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The cover image, World Map by Fra Mauro c. 1450, is one of the most important and famous maps of all time. This monumental map of the world was created by the monk Fra Mauro in his monastery on the island of San Michele in the Venetian lagoon. Now the centrepiece of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in St Marc’s Square in Venice, the map in its nearly 600-year history has never left Venice – until now. Renowned for its sheer size - over 2.3 metres square - and stunning colours, the map was made at a time of transition between the medieval world view and new knowledge uncovered by the great voyages of discovery. Brilliantly painted and illuminated on sheets of oxhide, the sphere of the Earth is surrounded by the sphere of the Ocean in the ancient way. Yet Fra Mauro included the latest information on exploration by Portuguese and Arab navigators. Commissioned by King Afonso V of Portugal, it is the last of the great medieval world maps to inspire navigators in the Age of Discovery to explore beyond the Indian Ocean.
Australia's national art collection largely took shape in the short period between the late 1960s (when the National Gallery project received the official go-ahead from government), and the building's opening in 1982. Published 20 years after that opening, these essays tell how the various collections came into being and continue to evolve. Authors include the Gallery's first three directors, James Mollison, Betty Churcher and Brian Kennedy, while other participants close to the collections' formations provide commentary and stories as varied, insightful and interesting as the collections themselves.
William Wordsworth's later poetry complicates possibilities of life and art in war's aftermath. This illuminating study provides new perspectives and reveals how his work following the end of the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars reflects a passionate, lifelong engagement with the poetics and politics of peace. Focusing on works from between 1814 and 1822, Philip Shaw constructs a unique and compelling account of how Wordsworth, in both his ongoing poetic output and in his revisions to earlier works, sought to modify, refute, and sometimes sustain his early engagement with these issues as both an artist and a political thinker. In an engaging style, Shaw reorients our understanding of the later writings of a major British poet and the post-war literary culture in which his reputation was forged. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.
"This is an exhibition catalogue which will cover the three major themes of the exhibition Turner to Monet; the development of landscape painting in Britain and Germany at the begining of the nineteenth century and its broader influence in the world; the Sublime and the spectacle of Nature; the advent of Modernism."--Provided by publisher.
Catalogues an extensive exhibition held at the Royal Museums, Brussels; covers the full spectrum of Magritte's work.
Sydney Long (1871-1955) was Australia's foremost Art Nouveau painter and a major Symbolist. He created haunting images of the Australian landscape with decorative, poetic, musical qualities. He broke new ground by populating the landscape with nymphs and fauns, and the sinuous, graceful forms of trees and birds, seeking to convey the weird mystery of the Australian bush. This publication also features the delightful landscapes and cityscapes painted by Long in Australia and England, distinguished by his sensuous and elegant approach. A selection of his prints attests to Long's place as a leading painter-etcher of the 1920s and 1930s. The Spirit of the Land, the first comprehensive survey of Sydney Long's life and work to be published in more than 30 years, provides new research and a fresh appreciation of one of Australia's great artists.
What does it mean to live a life in pursuit of art?In 1906, Kathleen O'Connor left conservative Perth, where her famous father's life had ended in tragedy. She had her sights set on a career in thrilling, bohemian Paris. More than a century later, novelist Amanda Curtin faces her own questions, of life and of art, as she embarks on a journey in Kate's footsteps.Part biography, part travel narrative, this is the story of an artist in a foreign land who, with limited resources and despite the impacts of war and loss, worked and exhibited in Paris for over forty years. Kate's distinctive figure paintings, portraits and still lifes, highly prized today, form an inseparable part of the telling.
Randolph Stow was one of the great Australian writers of his generation. His novel To the Islands — written in his early twenties after living on a remote Aboriginal mission — won the Miles Franklin Award for 1958. In later life, after publishing seven remarkable novels and several collections of poetry, Stow’s literary output slowed. This biography examines the productive period as well as his long periods of publishing silence. In Mick: A Life of Randolph Stow, Suzanne Falkiner unravels the reasons behind Randolph Stow’s quiet retreat from Australia and the wider literary world. Meticulously researched, insightful and at times deeply moving, Falkiner’s biography pieces together an intriguing story from Stow’s personal letters, diaries, and interviews with the people who knew him best. And many of her tales – from Stow’s beginnings in idyllic rural Australia, to his critical turning point in Papua New Guinea, and his final years in Essex, England — provide us with keys to unlock the meaning of Stow’s rich and introspective works.