The Writings of a Savage


Paul Gauguin - 1974
    Today he is recognized as a highly influential founding father of modern art, who emphasized the use of flat planes and bright, nonnaturalistic color in conjunction with symbolic or primitive subjects. Familiarity with Gauguin the writer is essential for a complete understanding of the artist. The Writings of a Savage collects the very best of his letters, articles, books, and journals, many of which are unavailable elsewhere. In brilliantly lucid discussions of life and art Gauguin paints a triumphant self-portrait of a volcanic artist and the tormented man within.

A Life of Picasso, Vol. 1: The Early Years, 1881-1906


John Richardson - 1991
    "To understand it, you have to see how it mirrors my life." Richardson, who lived near the artist in Provence for ten years and became a trusted friend, was able to observe and record this phenomenon at first hand. Later, Picasso's widow continued to give Richardson access to the artist's studios and storerooms. This close personal friendship and the privilege of working in hitherto inaccessible archives make Richardson uniquely qualified to write the artist's life, rescuing his renown from sensationalist legend and specialist pleading and analyzing anew the traumas and obsessions that triggered his explosive genius.Richardson is the first biographer to make sense of the myriad contradictions that leave so many statements about Picasso's nature equally true in reverse. The artist's ambivalence is one of the author's central themes. At last we are able to see how his courage and terror misogyny and tenderness, generosity and thrift, superstition and skepticism, cynicism and sentiment, are reflected in the conflicts and paradoxes in his work.Richardson's eye is finely attuned to the complexities of Picasso's art, and his extensive knowledge of cultural history enables him to show how Picasso plundered the art of the past, the imaginations of his poet friends, the beliefs of mystics and magi, to create a revolutionary new synthesis. The author's evocation of Picasso's ferocious ego, demonic loves and hates and black fears is the more absorbing for its terse and lively prose and freedom from jargon.This first volume of Richardson's prodigiously detailed and documented four-volume study takes Picasso to the age of twenty-five. It reveals how the adolescent Picasso struggled, through determination and study, to escape the shadow of his father's artistic failures. It describes his precocious success in Barcelona and Paris and the period of rejection and despair that followed. We watch Picasso transform the prostitutes of the Saint-Lazare prison into Blue period madonnas and, later, the performers of the Montmartre circuses into Rose period harlequins. Volume I culminates in Picasso's dawning perception of himself as the messiah of the modern movement.Some nine hundred illustrations, many of them unfamiliar, enable the reader to follow Picasso's mesmerizing development in images as well as words.

The Photograph as Contemporary Art


Charlotte Cotton - 2004
    A short illustrated survey of the use of photography in contemporary art since the mid-1980s.

Widow Basquiat: A Love Story


Jennifer Clement - 2000
    A hotbed for hip hop, underground culture, and unmatched creative energy, it spawned some of the most significant art of the 20th century. It was where Jean-Michel Basquiat became an avant-garde street artist and painter, swiftly achieving worldwide fame. During the years before his death at the age of 27, he shared his life with his lover and muse, Suzanne Mallouk. A runaway from an unhappy home in Canada, Suzanne first met Jean-Michel in a bar on the Lower East Side in 1980. Thus began a tumultuous and passionate relationship that deeply influenced one of the most exceptional artists of our time. In emotionally resonant prose, award-winning author Jennifer Clement tells the story of the passion that swept Suzanne and Jean-Michel into a short-lived, unforgettable affair. A poetic interpretation like no other, Widow Basquiat is an expression of the unrelenting power of addiction, obsession and love.

Hiroshige


Adele Schlombs - 2007
    Literally meaning "pictures of the floating world", ukiyo-e refers to the famous Japanese woodblock print genre that originated in the 17th century and is practically synonymous with the Western worlds visual characterization of Japan. Though Hiroshige captured a variety of subjects, his greatest talent was in creating landscapes of his native Edo (modern-day Tokyo) and his most famous work was a series known as "100 Famous Views of Edo" (1856-1858). This book provides an introduction to his work and an overview of his career.About the Series: Every book in TASCHEN's Basic Art Series features:a detailed chronological summary of the artist's life and work, covering the cultural and historical importance of the artist approximately 100 color illustrations with explanatory captions a concise biography

Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book by Artists and Critics


Herschel B. Chipp - 1968
    Chipp's Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book By Artists and Critics is a collection of texts from letters, manifestos, notes and interviews. Sources include, as the title says, artists and critics—some expected, like van Gogh, Gauguin, Apollinaire, Mondrian, Greenberg, just to name a few—and some less so: Trotsky and Hitler, in the section on Art and Politics. The book is a wonderful resource and insight into the way artists think and work.

Minor: Art Historys History _p2


Vernon Hyde Minor - 1993
     A review of contemporary theory of art history provides readers with lucid prose and concrete examples. Discussion of eighteenth- and nineteenth- century theories that are important to art history offers readers a review of historically important issues in philosophy. Illustrations of well-known works of art show readers how theory has application to images. Art historians and educators.

Through the Eyes of Leonardo da Vinci: Selected Drawings


Barrington Barber - 2005
    Each work is accompanied by a detailed description to enhance the appreciation of the artist's creation.

The Hidden Art of Disney's Golden Age: The 1930s


Didier Ghez - 2015
    They Drew as They Pleased showcases four of these early pioneers and features artwork developed by them for the Disney shorts from the 1930s, including many unproduced projects, as well as for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, and some early work for later features such as Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. Introducing new biographical material about the artists and including largely unpublished artwork from the depths of the Walt Disney Archives and the Disney Animation Research Library, this volume offers a window into the most inspiring work created by the best Disney artists during the studio's early golden age.They Drew as They Pleased is the first in what promises to be a revealing and fascinating series of books about Disney's largely unexamined concept artists, with six volumes spanning the decades between the 1930s and 1990s. Copyright ©2015 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.

Mucha


Tomoko Sato - 2015
    In evocative shades of peach, gold, ochre and olive, his seductive compositions of patterns, flowers, and beautiful women became paradigms of the Belle Epoque years. Mucha's work permeated illustration, posters, postcards, and advertising designs of his day. His striking posters of star actress Sarah Bernhardt were particularly famous. Alongside this delicate decorative work, Mucha also harbored committed humanist ideals and nationalist beliefs. With monumental works such as The Slav Epic, he expressed his staunch support for Pan-Slavism, promoting the political independence of the Czech and Slavic nations from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.This book presents key works from Mucha's distinctive oeuvre to introduce an artist who, with few rivals, distilled the spirit of an age.About the Series: Each book in TASCHEN s Basic Art series features: a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions "

Illustration Now! Vol. 2


Julius Wiedemann - 2007
    Whereas the first volume brought together a fascinating mix of star illustrators and brand new faces that together formed the face of illustration around the world, Illustration Now! 2 is even more exciting, featuring illustrators from 25 countries, with styles ranging from cutting edge to traditional. Also included is a dialog between design specialist Steven Heller and German illustrator Christoph Niemann about illustration's role in the world today. This book is perfect not only for creative professionals and illustration students, but also artists and anyone with an appreciation for visual language.

Hieronymus Bosch


Larry Silver - 1970
    The phantasmagoric imagery of Hieronymus Bosch (d. 1516) has been the source of widespread interest ever since the painter's lifetime, and is still so enigmatic that scholars have theorized that it contains hidden astrological, alchemical, or even heretical meanings. Yet none of these theories has ever seemed to provide an adequate understanding of Bosch's work. Moreover, the considerable professional success that the artist enjoyed in his native Hertogenbosch, not to mention his membership in a traditional religious organization, suggests that he pursued not a sinister secret agenda but simply his personal artistic vision.This intriguing new monograph by noted art historian Larry Silver interprets that artistic vision with admirable lucidity: it explains how Bosch's understanding of human sin, morality, and punishment, which was conceived in an era of powerful apocalyptic expectation, shaped his dramatic visualizations of hell and of the temptations of even the most steadfast saints. Silver's account of Bosch's artistic development is one of the first to benefit from recent technical investigations of the paintings, as well as from the reexamination of the artistGÇÖs drawings in relation to his paintings. Hieronymus Bosch is also unique in how securely it places its subject's work in the broader history of painting in the Low Countries: Silver identifies sources of BoschGÇÖs iconography in a wide range of fifteenth-century panel paintings, manuscript illuminations, and prints, and describes how, despite their own religiousness, Bosch's pictures helped inspire the secular landscape and genre scenes of later Netherlandish painters. Augmented by 310 illustrations, most in color, including many dramatic close-ups of BoschGÇÖs intricately imagined nightmare scenes, this is the definitive book on a perennially fascinating artist.

The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos from Bookworms Worldwide


Eva Talmadge - 2010
    Packed with beloved lines of verse, literary portraits, and illustrations — and statements from the bearers on their tattoos’ history and the personal significance of the chosen literary work — The Word Made Flesh is part photo collection, part literary anthology written on skin.

Destruction of the Father/Reconstruction of the Father: Writings and Interviews, 1923–1997


Louise Bourgeois - 1998
    Destruction of the Father; the title comes from the name of a sculpture she did following the death of her husband in1973;contains both formal texts and what the artist calls "pen-thoughts": drawing-texts often connected to her drawings and sculptures, with stories or poems inscribed alongside the images. Writing is a means of expression that has gained increasing importance for Bourgeois, particularly during periods of insomnia. The writing is compulsive, but it can also be perfectly controlled, informed by her intellectual background, knowledge of art history, and sense of literary form (she has frequently published articles on artists, exhibitions, and art events). Bourgeois, a private woman "without secrets," has given numerous interviews to journalists, artists, and writers, expressing her views on her oeuvre, revealing its hidden meanings, and relating the connection of certain works to the traumas of her childhood. This book collects both her writings and her spoken remarks on art, confirming the deep links between her work and her biography and offering new insights into her creative process.

Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in Fifties Animation


Amid Amidi - 2006
    Amid Amidi, of the influential Animation Blast magazine and CartoonBrew blog, charts the evolution of the modern style in animation, which largely discarded the "lifelike" aesthetic for a more graphic and often abstract approach. Abundantly found in commercials, industrial and educational films, fair and expo infotainment, and more, this quickly popular cartoon modernism shared much with the painting and graphic design movements of the era. Showcasing hundreds of rare and forgotten sketches, model boards, cels, and film stills, Cartoon Modern is a thoroughly researched, eye-popping, and delightful account of a vital decade of animation design.