You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
A handsomely illustrated volume that provides new insight into one of the great women artists of the Impressionist circle
At what stage of their careers do great artists produce their most important work? In a series of studies that bring new insights and new dimensions to the study of artistic creativity, Galenson’s new book examines the careers of more than one hundred modern painters, poets and novelists to reveal a powerful relationship between age and artistic creativity. Analyzing the careers of major literary and artistic figures, such as Cézanne, van Gogh, Dickens, Hemingway and Plath, Galenson highlights the different methods by which artists have made innovations. Pointing to a new and richer history of the modern arts, this book is of interest, not only to humanists and social scientists, but to anyone interested in the nature of human creativity in general.
This volume presents the essence of the work of the great French photographer Eugène Atget through one hundred carefully selected photographs. Atget devoted more than thirty years of his life to the task of documenting the city of Paris and the surrounding countryside, and in the process created an oeuvre that brilliantly explains the great richness, complexity, and authentic character of his native culture. John Szarkowski, an acknowledged master of the art of looking at photographs, explores the unique sensibilities that made Atget one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century and a vital influence on the development of modern and contemporary photography. The eloquent introductory text and commentaries on Atget’s photographs form an extended essay on the remarkable visual intelligence displayed in these subtle, sometimes enigmatic pictures.
In July 1881, bill-posting became legal in Paris. The result was an explosion of creativity over three glorious decades recognised as the golden age of poster advertising, stirring together elements of new printing technology, William Morrisâ?? attempts to reconcile medieval artistry with modern industry, the influence of newly-open Japan on European engraving and aesthetics, and the talents of artists as diverse as Jules Cheret, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Alphonse Mucha and Aubrey Beardsley. The Art Nouveau Poster is the most comprehensive survey to date of this vivid and much loved subject, featuring over 400 illustrations from all of the major European centres, Britain and the United States, with an informative and accessible text. A final chapter looks at the revival of interest in the 1960s following major retrospective exhibitions of Alphonse Mucha and Aubrey Beardsley, and features work from the psychedelic era.
"Many masterpieces of central African sculpture were created to amplify the power of sacred relics that affirm a family's vital connection to its ancestral heritage. This important volume, focusing on some 130 works representing a diverse variety of regional genres, illuminates the purpose and significance of these icons of African art, which first came to prominence because of their appeal to the Western avant-garde. While providing an overview of sources ranging from colonial explorers, missionaries, critics, artists, and art historians, the book breaks new ground in its examination of the complex aesthetic and spiritual dimensions of the reliquaries. Its interdisciplinary approach brings together the perspectives of scholars in African and medieval art history along with those in African history, religion, and ethnography." -- Publisher.
A beautifully illustrated investigation of the life, work, and legacy of the great 17th-century landscape and garden designer Andr� Le N�tre (1613-1700), principal gardener to Louis XIV, was France's greatest landscape and garden designer. The parks created by him at Vaux-le-Vicomte and Versailles are the supreme examples of the French 17th-century style of garden design. He was responsible also for the central pathway through the Tuileries, which became the grand axis of Paris running to the Arc de Triomphe and on to La D�fense. This magnificent book sheds new light on the royal gardener's life and his practice as a landscape architect, engineer and art collector, and examines the leg...
The famous clash between Edmund Burke and Tom Paine over the Enlightenment&’s &“evil&” or &“liberating&” potential in the French Revolution finds present-day parallels in the battle between those who see the Enlightenment at the origins of modernity&’s many ills, such as imperialism, racism, misogyny, and totalitarianism, and those who see it as having forged an age of democracy, human rights, and freedom. The essays collected by Charles Walton in Into Print paint a more complicated picture. By focusing on print culture&—the production, circulation, and reception of Enlightenment thought&—they show how the Enlightenment was shaped through practice and reshaped over time. Thes...
An evaluation that tracks American culture's shift from modernism into postmodernism
Nearly one hundred years after the death of its composer, the music of Claude Debussy has lost none of its appeal. In this authoritative biography, author Eric Frederick Jensen brings together the most recent biographical research, including a revised catalogue of Debussy's compositions and the first complete edition of his correspondence. With separate, chronological sections on his life and music, Debussy is accessible to the general reader who wishes to focus on his life and personality, while providing detailed discussion of the music to musicians and students.
The acclaimed author of On Changing the World examines the ways in which surrealism intersects with a variety of revolutionary political approaches. In this expanded edition, the luminary critical theorist dismisses the limited notion of surrealism as a purely artistic movement, repositioning surrealism as a force in radical political ideologies, ranging from utopian ideals to Marxism and situationism. Taking its title from André Breton’s essay “Arcane 17,” which casts the star as the searing firebrand of rebellion, Michael Löwy’s provocative work spans many perspectives. These include surrealist artists who were deeply interested in Marxism and anarchism (Breton among them), as we...