwick's survey reexamines the works themselves and the ways in which they have been perceived as marginal, often in direct reference to gender. In her discussion of feminism and its influence on such a reappraisal, the author also addresses the closely related issues of ethnicity, class, and sexuality.This expanded edition incorporates recent developments in contemporary art. Chadwick addresses the turn toward autobiography in much recent women's art. She considers issues such as the personal versus the political and the private versus the public, and analyzes the differences between women's art today and the seminal feminist work of the 1970s and 1980s.
Fodor's Caribbean Cruise Ports of Call (Full-color Travel Guide)
Fodor's Travel Publications Inc. - 1995
John's, Antigua; Oranjestad, Aruba; Bridgetown, Barbados; Belize City, Belize; Bermuda; Kralendijk, Bonaire; Calica (Playa del Carmen), Mexico; Cartagena, Colombia; Colon, Panama; Costa Maya, Mexico; Willemstad, Curacao; Roseau, Dominica; Falmouth, Jamaica; Freeport-Lucaya, Bahamas; Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands; Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos Islands; St. George's, Grenada; Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe; Key West, Florida; La Romana, Dominican Republic; Fort-de-France, Martinique; Montego Bay, Jamaica; Nassau, Bahamas; Charlestown, Nevis; Ocho Rios, Jamaica; Progreso, Mexico; Puerto Limon, Costa Rica; Roatan, Honduras; Samana (Cayo Levantado), Dominican Republic; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Santo Domingo, Domican Republic; Santo Tomas de Castilla, Guatemala; Gustavia, St. Barthelemy; Fredericksted, St. Croix; Cruz Bay, St. John; Basseterre, St. Kitts; Castries, St. Lucia; Philipsburg, St. Maarten; Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas; Kingstown, St. Vincent; Road Town, Tortola; and The Valley, Virgin Gorda· Covered ports of embarkation: Baltimore, Maryland; Charleston, South Carolina; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Galveston, Texas; Houston, Texas; Jacksonville, Florida; Miami, Florida; New Orleans, Louisiana; New York, New York; Port Canaveral, Florida; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Tampa, Florida