From the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth, over 250 institutions for the insane were built throughout the United States; by 1948, they housed more than a half million patients. The blueprint for these hospitals was set by Pennsylvania hospital superintendent Thomas Story Kirkbride: a central administration building flanked symmetrically by pavilions and surrounded by lavish grounds with pastoral vistas. Kirkbride and others believed that well-designed buildings and grounds, a peaceful environment, a regimen of fresh air, and places for work, exercise, and cultural activities would heal mental illness. But in the second half of the twentieth century, after the introduction of psychotropic drugs and policy shifts toward community-based care, patient populations declined dramatically, leaving many of these beautiful, massive buildings--and the patients who lived in them--neglected and abandoned. Architect and photographer Christopher Payne spent six years documenting the decay of state mental hospitals like these, visiting seventy institutions in thirty states. Through his lens we see splendid, palatial exteriors (some designed by such prominent architects as H. H. Richardson and Samuel Sloan) and crumbling interiors--chairs stacked against walls with peeling paint in a grand hallway; brightly colored toothbrushes still hanging on a rack; stacks of suitcases, never packed for the trip home. Accompanying Payne's striking and powerful photographs is an essay by Oliver Sacks (who described his own experience working at a state mental hospital in his book Awakenings). Sacks pays tribute to Payne's photographs and to the lives once lived in these places, "where one could be both mad and safe."

    Using detailed annotation of 45 works from the world's greatest artists, Art provides a deeper understanding and richer enjoyment of the masterpieces of painting.Great Art Made Accessible. This fascinating book takes an original approach to interpreting the lost language of art, using annotation to highlight everything you need to know to appreciate the world's favorite paintings, from Botticelli's The Birth of Venus to Picasso's Guernica. Art explains the artist's techniques and intentions and clarifies the meaning of obscure subjects, decoding the mysterious symbolism that can make even the most familiar painting elusive.Art is like a gallery full of the world's most spectacular paintings, including the devotional icons of the Gothic period and early Renaissance and the awe-inspiring achievements of the High Renaissance. It shows the splendor of the Baroque and Rococo, and scrutinizes the drama of the Neoclassicists and the Romantics. The enchantment of the Impressionist school and the complexities of the Cubist movement are also revealed in glowing color. Biographical notes on the artist place each work in its true personal and historical context.The book's generous size and faithful color reproduction allow every painting to be displayed accurately and in detail. At last, art lovers can truly enter the world of their favorite paintings.

    With her trademark candor, she explains that you can communicate with your angels and guides, and that they’re here to help you along your journey. In addition, she covers topics from forgiveness to reincarnation, shares some of her personal experiences with these celestial beings, and provides helpful tips on effective prayer. Sylvia also imparts methods to protect yourself from a psychic attack and determine whether your loved ones are sending you messages from the Other Side. Then, using a healing meditation, she shows you how you can unite with your angels and spirit guides whenever you choose to do so. In closing, Sylvia uses her abilities to answer audience questions and shed light on what really happens when we leave this plane of existence

    A new generation of artists--as well as some who never abandoned figurative painting in the first place--is relishing the solitary, slow, subtle set of processes involved in not just painting, but painting people. They are choosing paint's unique ability to distill a lifetime of events rather than photography's glimpse of a frozen moment. Painting People, edited by the prominent London art historian and critic Charlotte Mullins, unites and contrasts the work of a key group of artists from around the world, and investigates their richly varied accomplishments in lucid text with detailed commentaries, accompanied by more than 150 reproductions. The list of contributing artists is stellar, ranging from photo-based painters like Luc Tuymans, Peter Doig and Marlene Dumas to Pop artists like Sigmar Polke and Alex Katz, photorealists like Chuck Close and Gerhard Richter, Neoexpressionists like Cecily Brown, and comics-inspired painters like Yoshitomo Nara, Inka Essenhigh and Takashi Murakami. There are erotic grotesques from John Currin and Lisa Yuskavage, meditations on the muse by Elizabeth Peyton and Lucian Freud, "Repro-realistic" work from Neo Rauch and of course self-portraits by Philip Akkerman and Marcel Dzama, among others.

    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.

    A collection of 260 photographs, many never before published, offers panoramic views of scenes from every region of the world.

    A guide to the Nikon D3100 camera provides information on the camera's scene modes, composition, focus, lighting, and composition to take successful portraits and sports and landscape photographs.

    

    She has photographed rarely seen sites from domains including: science, government, medicine, entertainment, nature security and religion. This index examines subjects that, while provocative or controversial, are currently legal. The work responds to a desire to discover unknown territories, to see everything. Simon makes use of the annotated-photograph's capacity to engage and inform the public. Transforming that which is off-limits or under-the-radar into a visible and intelligible form, she confronts the divide between the privileged access of the few and the limited access of the public. Photographed with a large format view camera (except when prohibited), Simon's 70 color plates form a seductive collection that reflects and reveals a national identity. In addition to this monograph, there is also an exhibition of Simon's work opening at the Whitney Museum of American Art in March 2007.

     The Truth About Magic builds on the pains and joys of romance explored in Love Her Wild and the New York Times bestseller, The Dark Between Stars—heartbreaks and falling in love, looking back and looking inwards—by taking a fresh, awakened journey outward. An adventure into the great unknown. It’s about finding ourselves, our purpose, and the simple joys of life. It’s about lavender fields, drinking white wine out of oak barrels on vineyards, laughing until you cry, dancing in old barns until the sun comes up, and making love on sandy beaches. The Truth About Magic is a vibrant, transcendent journey into growth, which will leave you energized and eager to explore the wider world.

    In Face Paint, Lisa Eldridge reveals the entire history of the art form, from Egyptian and Classical times up through the Victorian age and golden era of Hollywood, and also surveys the cutting-edge makeup science of today and tomorrow. Face Paint explores the practical and idiosyncratic reasons behind makeup’s use, the actual materials employed over generations, and the glamorous icons that people emulate and how they achieved their effects. An engaging history of style, it is also a social history of women and the ways in which we can understand their lives through the prism and impact of makeup.

    In 1992, the year she completed her studies at Glasgow School of Art, her graduation exhibition sold out. Most notably, one painting was bought by Charles Saatchi and, since then, her international reputation has grown at a rapid and steady pace.Jenny Saville is described as a "New Old Master" for the technical proficiency of her oversize nudes that have earned her comparisons to Rubens and Lucian Freud and universal praise from critics and art historians alike. For the conceptual underpinnings of her work, she has been hailed as one of the most interesting artists of the last decade. Her work has been shown alongside that of Damien Hirst and the other Young British Artists in the acclaimed and seminal survey of new British art Sensation at the Royal Academy (London, 1997) and the Brooklyn Museum of Art (New York, 2000).This is the only monograph devoted to the critically acclaimed young artist and features all of Jenny Saville's paintings to date-including many previously unpublished. This volume is being published in association with the Gagosian Gallery in London. The power of her brilliant and relentless embodiment of our worst anxieties about our own corporeality and gender is what distinguishes Saville from other paint-obsessed representers of the naked human body. To my eye, no other artist in recent memory has combined empathy and distance with such visual and emotional impact. -Linda Nochlin, Art in America, March 2000

    From the graceful and proficient Elves to the horrendous war machines of the Dark Lord, each culture's approach to warfare is explained - how they fought, why they were fighting, what armor they wore and what weapons they used against their enemies. Now you can get as close to a marauding Orc as you could ever wish, without suffering the consequences!Treating the filmmakers' notes, designs and props as a true archive, Weapons and Warfare describes in detail every major conflict depicted in the film trilogy - from The Last Alliance of Elves and Men to the climactic Battle of the Pelennor Fields - each accompanied by a battle diagram from the films' chief designers.Armed with a wealth of fascinating facts and unique imagery, and with an exclusive foreword by Christopher Lee and an introduction by the Academy Award winner Richard Taylor, Weapons and Warfare promises to be the most striking companion to The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy published to date.

    Pithy, provocative, poignant advice on a variety of self-help topics—in four well-chosen words.

    Dr. Seuss) in a whole new light. Depicting outlandish creatures in otherworldly settings, the paintings use a dazzling rainbow of hues not seen in the primary-color palette of his books for children, and exhibit a sophisticated and often quite unrestrained side of the artist. 65 color illustrations.