The Doré Illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy


Gustave Doré - 1976
    His Doré Bible was a treasured possession in countless homes, and his best-received works continued to appear through the years in edition after edition. His illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy constitute one of his most highly regarded efforts and were Doré's personal favorites.The present volume reproduces with excellent clarity all 135 plates that Doré produced for The Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise. From the depths of hell onto the mountain of purgatory and up to the empyrean realms of paradise, Doré's illustrations depict the passion and grandeur of Dante's masterpiece in such famous scenes as the embarkation of the souls for hell, Paolo and Francesca (four plates), the forest of suicides, Thaïs the harlot, Bertram de Born holding his severed head aloft, Ugolino (four plates), the emergence of Dante and Virgil from hell, the ascent up the mountain, the flight of the eagle, Arachne, the lustful sinners being purged in the seventh circle, the appearance of Beatrice, the planet Mercury, and the first splendors of paradise, Christ on the cross, the stairway of Saturn, the final vision of the Queen of Heaven, and many more.Each plate is accompanied by appropriate lines from the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow translation of Dante's work.

Impressionism


Phoebe Pool - 1967
    With imagination and insight, the author brings Impressionism into focus by showing it through the eyes of the artists and their contemporaries, using letters, critical reviews and reminiscences of the people who were part of the story. As we see in Bernard Denvir's compelling survey, the Impressionists had new ways of painting, but they also had a new world to paint: a world of stream tricycles, emergent photography, and modern ideas about perception. 195 illus., 17 in color.

Egghead; or, You Can't Survive on Ideas Alone


Bo Burnham - 2013
    100 million people viewed those videos, turning Bo into an online sensation with a huge and dedicated following. Bo taped his first of two Comedy Central specials four days after his 18th birthday, making him the youngest to do so in the channel's history. Now Bo is a rising star in the comedy world, revered for his utterly original and intelligent voice. And, he can SIIIIIIIIING!In EGGHEAD, Bo brings his brand of brainy, emotional comedy to the page in the form of off-kilter poems, thoughts, and more. Teaming up with his longtime friend, artist, and illustrator Chance Bone, Bo takes on everything from death to farts in this weird book that will make you think, laugh and think, "why did I just laugh?"

Art in Theory, 1900–2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas


Charles Harrison - 2002
    Now updated to include the results of new research, together with significant contributions from the 1990s. Includes writings by critics, philosophers, politicians and literary figures. The editors provide contextual introductions to 340 texts. Complements Art in Theory, 1648–1815 and Art in Theory, 1815–1900 to create a complete survey of the theories underpinning the development of art in the modern period.

Maxfield Parrish


Coy Ludwig - 1973
    A compendium of the life and work of Maxfield Parrish, it is an essential part of a Parrish library. For the collector, the publisher has included a value guide to some of the products that bear Parrish images. Examples of Parrish's most famous book illustrations are shown, including selections from Mother Goose in Prose and the Arabian Nights. Also included are his famous magazine covers-from Life, Collier's, Harper's Weekly, etc., as well as all the landscapes that he painted for Brown and Bigelow, who reproduced them as calendars every year from 1936 to 1963. One of the highlights of the book is the chapter on Parrish's technique, examining in depth his materials, favorite methods, and unique way of painting. In addition, there is a lengthy excerpt from an unpublished manuscript by Maxfield Parrish, Jr., explaining step-by-step his father's glazing technique and use of photography in his work. This definitive study also contains numerous revealing excerpts from Parrish's unpublished correspondence with family, friends, and clients.

Michelangelo


Howard Hibbard - 1974
    What emerges is both a perspective appraisal of his work and a revealing life history of the man who was arguably the greatest artist of all time.

500 Self-Portraits


Julian Bell - 2000
    A new version of Phaidon classic published in 1937, this evocative and fascinating book presents 500 of the world's greatest self portraits, arranged in a simple chronological sequence from ancient time to the late 20th century.

Van Gogh's Ear: The True Story


Bernadette Murphy - 2016
    It is the most famous story about any artist in history. But what really happened on that dark winter night?In Van Gogh's Ear, Bernadette Murphy reveals the truth. She takes us on an extraordinary journey from major museums to forgotten archives, vividly reconstructing Van Gogh's world. We meet police inspectors and café patrons, prostitutes and madams, his beloved brother Theo and fellow painter Paul Gauguin.Why did Van Gogh commit such a brutal act? Who was the mysterious 'Rachel' to whom he presented his macabre gift? Did he really remove his entire ear? Murphy answers these important questions with her groundbreaking discoveries, offering a stunning portrait of an artist edging towards madness in his pursuit of excellence.BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEKPRIMETIME BBC2 DOCUMENTARY WITH JEREMY PAXMAN

The Art of Discworld


Terry Pratchett - 2004
    It's a world bursting with magic, a land of contrasts and extremes, from the bustling metropolis of Ankh-Morpork, the oldest city on the Disc (now ruled with an iron hand in a velvet glove by the Patrician, Lord Vetinari), to the ancient empire of Klatch, where there are fifteen words for assassination. There's the mysterious continent XXXX, or Foureks, about which nothing anyone has ever heard is really an exaggeration, the tiny kingdom of Lancre and the dark country of Uberwald, where things do go bump in the night. And then there are the inhabitants: the witches Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Magrat Garlick (now a Queen, of course). There are wizards galore, Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully, the Librarian, Rincewind, the Bursar . . . there are the History Monks and the ancient Vampyre families. There are great heroes, like Cohen the Barbarian and his Silver Horde, Sam Vimes, Captain Carrot and the men* of the City Watch . . . and there are the ordinary folk like Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, Foul Ole Ron, the Igors . . . and there's Death.The Discworld might have started out in the imagination of its Creator, Terry Pratchett, but over the past 30 or more books, it has taken on a life of its own.Here, gathered together for the first time, is artist Paul Kidby's own voyage through the Disc, in glorious color and intricate black and white: a cornucopia of characters that have won the hearts of millions of adoring readers the world over:Here is The Art of Discworld. werewolves, zombies, gargoyles, dwards - in fact, menof the Watch are actually few and far between these days.

The Art of Looking Sideways


Alan Fletcher - 2001
    It is an inexhaustible mine of anecdotes, quotations, images, curious facts and useless information, oddities, serious science, jokes and memories, all concerned with the interplay between the verbal and the visual, and the limitless resources of the human mind. Loosely arranged in 72 chapters, all this material is presented in a wonderfully inventive series of pages that are themselves masterly demonstrations of the expressive use of type, space, color and imagery.This book does not set out to teach lessons, but it is full of wisdom and insight collected from all over the world. Describing himself as a visual jackdaw, master designer Alan Fletcher has distilled a lifetime of experience and reflection into a brilliantly witty and inimitable exploration of such subjects as perception, color, pattern, proportion, paradox, illusion, language, alphabets, words, letters, ideas, creativity, culture, style, aesthetics and value.The Art of Looking Sideways is the ultimate guide to visual awareness, a magical compilation that will entertain and inspire all those who enjoy the interplay between word and image, and who relish the odd and the unexpected.

Perspective Made Easy


Ernest Norling - 1939
    This easy-to-follow book — the first devoted entirely to clarifying the laws of perspective — remedies the situation. In it, the author uses over 250 simple line drawings to illustrate the concepts involved.Beginning with clear, concise, immediately applicable discussions of the horizon, vanishing point, and the crucial relationship of eye level to perspective drawing, you'll learn how to place figures and objects in a drawing, depict interiors, create shade and shadows, and achieve all the other elements necessary for a successful perspective drawing. By repeatedly stressing important points, Mr. Norling teaches you to make them second-nature. Moreover, his approach is so simple and direct that no matter how little raw talent or experience you have, you will soon be able to apply these techniques almost instinctively.Mastery of perspective is a basic skill every artist must have. This simple, nontechnical guide will enable you to master its essentials in a relatively short time. Clear and concise, this book is an essential addition to any artist's bookshelf.

Raphael: 1483-1520


Christof Thoenes - 1999
    Though Raphael painted many important works in his Florence period, including his famous Madonnas, it was his mature work in Rome that cemented his place in history, most notably the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican featuring his School of Athens and Triumph of Religion murals. This overview traces the life's work of this Renaissance master who achieved the height of greatness in only two decades of creation and whose influential work paved the way for the Mannerist and Baroque movements.

Picasso


Carsten-Peter Warncke - 1991
    He had good grounds for the confidence palpable in his statement, for in the history of 20th century art, his name stands out over all the others. In Picasso's paintings, drawings, lithographs, ceramics, and sculptures, he was tirelessly inventive and innovative, exhibiting an aesthetic bravado that kept him one step ahead of his contemporaries. From subject matter to new forms and techniques to new media, Picasso got there first. The Spanish artist's enormous output, from the eight-year-old's beginnings to the late work of a man of ninety-one, is surely one of the most diverse and creatively energetic in the whole history of art, and it is no exaggeration to see him as the genius of the century. Carsten-Peter Warncke's study is a thorough review of Picasso's entire oeuvre, from the early Blue and Rose Periods, through the analytic and synthetic cubism and classicist phase all the way up to the art of the old savage Picasso. Our study of Picasso, the most exhaustive record of his work to date, contains almost 1500 illustrations'from his earliest drawings to the master's very last painting. Extensive bibliography section as well as illustrated section about Picasso's life and work Index of Names

The Life and Works of Vincent Van Gogh


Janice Anderson - 1994
    The quick brushstrokes of the Impressionists suited his temperament, as did his heavy use of impasto. This helpful volume shows many of van Gogh's best loved works, including the famous self-portrait with a Bandaged Ear, painted after he had cut off part of his ear in a fit of madness, Sunflowers, which were to him a symbol of power and beneficence, and The Starry Night, a painting which clearly expresses intensity and mental turbulence.

The Beauty of Everyday Things


Soetsu Yanagi - 2017
    These objects are our constant companions in life. As such, writes Soetsu Yanagi, they should be made with care and built to last, treated with respect and even affection. They should be natural and simple, sturdy and safe - the aesthetic result of wholeheartedly fulfilling utilitarian needs. They should, in short, be things of beauty.In an age of feeble and ugly machine-made things, these essays call for us to deepen and transform our relationship with the objects that surround us. Inspired by the work of the simple, humble craftsmen Yanagi encountered during his lifelong travels through Japan and Korea, they are an earnest defence of modest, honest, handcrafted things - from traditional teacups to jars to cloth and paper. Objects like these exemplify the enduring appeal of simplicity and function: the beauty of everyday things.