Learn how to save money and avoid the lines at the Louvre and Orsay Museums. Enjoy the ambience of Parisian neighborhoods, and take a day trip to the glittering palace of Versailles, or to the Champagne-soaked city of Reims. Then grab a café crème at a sidewalk café and listen to the hum of the city. You'll see why Paris remains at the heart of global culture.Rick's candid, humorous advice will guide you to good-value hotels and restaurants in delightful neighborhoods. You'll learn how to navigate the Paris Métro, and which sights are worth your time and money. More than just reviews and directions, a Rick Steves guidebook is a tour guide in your pocket.

    There she met the legendary couple Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Welcomed into their home, she immersed herself in their private lives and the cultural and artistic diversity of the country, taking hundreds of photographs. These powerful photographs, among the last taken before Kahlo’s death, bear poignant witness to Frida’s beauty and talent. Showcasing more than 100 of these rare images, many of which have never been published before, the book also includes previously unpublished commentary by Gisèle Freund about Frida Kahlo, texts by Kahlo’s biographer Gérard de Cortanze and art historian Lorraine Audric, as well as a link to a previously unreleased color film, shot by Freund, showing Diego Rivera at work.

    The next day - BLAM! - Pablo bursts through the canvas, paintbrush in hand, ready to paint something fresh and new."Pablo Picasso may have been one of the most famous artists of the 20th century, but that doesn't mean he painted what people wanted him to paint! In fact, some people hated his paintings, and called them "ugly!" and "terrible!" -- something many kids can relate to. But Picasso didn't listen to all those people, and kept on working the way he wanted to work, until he created something so new, so different... that people didn't know what to say!For every young artist who's drawn something other kids think is "ugly," this story of rebellion and creativity is sure to inspire.

    The Art of Rivalry follows eight celebrated artists, each linked to a counterpart by friendship, admiration, envy, and ambition. All eight are household names today. But to achieve what they did, each needed the influence of a contemporary--one who was equally ambitious but possessed sharply contrasting strengths and weaknesses.Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas were close associates whose personal bond frayed after Degas painted a portrait of Manet and his wife. Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso swapped paintings, ideas, and influences as they jostled for the support of collectors like Leo and Gertrude Stein and vied for the leadership of a new avant-garde. Jackson Pollock's uninhibited style of "action painting" triggered a breakthrough in the work of his older rival, Willem de Kooning. After Pollock's sudden death in a car crash, de Kooning assumed Pollock's mantle and became romantically involved with his late friend's mistress. Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon met in the early 1950s, when Bacon was being hailed as Britain's most exciting new painter and Freud was working in relative obscurity. Their intense but asymmetrical friendship came to a head when Freud painted a portrait of Bacon, which was later stolen.Each of these relationships culminated in an early flashpoint, a rupture in a budding intimacy that was both a betrayal and a trigger for great innovation. Writing with the same exuberant wit and psychological insight that earned him a Pulitzer Prize for art criticism, Sebastian Smee explores here the way that coming into one's own as an artist--finding one's voice--almost always involves willfully breaking away from some intimate's expectations of who you are or ought to be.Praise for The Art of Rivalry"Gripping . . . Mr. Smee's skills as a critic are evident throughout. He is persuasive and vivid. . . . You leave this book both nourished and hungry for more about the art, its creators and patrons, and the relationships that seed the ground for moments spent at the canvas."--The New York Times"With novella-like detail and incisiveness [Sebastian Smee] opens up the worlds of four pairs of renowned artists. . . . Each of his portraits is a biographical gem. . . . The Art of Rivalry is a pure, informative delight, written with canny authority."--The Boston Globe"Bacon liked to say his portraiture aimed to capture 'the pulsations of a person.' Revealing these rare creators as the invaluable catalysts they also were, Smee conveys exactly that on page after page. . . . His brilliant group biography is one of a kind." --The Atlantic "Perceptive . . . Smee is onto something important. His book may bring us as close as we'll ever get to understanding the connections between these bristly bonds and brilliance."--The Christian Science Monitor"In this intriguing work of art history and psychology, The Boston Globe's art critic looks at the competitive friendships of Matisse and Picasso, Manet and Degas, Pollock and de Kooning, and Freud and Bacon. All four relationships illuminate the creative process--both its imaginative breakthroughs and its frustrating blocks."--Newsday

    But a courageous and visionary young woman-Katharine Kuh-defied the odds and opened a gallery in Chicago, where she exhibited such relatively unknown artists as Fernand L ger, Paul Klee, Joan Mir, Ansel Adams, Marc Chagall, and Alexander Calder, to name but a few. Not only did Kuh survive these rocky early years but most of the artists became increasingly famous. In 1954, the Art Institute of Chicago named her its first curator of modern painting and sculpture. Kuh's prestigious position at the museum led to friendships with Marcel Duchamp, Mark Rothko, Mies van der Rohe, and Edward Hopper. In writing her memoir, she hoped to offer intimate portraits of these luminaries and contribute to a fuller understanding of their achievements. Her book also reveals how and why America became a major force in the world of contemporary art.After Katharine Kuh's death, Avis Berman-noted art historian and Kuh's close friend and literary executor-selected, edited, and completed her writings for this book.

    And while art criticism is ubiquitous in newspapers, magazines, and exhibition brochures, it is also virtually absent from academic writing. How is it that even as criticism drifts away from academia, it becomes more academic? How is it that sifting through a countless array of colorful periodicals and catalogs makes criticism seem to slip even further from our grasp? In this pamphlet, James Elkins surveys the last fifty years of art criticism, proposing some interesting explanations for these startling changes."In What Happened to Art Criticism?, art historian James Elkins sounds the alarm about the perilous state of that craft, which he believes is 'In worldwide crisis . . . dissolving into the background clutter of ephemeral cultural criticism' even as more and more people are doing it. 'It's dying, but it's everywhere . . . massively produced, and massively ignored.' Those who pay attention to other sorts of criticism may recognize the problems Elkins describes: 'Local judgments are preferred to wider ones, and recently judgments themselves have even come to seem inappropriate. In their place critics proffer informal opinions or transitory thoughts, and they shy from strong commitments.' What he'd like to see more of: ambitious judgment, reflection about judgment itself, and 'criticism important enough to count as history, and vice versa.' Amen to that."—Jennifer Howard, Washington Post Book World

    This paperback edition includes all of the three hundred fifty illustrations from the original edition, as well as the completeand unabridged text, revealing . the symbolism inherent in representations of religious personages, the Earth and Sky, animals, birds, insects, and flowers. In addition to a discussion of objects treated symbolically in Christian art, George Ferguson explores Old Testament characters and events andtheir symbolic representation in art. In addition to a discussion of objects treated symbolically in Christian art, George Ferguson explores Old Testament characters and events and their symbolic representation in art.

    Then Lord Brahma gave him eyes and beauty and he became a proud tyrant who refused to see the truth. But Andhaka was the son of Shiva, after all and even Indra, Vishnu and Brahma wished him no harm. Eventually, it was Shiva's firm hand that led him back to happiness.

    • Reveals the life and teachings of one of the greatest female artists and intellectuals of the Western Mystical Tradition. • Contains 24 full-color illustrations by Hildegard of Bingen. • Includes commentary by Matthew Fox, author of Original Blessing (250,000 sold). Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was an extraordinary woman living in the Rhineland valley during most of the twelfth century. Besides being the abbess of a large and influential Benedictine abbey, she was a prominent preacher, healer, scientist, and artist. She also was a composer and theologian, writing nine books on theology, medicine, science, and physiology, as well as 70 poems and an opera. At the age of 42, she began to have visions; these were captured as 36 illuminations--24 of which are recorded in this book along with her commentaries on them. She also wrote a text describing these visions entitled Scivias (Know the Ways), now published as Hildegard of Bingen's Mystical Visions. Author Matthew Fox has stated, "If Hildegard had been a man, she would be well known as one of the greatest artists and intellectuals the world has ever seen." It is a credit to the power of the women's movement and our times that this towering genius of Western thought is being rediscovered in her full grandeur and autonomy. Virtually unknown for more than 800 years in Western history, Hildegard was featured as one of the women in Judy Chicago's Dinner Party in the early 1980s and published for the first time in English by Bear & Company in 1982. In addition to her mystical teachings, Hildegard's music has been performed and recorded for a new and growing audience.

    This phenomenally diverse tradition includes not only frescoes, relief carvings, colossal statues, silk embroideries and bronze ritual objects but also rock-cut shrines with a thousand Buddhas, the glorious stupas of South-East Asia and the pagodas of the Far East, the massive "mandala in stone" of Borobudur in Java and entire 13th-century temple complexes at Angkor in Cambodia. The author describes all the Buddhist schools and cultures, and explains their imagery, from Tibetan cosmic diagrams and Korean folk art to early Sri Lankan sites and Japanese Zen gardens.

    Many writers have grappled with Cage’s music—which used notes chosen by chance, randomly tuned radios, and even silence—trying to understand what his music means rather than where it came from. An unprecedented and revelatory book, Where the Heart Beats reveals what actually empowered Cage to compose his incredible music, and how he inspired the tremendous artistic transformations of mid-century America.Where the Heart Beats is the first biography of John Cage to address the phenomenal importance of Zen Buddhism to the composer’s life, and to the artistic avant-garde of the 1950s and 60s. Zen’s power of transforming Cage’s troubled mind, by showing him his own enlightened nature—which is also the nature of all living things—liberated Cage from an acute personal crisis that threatened his life, his music, and his relationship with his life-partner, Merce Cunningham. Caught in a society that rejected his music, his politics, and his sexual orientation, Cage was transformed by Zen from an overlooked and somewhat marginal musician into the absolute epicenter of the avant garde.Using Cage’s life as a starting point, Where the Heart Beats looks beyond to the individuals he influenced and the art he inspired. His circle included Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Merce Cunningham, Yoko Ono, Jasper Johns, Morton Feldman, and Leo Castelli, who all went on to revolutionize their respective disciplines. As Cage’s story progresses, as his students’ trajectories unfurl, Where the Heart Beats shows the blossoming of Zen in the very heart of American culture. Both an innovative biography and a ground-breaking cultural history of the American Century, Where the Heart Beats is the work of acclaimed art critic Kay Larson. Following her time at New York Magazine and The Village Voice, Larson practiced Zen at a Buddhist monastery in upstate New York. Larson’s deep knowledge of Zen Buddhism, her long familiarity with New York’s art world, and her exhaustive original research all make Where the Heart Beats the definitive story about one of America’s most enduringly important artists.

    "A Christian should use these arts to the glory of God, not just as tracts, mind you, but as things of beauty to the praise of God." Many Christians, wary of creating graven images, have steered clear of artistic creativity. But the Bible offers a robust affirmation of the arts. The human impulse to create reflects our being created in the image of a creator God. Art and the Bible has been a foundational work for generations of Christians in the arts. In this book's classic essays, Francis Schaeffer first examines the scriptural record of the use of various art forms, and then establishes a Christian perspective on art. With clarity and vigor, Schaeffer explains why "the Christian is the one whose imagination should fly beyond the stars.

     For most Pagans of any denomination, Yule is a high holy season. The ancient festival was a 12 daylong celebration beginning on the eve of the Winter Solstice (known to most Pagans as Yule) and ending at the new calendar year. This celebration was so important in ancient times that it was converted by the Christians to the 12 Days of Christmas. Many Pagans, especially those devoted to the Norse and Anglo Saxon Gods and Goddesses try to find some way to keep these 12 days, yet many are unsure exactly how to celebrate. Social media blows up in the weeks leading up to the Solstice with questions like: How do you celebrate? What do you do exactly? What activities, what rituals, what prayers and celebrations? For the past several years I have been working on this guide in an attempt to answer some of those questions for my own family and for others. This guide is a result of creating family traditions for this special and most sacred (not to mention FUN!) time of year. I put it all together into one little, handy and easy to follow guide, so that you and your family can celebrate the 12 Days of Yule together, with a little inspiration from what our family has been doing. Please enjoy!

    The drip paintings of Jackson Pollock, trailblazing Abstract Expressionist, appear to be the polar opposite of Thomas Hart Benton’s highly figurative Americana. Yet the two men had a close and highly charged relationship dating from Pollock’s days as a student under Benton. Pollock’s first and only formal training came from Benton, and the older man soon became a surrogate father to Pollock. In true Oedipal fashion, Pollock even fell in love with Benton’s wife.Pollock later broke away from his mentor artistically, rocketing to superstardom with his stunning drip compositions. But he never lost touch with Benton or his ideas—in fact, his breakthrough abstractions reveal a strong debt to Benton’s teachings. In an epic story that ranges from the cafés and salons of Gertrude Stein’s Paris to the highways of the American West, Henry Adams, acclaimed author of Eakins Revealed, unfolds a poignant personal drama that provides new insights into two of the greatest artists of the twentieth century.

    People are waking up to the seedy history of the world's art collections, and are starting to ask difficult questions about what the future of museums should look like. In The Whole Picture, art historian and Uncomfortable Art Tour guide Alice Procter provides a manual for deconstructing everything you thought you knew about art, and fills in the blanks with the stories that have been left out of the art history canon for centuries. The book is divided into four chronological sections, named after four different kinds of art space:The Palace The Classroom The Memorial The Playground Each section tackles the fascinating and often shocking stories of five different art pieces, including the propaganda painting that the East India Company used to justify its control in India; the Maori mokomokai skulls that were traded and collected by Europeans as 'art objects'; and Kara Walker's controversial contemporary sculpture A Subtlety, which raised questions about 'appropriate' interactions with art. Through these stories, Alice brings out the underlying colonial narrative lurking beneath the art industry today, and suggests different ways of seeing and thinking about art in the modern world.The Whole Picture is a much-needed provocation to look more critically at the accepted narratives about art, and rethink and disrupt the way we interact with the museums and galleries that display it.