Survey of Historic Costume


Phyllis G. Tortora - 1989
    Each chapter presents social, cross-cultural, environmental, geographic, and artistic influences on clothing. With visuals, illustrated tables, and in-depth discussions, readers come to recognize recurring themes and concepts and understand the role of dress from a diverse, global perspective. This book is perfect for students, instructors, fashion industry professionals, and anyone interested in historic costume, fashion, art, and design.

Leonardo da Vinci: The Complete Paintings and Drawings


Frank Zöllner - 2003
    This XXL-format comprehensive survey is the most complete book ever made on the subject of this Italian painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, scientist and all-around genius. With huge, full-bleed details of Leonardo's masterworks, this highly original publication allows the reader to inspect the subtlest facets of his brushstrokes. * Part I explores Leonardo's life and work in ten chapters. All of his paintings are interpreted in depth, with The Annunciation and The Last Supper featured on large double-spreads. * Part II comprises a catalogue raisonn? of Leonardo's paintings, which covers all of his surviving and lost painted works and includes texts describing their states of preservation. * Part III contains an extensive catalogue of his drawings (numbering in the thousands, they cannot all be reproduced in one book); 663 are presented, arranged by category (architecture, technical, anatomical, figures, proportion, cartography, etc). This sumptuous TASCHEN offering is the most thorough and beautifully produced Leonardo book ever published, and this special edition offers it for a third of the usual price.

The Polaroid Book: Selections from the Polaroid Collections of Photography


Steve Crist - 2005
    This survey features more than 400 works from the Polaroid Collection along with essays by Hitchcock, who illuminates the beginnings and history of the Polaroid Corporation.

Bernini: The Sculptor of the Roman Baroque


Rudolf Wittkower - 1997
    Inventive and skilled, he virtually created the Baroque style. In his religious sculptures he excelled at capturing movement and extreme emotion, uniting figures with their setting to create a single conception of overwhelming intensity that expressed the fervour of Counter-Reformation Rome. Intensity and drama also characterize his portraits and world-famous Roman fountains.

Gig Posters Volume I: Rock Show Art of the 21st Century


Clay Hayes - 2009
    With the rising popularity of MP3 files and streaming digital music--and the near-extinction of traditional album art--concert posters have become the most important visual representation of contemporary music.Gig Posters Volume I celebrates this dynamic medium with contributions from 101 top designers--including Rob Jones of Animal Rummy, Steve Walters, Jay Ryan, Gary Houston, Aesthetic Apparatus, Patent Pending Industries, and many more. Throughout the book, their voices offer fascinating commentary and behind-the-scenes information about the creation of gig posters.Readers will also discover 101 perforated and ready-to-frame posters promoting today's most innovative and original bands--including Radiohead, the White Stripes, Modest Mouse, Girl Talk, Queens of the Stone Age, Wilco, and many, many more.Complete with an introduction by founder and curator Clay Hayes, Gig Posters Volume I celebrates the most talented designers, artists, bands, and performers of the twenty-first century.

Why Is That Art?: Aesthetics and Criticism of Contemporary Art


Terry Barrett - 2007
    Introducing students to a variety of established theories of art, he presents the traditional sets of criteria of Realism, Expressionism, and Formalism, which are in turn updated by recent sources of Poststructuralism. Barrett applies each of these theories to challenging works of contemporary art, pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of each mode of interpretation. He encourages students to consider many criteria when evaluating an artwork, to critically examine judgments made by others, and to make informed judgments of their own. Ideal for courses in aesthetics, art theory, art criticism, and the philosophy of art, Why Is That Art? is organized chronologically according to the history of aesthetics. It features sixty-seven illustrations (twenty-six in a full-color insert), discusses a wide range of American and European artists, and includes an exceptional overview of postmodern pluralism. This unique book will provide students with a newfound appreciation for contemporary art, scholarship, and reasoned argumentation, giving them the confidence to join the fascinating discourse on contemporary art.

The Steampunk Bible


Jeff VanderMeerJake von Slatt - 2011
    The Steampunk Bible is the first compendium about the movement, tracing its roots in the works of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells through its most recent expression in movies such as Sherlock Holmes. Its adherents celebrate the inventor as an artist and hero, re-envisioning and crafting retro technologies including antiquated airships and robots. A burgeoning DIY community has brought a distinctive Victorian-fantasy style to their crafts and art. Steampunk evokes a sense of adventure and discovery, and embraces extinct technologies as a way of talking about the future. This ultimate manual will appeal to aficionados and novices alike as author Jeff VanderMeer takes the reader on a wild ride through the clockwork corridors of Steampunk history.Praise for The Steampunk Bible:"The Steampunk Bible is an informed, informative and beautifully illustrated survey of the subject." -The Financial Times"The Steampunk Bible is far and away the most intriguing catalog of all things steam yet written." -The Austin Chronicle “It’s hard to imagine how VanderMeer and Chambers could have put together a stronger collection. Its publication marks a significant, self-conscious moment in the history of the movement.”—PopMatters.com

The Art Nouveau Style Book of Alphonse Mucha


Alphonse Mucha - 1980
    Among graphic artists and commercial designers, Mucha is praised for the innovative style books that pioneered the use of Art Nouveau in commercial packaging, design, and ornament.The most important of these style books was Documents Décoratifs, published in 1901 at the height of Mucha's fame as the high priest of the Art Nouveau movement. While the artist's fame rests largely on his posters, it is in the smaller works of the style books, or design portfolios, that the refinement of his technique can best be appreciated. The present volume, carefully reproduced from an extremely rare and valuable set of originals, contains all 72 plates of the Documents Décoratifs portfolio. Included are designs for jewelry, wallpaper, stained glass, furniture, and tableware; figure and botanical studies; and a selection of Mucha's famous panneaux décoratifs. Eighteen of the plates are in full color, while the remaining 54 are reproduced in two or more color tones.In addition to numerous innovative designs for practical and decorative objects, the elegant draftsmanship and meticulous execution that characterized all of Mucha's work is evident in studies of langorous nudes, portrait sketches, delicately rendered plant and animal motifs, exquisite modeling of drapery and cloth, and the flowing, fantastic forms created as experiments in pure design. In the Foreword by Gabriel Mourey, specially translated for this edition, Mucha's own philosophy of art, and the relation of the Documents to the rest of his work, receive an appreciative and informative discussion.Hitherto available only in scattered sources, or in the libraries of wealthy collectors, the complete Documents Décoratifs is now available in this inexpensive one-volume edition. Lovers of Mucha's work, admirers of Art Nouveau, and the application of that style to the decorative arts, will want to own this fine royalty-free collection by one of the greatest masters of the technique."[Documents Décoratifs is] . . . an encyclopedic source for Mucha's style in every branch of decorative and applied art and one of the few books on design where even individual plates are sought after by collectors." — Marina Henderson, The Graphic Style of Alphonse Mucha

How Do We Look: The Body, the Divine, and the Question of Civilization


Mary Beard - 2018
    Focusing in Part I on the Olmec heads of early Mesoamerica, the colossal statues of the pharaoh Amenhotep III, and the nudes of classical Greece, Beard explores the power, hierarchy, and gender politics of the art of the ancient world, and explains how it came to define the so-called civilized world. In Part II, Beard chronicles some of the most breathtaking religious imagery ever made—whether at Angkor Wat, Ravenna, Venice, or in the art of Jewish and Islamic calligraphers— to show how all religions, ancient and modern, have faced irreconcilable problems in trying to picture the divine. With this classic volume, Beard redefines the Western-and male-centric legacies of Ernst Gombrich and Kenneth Clark.

The Art of Loish: A Look Behind the Scenes


Lois van Baarle - 2016
    Since then, her work has become very popular across the internet, with her Facebook followers closing in on one million and her Twitter account watched by over nineteen thousand eager eyes. The Art of Loish is her first "art of" book, and will examine her inspirations while showcasing some of her early work. Following this, the reader will learn how she developed her very distinctive style and discover advice as she discusses her working methods, offering tips on a variety of techniques that she utilizes in her art every day! The additional exclusive content of this book makes it a must-have for any lover of Loish's work!

The Book of Symbols: Reflections on Archetypal Images


Ami Ronnberg - 2010
    The highly readable texts and over 800 beautiful full-color images come together in a unique way to convey hidden dimensions of meaning. Each of the ca. 350 essays examines a given symbol’s psychic background, and how it evokes psychic processes and dynamics. Etymological roots, the play of opposites, paradox and shadow, the ways in which diverse cultures have engaged a symbolic image—all these factors are taken into consideration.Authored by writers from the fields of psychology, religion, art, literature, and comparative myth, the essays flow into each other in ways that mirror the psyche’s unexpected convergences. There are no pat definitions of the kind that tend to collapse a symbol; a still vital symbol remains partially unknown, compels our attention and unfolds in new meanings and manifestations over time. Rather than merely categorize, The Book of Symbols illuminates how to move from the visual experience of a symbolic image in art, religion, life, or dreams to directly experiencing its personal and psychological resonance.The Book of Symbols sets new standards for thoughtful exploration of symbols and their meanings, and will appeal to a wide range of readers: artists, designers, dreamers and dream interpreters, psychotherapists, self-helpers, gamers, comic book readers, religious and spiritual searchers, writers, students, and anyone curious about the power of archetypal images.

Classic Penguin: Cover to Cover


Paul Buckley - 2016
    This curated tour begins with the now-iconic redesign of the signature Penguin Classics black-spine series in 2003 and moves through award-winning series like the Penguin Classics Graphic Deluxe Editions, Penguin Drop Caps, and Penguin Horror. Exhibiting a mesmerizing array of front covers and full cover layouts, Paul Buckley illuminates the unique and inventive approaches to typography, image, and design that grace Penguin’s covers of the best works in literature. Throughout the book, the artists and designers including Chris Ware, Ivan Brunetti, Jillian Tamaki, Jessica Hische, and Ruben Toledo who have collaborated with Penguin Classics offer commentary on the design process. For lovers of classic literature, book design, and all things Penguin, Classic Penguin has you covered.

Vincent Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings


Rainer Metzger - 1988
    This richly illustrated and expert study follows the artist from the early gloom-laden paintings in which he captured the misery of peasants and workers in his homeland, through his bright and colorful Parisian period, to the work of his final years, spent under a southern sun in Arles.

The Americans


Robert Frank - 1958
    There is no question that Robert Frank's The Americans is the most famous and influential photography book ever published. It was 1959 when the book first came out: a series of deceptively simple photographs that Frank took on a trip through America in '55 and '56, pictures of normal people, everyday scenes: lunch counters, bus depots, cars, and the stangely familiar faces of people we don't quite know but have seen somewhere. They are pictures that saw the "American way of life" as we hadn't yet quite been able to see it ourselves, photographs that condensed the entire life of a nation in classic images that still speak to us today, forty years and several generations later.

The Art of Dishonored 2


Ian Tucker - 2016
    Now, walk in the same steps as heroes Corvo Attano and Emily Kaldwin as you examine the complexly beautiful concept and design of Dishonored 2! ArKane Studios and Dark Horse books are proud to present this gorgeous collection, featuring hundreds of pieces of art chronicling the development of the blockbuster stealth-action title. The Art of Dishonored 2 is a must-have item for art fans and gamers alike! Exclusive never before seen concept art from the making of Dishonored 2! The comprehensive companion to the wildly anticipated Dishonored 2! The art book that Dishonored fans have been waiting for! Dishonored won the 2013 BAFTA for Best Game! This is the Official Art Book for Dishonored 2. Dark Horse was also responsible for the official Art Book for Dishonored, titled Dishonored: The Dunwall Archives (978-1616555627)"