Books
Discover a curated selection of Art books available in our library. Here you will find key textbooks, reference materials, and recommended readings to enhance your understanding of Art, Art History, and Historical Art Figures. Use the search tools to locate specific titles, or browse our collection for inspiration. Happy reading!
African-American Art by
From its origins in early eighteenth century slave communities to the end of the twentieth century, African-American art has made a vital contribution to the art of the United States. African-American Art provides a major reassessment of the subject, setting the art in the context of the African-American experience. Here, Patton discusses folk and decorative arts such as ceramics, furniture, and quilts alongside fine art, sculptures, paintings, and photography during the 1800s. She also examines the New Negro Movement of the 1920s, the era of Civil Rights and Black Nationalism during the 1960s and 70s, and the emergence of new black artists and theorists in the 1980s and 90s. New evidence suggests different ways of looking at African-American art, confirming that it represents the culture and society from which it emerges. Here, Patton explores significant issues such as the relationship of art and politics, the influence of galleries and museums, the growth of black universities, critical theory, the impact of artists collectives, and the assortment of art practices since the 1960s. African-American Art shows that in its cultural diversity and synthesis of cultures it mirrors those in American society as a whole.
American Women in the Visual Arts by
Praise for the previous edition:Recommended for undergraduate libraries and public libraries with an interest in the arts and/or women's studies.--Library Journal Because so little attention is paid to women in the visual arts, this will be a very welcome addition for women's studies, as well as research on artists...The articles are written in a very relaxed manner and provide a sense of the individual.--Reference Reviews on www.gale.com ...a well-written reference tool that gives a good deal of information...high-school, public, and academic libraries that wish to expand their coverage of American women artists in the visual arts will find this a useful addition.--Booklist The scope of this work is unique, including, besides traditional genres, the likes of earth art, installation art, and body art...This book offers novices a good overview of American women artists in a wide variety of media...Recommended for smaller undergraduate art collections, women's studies programs, and public libraries.--Choice This handy, well-written volume takes a close look at the lives and accomplishments of more than one hundred talented and versatile artists whose masterful works have made indelible imprints on today's culture...[an] excellent resource...an educational must-have for young adult libraries that is also fascinating reading for art lovers in general.--VOYA This book is a logical addition for a school library that addresses American art. Recommended.--The Book Report...will make a useful addition to reference collections in secondary school, public, and academic libraries.--American Reference Books Annual ...spirited...--College and Research LibrariesThroughout the nation's history, women in the U.S. have played a role in the creation of art in all media, from the painting and sculpture of yesteryear to the photography and computer-generated art of today. Many of them faced numerous obstacles along the way to greatness--familial responsibilities, limited access to education and training--but managed not only to reach success, but to open the door a little wider for more women to follow them.A to Z of American Women in the Visual Arts, Second Edition is an informative reference work that covers American women in the world of the visual arts from the eighteenth century to the present day. In addition to being regionally, chronologically, and culturally inclusive, the volume reflects a broad definition of visual arts, including photographers, architects, illustrators, craftspeople, and folk artists as well as painters and sculptors. This A-to-Z reference also traces the history of American women in the visual arts from its early origins as a creative and expressive outlet to its contemporary role in defining political and social agendas.More than 130 new and updated essays not only include basic biographical information but also emphasize the artistic achievements and contributions of these women. A bibliography directs the reader to sources for further information, making this reference a valuable addition to any art history, women's studies, or general collection.Profiles include:Mary Cassatt: painter, printmakerGeorgia O'Keeffe: painterDorothea Lange: documentary photographerBerenice Abbott: photographerLouise Nevelson: sculptorBerta Margoulies: sculptorLee Krasner: painterElaine De Kooning: painterJudy Chicago: mixed-media artistJennifer Bartlett: painter, muralist, printmakerMaya Lin: architect, sculptor.
Chinese Art by
Dealing not only with architecture, sculpture, and painting, but also with bronze and ceramics, this text offers a complete panorama of Chinese arts and civilisation. In his text, the author Bushell stresses the importance of knowing the society to understand the arts.
A Companion to Modern and Contemporary Latin American and Latina/o Art by
In-depth scholarship on the central artists, movements, and themes of Latin American art, from the Mexican revolution to the present A Companion to Modern and Contemporary Latin American and Latinx Art consists of over 30 never-before-published essays on the crucial historical and theoretical issues that have framed our understanding of art in Latin America. This book has a uniquely inclusive focus that includes both Spanish-speaking Caribbean and contemporary Latinx art in the United States. Influential critics of the 20th century are also covered, with an emphasis on their effect on the development of artistic movements. By providing in-depth explorations of central artists and issues, alongside cross-references to illustrations in major textbooks, this volume provides an excellent complement to wider surveys of Latin American and Latinx art. Readers will engage with the latest scholarship on each of five distinct historical periods, plus broader theoretical and historical trends that continue to influence how we understand Latinx, Indigenous, and Latin American art today. The book's areas of focus include: The development of avant-garde art in the urban centers of Latin America from 1910-1945 The rise of abstraction during the Cold War and the internationalization of Latin American art from 1945-1959 The influence of the political upheavals of the 1960s on art and art theory in Latin America The rise of conceptual art as a response to dictatorship and social violence in the 1970s and 1980s The contemporary era of neoliberalism and globalization in Latin American and Latino Art, 1990-2010 With its comprehensive approach and informative structure, A Companion to Modern and Contemporary Latin American and Latinx Art is an excellent resource for advanced students in Latin American culture and art. It is also a valuable reference for aspiring scholars in the field.
The concise Oxford dictionary of art terms by
Covers a wide range of terms from the visual art world, including materials, techniques, and important styles and periods. Revised and updated to reflect the recent development and expanded with new entries focusing primarily on modern and contemporary art materials and techniques.
The Edinburgh Dictionary of Modernism by
An interdisciplinary reference source of the critical, cultural and political practices associated with modernism Much of the literary and cultural theory developed throughout the twentieth century relied on modernist texts and artefacts as both example and paradigm. This Dictionary collects, categorises and intersects literary, aesthetic, political and cultural terms that in one way or another came into being through the debates, conflicts, co-operations, experiments - individual and collective - that characterised modernism. In concise entries from international experts, it presents the terms, categories, concepts, tropes, movements, forged through the modernist upheavals (at once aesthetic and political), highlighting their genealogy, their modernist 'newness', and their historical longevity. Key Features Provides new and authoritative definitions of the revolutionary art, thinking and intellectual culture which flourished in the opening decades of the last centuryDemonstrates the ways in which modernism reconceptualised and realigned all twentieth- century art forms while also formulating the critical and cultural languages of that centuryShows that modernism, in unique ways, already entailed its self-definition and articulated its own critique
Encyclopedia of Aesthetics by
The first reference of its kind, Encyclopedia of Aesthetics was originally published in 1998 in four volumes. Now expanded to include over 800 entries, the Encyclopedia surveys the full breadth of critical thought on art, culture, and society, from classical philosophy to contemporary critical theory. Contributors as prominent as Arthur C. Danto and John Hollander provide analyses of the major philosophers and artists whose works have impacted Aesthetics; of theories and trends such as Conceptualism and Postcolonialism; and of concepts ranging from the abject to synthesia.The field of Aesthetics is an evolving one, and as such the Encyclopedia has been updated and expanded, creating a six-volume second edition with enhanced or new coverage of international aesthetics, modern aesthetics, new media, and new fields of research such as geoaesthetics and neuroaesthetics. Featuring 815 articles by distinguished scholars from many fields and countries, the Encyclopedia is a comprehensive survey of major concepts, thinkers, and debates about the meaning, uses, and value of the arts - from painting and sculpture to literature, music, theater, textiles, dance, television, film, and sound art. Of special interest are in-depth surveys of Western aesthetics and broad coverage of non-Western traditions (e.g., Buddhist and Sanskrit Aesthetics). Over 250 new entries have been added altogether, with the first edition's editor-in-chief, Professor Michael Kelly of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, overseeing the updates and expansion.
Historical Dictionary of Baroque Art and Architecture by
The baroque period deals with the art created roughly between the end of the 16th and the early years of the 18th centuries. The masters of the era include Caravaggio, Gianlorenzo Bernini, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Diego Velazquez, and Nicolas Poussin. The Historical Dictionary of Baroque Art and Architecture, Second Edition covers the most salient works of baroque artists, the most common themes depicted, historical events and key figures responsible for shaping the artistic vocabulary of the era, and definitions of terms pertaining to the topic at hand. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Baroque Art and Architecture contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 600 cross-referenced entries on famous artists, sculptors, architects, patrons, and other historical figures, and events. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Baroque art.
Historical Dictionary of Contemporary Art by
The Historical Dictionary of Contemporary Art illuminates important artists, styles, and movements of the past 70 years. Beginning with the immediate post-World War II period, it encompasses earlier 20th century masters, including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Henry Moore, Alberto Giacometti, Joan Miró, Jean Dubuffet, Stuart Davis, Georgia O'Keeffe, and other well-known figures, who remained creatively productive, while also inspiring younger generations. The book covers subsequent developments, including abstract expressionism, happenings, pop art, minimalism, conceptual art, arte povera, feminist art, photorealism, neo-expressionism, and postmodernism, as well as the contributions of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Robert Rauschenberg, David Hockney, Ellsworth Kelly, Francis Bacon, Louise Bourgeois, Lucio Fontana, Andy Warhol, Richard Serra, Donald Judd, Joseph Beuys, Christo, Anselm Kiefer, Judy Chicago, Ai Weiwei, and Jeff Koons. Historical Dictionary of Contemporary Art contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography, including more than 900 cross-referenced entries on important artists, styles, terms, and movements.This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about contemporary art.
Historical Dictionary of Renaissance Art by
The art of the Renaissance is usually the most familiar to non-specialists, and for good reason. This was the era that produced some of the icons of civilization, including Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Last Supper and Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling, Pietà, and David. Marked as one of the greatest moments in history, the outburst of creativity of the era resulted in the most influential artistic revolution ever to have taken place. The period produced a substantial number of notable masters, among them Donatello, Filippo Brunelleschi, Masaccio, Sandro Botticelli, Raphael, Titian, and Tintoretto. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Renaissance Art contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 700 cross-referenced entries on artists from Italy, Flanders, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, and Portugal, historical figures and events that impacted the production of Renaissance art. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Renaissance art.
The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture by
Folk art is one of the American South's most significant areas of creative achievement, and this comprehensive yet accessible reference details that achievement from the sixteenth century through the present. This volume of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture explores the many forms of aesthetic expression that have characterized southern folk art, including the work of self-taught artists, as well as the South's complex relationship to national patterns of folk art collecting. Fifty-two thematic essays examine subjects ranging from colonial portraiture, Moravian material culture, and southern folk pottery to the South's rich quilt-making traditions, memory painting, and African American vernacular art, and 211 topical essays include profiles of major folk and self-taught artists in the region.
The Oxford companion to the photograph by
"Compiled by an international team of over 140 contributors, this is the first Oxford Companion to deal with the subject of photography. It appears at a watershed in the medium's history, as digital imaging increasingly dominates the global photography scene. Providing a wide range of technical information, the Companion also presents, in a concise and readily accessible form, the mass of recent scholarship on photography as a social and artistic practice. There are over 800 biographical entries, both on photographers and on others who have influenced photographic culture from the 19th century to the present. The Companion is stunningly illustrated, with many pictures published here for the first time."--Publisher.
The Oxford Companion to Western Art by
This work replaces Harold Osborne's Oxford Companion to Art (1970), which has been continuously in print for thirty years. Though originally commissioned as a new edition of Osborne's book, it is effectively a completely new work, planned and written afresh for new generations of art lovers. Apart from a handful of classic articles by Harold Osborne mainly on aesthetics, and a few others which needed only minor change, the text is entirely new. Unlike Osborne, it focuses on Western art rather than the whole of world art, concentrating primarily on painting, sculpture, and the graphic arts, leaving architecture to be covered separately. With not only a tighter focus but also a greater extent than Osborne's, the new Companion offers far deeper coverage of the subject than previously; it includes many more artists and their works, and also pays proper attention to new topics of interest focused on patronage, taste, theory and criticism, materials and techniques, and the new art history. There are over 2600 entries, alphabetically arranged. Almost half of them cover artists, from classical times to the twentieth century. Other entries discuss art styles and movements, art forms (such as battle painting, landscape, caricature, or stained glass), specialist terms, and materials and techniques in all media. There is strong emphasis on location as a focus for art: not only are there regional and cultural surveys, but also entries on specific places of importance such as Paris or Urbino; and, in addition, entries on museums and galleries are arranged under the their city headword so that the reader can easily survey the major sites within a particular locality, such as New York, Boston, or Madrid. Patronage receives imaginative treatment: here, rather than focusing on a limited number of individual patrons, the Companion has entries on towns and cities as centres of patronage and collecting - such as Nuremberg, Dresden, or Prague. In addition, there is a novel series of entries on the critical fortunes of the art of the major European countries, covering, for example, patronage and collecting of Italian art in France, Spain, Britain, Germany and Central Europe, the USA, and in Italy itself. A further category of entry covers topics in the theory of art, such as iconography, perspective, and synaesthesia; and there is wide-ranging coverage too of art scholarship and criticism from Aristotle and Pausanius to Sartre, Panofsky, and Michel Foucault. All this is supplemented by entries on general topics as varied as reproduction, anatomy, guilds and confraternities, frames, and the conservation and restoration of paintings and sculpture. This is a work for everyone who loves art, whether actively engaged in the subject professionally or as one of the countless amateurs visting sites and cities, galleries, and exhibitions, churches, libraries, country houses, and palaces in pursuit of beauty and cultural enrichment.
The Oxford Dictionary of American Art and Artists by
With the advent of abstract expressionism in the 1940s, America became the white hot center of the artistic universe. Now, in The Oxford Dictionary of American Art and Artists, the first such volume to appear in three decades, Ann Lee Morgan offers an informative, insightful, and long overdue resource on our nation's artistic heritage. Featuring 945 alphabetically arranged entries, here is an indispensable biographical and critical guide to American art from colonial times to contemporary postmodernism. Readers will find a wealth of factual detail and insightful analysis of the leading American painters, ranging from John Singleton Copley, Thomas Cole, and Mary Cassatt to such modern masters as Jackson Pollack, Romare Bearden, and Andy Warhol. Morgan offers razor-sharp entries on sculptors ranging from Alexander Calder to Louise Nevelson, on photographers such as Berenice Abbott, Man Ray, Walker Evans, and Ansel Adams, and on contemporary installation artists, including video master Bill Viola. In addition, the dictionary provides entries on important individuals connected to the art scene, including collectors such as Peggy Guggenheim and critics such as Clement Greenberg. Morgan also examines notable American institutions, organizations, schools, techniques, styles, and movements. The range of coverage is indeed impressive, but equally important is the quality of analysis that appears in entry after entry. Morgan gives readers a wealth of trustworthy and authoritative information as well as perceptive, well-informed criticism of artists and their work. In addition, the book is thoroughly cross-referenced, so readers can easily find additional information on any topic of interest. Beautifully written, filled with fascinating historical background and penetrating insight, The Oxford Dictionary of American Art and Artists is an essential one-volume resource for art lovers everywhere.
The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists by
Covering Western art from the ancient Greeks to the present day, this best-selling and authoritative dictionary is more wide-ranging than any comparable reference work. It contains over 2,500 clear and concise entries on styles and movements, materials and techniques, and museums and galleries. It also includes biographical entries for artists, critics, collectors, dealers, and patrons, with places and full dates of birth and death (in many instances correcting misinformation that has found its way into other sources).For this new edition, entries have been thoroughly revised and updated, and more than fifty new entries have been added, for example Tracey Emin and Jack Vettriano. Browsers and readers with an interest in a particular area will benefit from the classified list of all the entries in the book - an invaluable innovation that makes it easy to see immediately which collectors, for example, or 18th-century French artists, or printmaking terms, are included in the dictionary. Written in an engaging manner with many entries enlivened by quotations from artists and critics, this dictionary is a pleasure to browse, whilst its A-Z structure and classified list makes it perfect for quick reference. Previously entitled The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists, this major new edition is essential for students and teachers of art, design, art theory, and art history, and it is ideal for artists, visitors to art exhibitions and galleries, and anyone with an interest in art.
Exploring Folk Art by
Jones explores the human impulse to create, the necessity for having aesthetically satisfying experiences, and the craving for tradition. He also considers topics such as making chairs, remodeling houses, using and preserving soda-fountain slang, preparing and eating food, and sculpting lifelike figures out of cement.
Folk Art and Aging by
Growing old doesn't have to be seen as an eventual failure but rather as an important developmental stage of creativity. Offering an absorbing and fresh perspective on aging and crafts, Jon Kay explores how elders choose to tap into their creative and personal potential through making life-story objects. Carving, painting, and rug hooking not only help seniors to cope with the ailments of aging and loneliness but also to achieve greater satisfaction with their lives. Whether revived from childhood memories or inspired by their capacity to connect to others, meaningful memory projects serve as a lens for focusing on, remaking, and sharing the long-ago. These activities often help elders productively fill the hours after they have raised their children, retired from their jobs, and/or lost a loved one. These individuals forge new identities for themselves that do not erase their earlier lives but build on them and new lives that include sharing scenes and stories from their memories.
Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands by 
Kentucky by Design: the decorative arts and American culture by
The Index of American Design was one of the most significant undertakings of the Federal Art Project--the visual arts arm of the Works Progress Administration. Part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, this ambitious initiative set out to discover and document an authentic American style in everyday objects. The curators of the Index combed the country for art of the machine age--from carved carousel horses to engraved powder horns to woven coverlets--created by artisans for practical use. In their search for a true American artistic identity, they also sought furniture designed by regional craftsmen laboring in isolation from European traditions. Kentucky by Design offers the first comprehensive examination of the objects from the Bluegrass State featured in this historic venture. It showcases a wide array of offerings, including architecture, furniture, ceramics, musical instruments, textiles, clothing, and glass- and metalworks. The Federal Art Project played an important role in documenting and preserving the work of Shaker artists from the Pleasant Hill and South Union communities, and their creations are exhibited in this illuminating catalog. Beautifully illustrated with both the original watercolor depictions and contemporary, art-quality photographs of the works, this book is a lavish exploration of the Commonwealth's distinctive contribution to American culture and modern design. Features contributions from Jean M. Burks, Erika Doss, Jerrold Hirsch, Lauren Churilla, Larrie Currie, Michelle Ganz, Tommy Hines, Lee Kogan, Ron Pen, Janet Rae, Shelly Zegart, Mel Hankla, Philippe Chavance, Kate Hesseldenz, Madeleine Burnside, and Allan Weiss.
Self-Taught, Outsider and Folk Art: a guide to American artists, locations and resources by
Much has changed in the world of self-taught art since the millennium. Many of the recognized "masters" have died and new artists have emerged. Many galleries have closed but few new ones have opened, as artists and dealers increasingly sell through websites and social media. The growth and popularity of auction houses have altered the relationship between artists and collectors. In its third edition, this book provides updated information on artists, galleries, museums, auctions, organizations and publications for both experienced and aspiring collectors of self-taught, outsider and folk art. Gallery and museum entries are organized geographically and alphabetically by state and city.
Textile Art from Southern Appalachia: the quiet work of women by
Featuring 44 coverlets and 2 quilts made by hand weavers who lived in Western North Carolina, Eastern Kentucky, East Tennessee, and Southwest Virginia, this book presents a collection of coverlets along with histories of the weavers. It aims to stimulate appreciation for the artistic excellence and the tradition of mountain coverlet hand weaving.
Aestheticism in Art by
William Hogarth wrote his Analysis of Beauty in 1753, during the Age of Enlightenment. Through this captivating text, he tends to define the notion of beauty in painting and states that it is linked, per se, to the use of the serpentine lines in pictorial compositions. He calls it the line of beauty . His essay is thus dedicated to the study of the composition of paintings, depending on the correct use of the pictorial lines, light, colour, and the figure's attitudes. These timeless concepts have been applied by several artists through the centuries. Paintings from every period have here been chosen to support this demonstration. They allow us to explore the various manners in which beauty can be expressed in painting.
Art, Global Maoism and the Chinese Cultural Revolution by
This is the first book to explore the global influence of Maoism on modern and contemporary art. Featuring eighteen original essays written by established and emerging scholars from around the world, and illustrated with fascinating images not widely known in the west, the volume demonstrates the significance of visuality in understanding the protean nature of this powerful worldwide revolutionary movement. Contributions address regions as diverse as Singapore, Madrid, Lima and Maputo, moving beyond stereotypes and misconceptions of Mao Zedong Thought's influence on art to deliver a survey of the social and political contexts of this international phenomenon. At the same time, the book attends to the the similarities and differences between each case study. It demonstrates that the chameleonic appearances of global Maoism deserve a more prominent place in the art history of both the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Beyond Imperial Aesthetics : theories of art and politics in East Asia by 
Fantasies of Precision: American modern art, 1908-1947 by
Redefining the artistic movement that helped shape American modernism In the early decades of the twentieth century, a loose contingent of artists working in and around New York City gave rise to the aesthetic movement known as precisionism, primarily remembered for its exacting depictions of skyscrapers, factories, machine parts, and other symbols of a burgeoning modernity. Although often regarded as a singular group, these artists were remarkably varied in their subject matter and stylistic traits. Fantasies of Precision excavates the surprising ties that connected them, exploring notions of precision across philosophy, technology, medicine, and many other fields. Bookended by discussions of the landmark First Biennial Exhibition of Painting at the Whitney Museum in 1932, this study weaves together a series of interconnected chapters illuminating the careers of Charles Sheeler, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Charles Demuth. Built on a theoretical framework of the writing of modernist poets Marianne Moore and William Carlos Williams, Fantasies of Precision outlines an "ethos of precision" that runs through the diverse practices of these artists, articulating how the broad range of enigmatic imagery they produced was underpinned by shared strategies of restraint, humility, and slowness. Questioning straightforward modes of art historical classification, Ashley Lazevnick redefines the concept that designated the precisionist movement. Through its cross-disciplinary approach and unique blend of historiography and fantasy, Fantasies of Precision offers a comprehensive reevaluation of one of the defining movements of artistic modernism.
The Harlem Renaissance : an African American cultural movement by
The Harlem Renaissance was an exciting period in American history, and readers are placed in the middle of this vibrant African American cultural movement through engaging main text, annotated quotations from historical figures and scholars, and carefully selected primary sources. Eye-catching sidebars and a comprehensive timeline highlight important artists, writers, and works from the Harlem Renaissance to give readers a strong sense of this essential social studies curriculum topic. The influence of the Harlem Renaissance can still be seen in the cultural contributions of African Americans today, making this a topic that is sure to resonate with readers.
How Photography Became Contemporary Art by
A leading critic's inside story of "the photo boom" during the crucial decades of the 1970s and '80s "Grundberg . . . is a vibrant, opinionated, authoritative guide to the medium's past and present."--Jackie Wullschläger, Financial Times, "Best Books of 2021: Visual Arts" When Andy Grundberg landed in New York in the early 1970s as a budding writer, photography was at the margins of the contemporary art world. By 1991, when he left his post as critic for the New York Times, photography was at the vital center of artistic debate. Grundberg writes eloquently and authoritatively about photography's "boom years," chronicling the medium's increasing role within the most important art movements of the time, from Earth Art and Conceptual Art to performance and video. He also traces photography's embrace by museums and galleries, as well as its politicization in the culture wars of the 1980s and '90s. Grundberg reflects on the landmark exhibitions that defined the moment and his encounters with the work of leading photographers--many of whom he knew personally--including Gordon Matta-Clark, Cindy Sherman, and Robert Mapplethorpe. He navigates crucial themes such as photography's relationship to theory as well as feminism and artists of color. Part memoir and part history, this perspective by one of the period's leading critics ultimately tells a larger story about the crucial decades of the 1970s and '80s through the medium of photography.
Iconography beyond the crossroads : image, meaning, and method in Medieval art by
This volume assesses how current approaches to iconology and iconography break new ground in understanding the signification and reception of medieval images, both in their own time and in the modern world. Framed by critical essays that apply explicitly historiographical and sociopolitical perspectives to key moments in the evolution of the field, the volume's case studies focus on how iconographic meaning is shaped by factors such as medieval modes of dialectical thought, the problem of representing time, the movement of the viewer in space, the fragmentation and injury of both image and subject, and the complex strategy of comparing distant cultural paradigms. The contributions are linked by a commitment to understanding how medieval images made meaning; to highlighting the heuristic value of new perspectives and methods in exploring the work of the image in both the Middle Ages and our own time; and to recognizing how subtle entanglements between scholarship and society can provoke mutual and unexpected transformations in both. Collectively, the essays demonstrate the expansiveness, flexibility, and dynamism of iconographic studies as a scholarly field that is still heartily engaged in the challenge of its own remaking. Along with the volume editors, the contributors include Madeline H. Caviness, Beatrice Kitzinger, Aden Kumler, Christopher R. Lakey, Glenn Peers, Jennifer Purtle, and Elizabeth Sears.
Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture by
The life-like depiction of the body became a central interest and defining characteristic of the European Early Modern period that coincided with the establishment of which images of the body were to be considered 'decent' and representable, and which disapproved, censored, or prohibited. Simultaneously, artists and the public became increasingly interested in the depiction of specific body parts or excretions. This book explores the concept of indecency and its relation to the human body across drawings, prints, paintings, sculptures, and texts. The ten essays investigate questions raised by such objects about practices and social norms regarding the body, and they look at the particular function of those artworks within this discourse. The heterogeneous media, genres, and historical contexts north and south of the Alps studied by the authors demonstrate how the alleged indecency clashed with artistic intentions and challenges traditional paradigms of the historiography of Early Modern visual culture.
A little history of art by
"Why did our ancestors make art? What did art mean to them and what does their art mean for us today? Why is art even important at all? Charlotte Mullins brings art to life by focusing on those who made it, from teenage prodigies to nonagenarians. This little history introduces us to overlooked artists, busts a few art history myths, and celebrates global networks of art, from Japan and India to South America and the Middle East. Mullins shows us the first artworks ever made and early masterpieces such as the Terracotta Army and Nok sculptures. She tells the story of the Renaissance, from Giotto to Michelangelo, and introduces us to subsequent leading artists such as Artemisia Gentileschi, Rembrandt, and Hokusai. Through the turbulence of the twentieth century, we see artists group together and break apart and meet trailblazers including Kathe Kollwitz, Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, and Jacob Lawrence. More recently contemporary artists such as Ai Weiwei and Shirin Neshat create art as resistance as they address today's urgent issues. This extraordinary journey through 100,000 years celebrates art's crucial place in understanding our collective culture and history."-- Publisher's description.
Metaphorical materialism : art in New York in the late 1960s by
"In Metaphorical Materialism: Art in New York in the Late 1960s, Dominic Rahtz returns to a period when the materiality of art was thematized and theorized according to varying conceptions of matter and form, and consciously related to materialisms held as wider philosophical and political positions and attitudes. The book consists of a volume of essays on the relationships between materiality and materialism, informed by definitions of labour, process, corporeality, and language, in the work of Carl Andre, Robert Smithson, Richard Serra, Eva Hesse and Lawrence Weiner"-- Provided by publisher.
Modernism on the Nile : art in Egypt between the Islamic and the contemporary by
Analyzing the modernist art movement that arose in Cairo and Alexandria from the late nineteenth century through the 1960s, Alex Dika Seggerman reveals how the visual arts were part of a multifaceted transnational modernism. While the work of diverse, major Egyptian artists during this era may have appeared to be secular, she argues, it reflected the subtle but essential inflection of Islam, as a faith, history, and lived experience, in the overarching development of Middle Eastern modernity. Challenging typical views of modernism in art history as solely Euro-American, and expanding the conventional periodization of Islamic art history, Seggerman theorizes a "constellational modernism" for the emerging field of global modernism. Rather than seeing modernism in a generalized, hyperconnected network, she finds that art and artists circulated in distinct constellations that encompassed finite local and transnational relations. Such constellations, which could engage visual systems both along and beyond the Nile, from Los Angeles to Delhi, were materialized in visual culture that ranged from oil paintings and sculpture to photography and prints. Based on extensive research in Egypt, Europe, and the United States, this richly illustrated book poses a compelling argument for the importance of Muslim networks to global modernism.
Naive Art by
Naive art first became popular at the end of the 19th century. Until that time, this form of expression, created by untrained artists and characterised by spontaneity and simplicity, enjoyed little recognition from professional artists and art critics. Influenced by primitive arts, naive painting is distinguished by the fluidity of its lines, vivacity, and joyful colours, as well as by its rather clean-cut, simple shapes.Naive art counts among it artists: Henri Rousseau, Séraphine de Senlis, André Bauchant, and Camille Bombois. This movement has also found adherents abroad, including such prominent artists as Joan Miró, Guido Vedovato, Niko Pirosmani, and Ivan Generalic.
A New Antiquity: art and humanity as universal, 1400-1600 by
We tend to think of sixteenth-century European artistic theory as separate from the artworks displayed in the non-European sections of museums. Alessandra Russo argues otherwise. Instead of considering the European experience of "New World" artifacts and materials through the lenses of "curiosity" and "exoticism," Russo asks a different question: What impact have these works had on the way we currently think about--and theorize--the arts? Centering her study on a vast corpus of early modern textual and visual sources, Russo contends that the subtlety and inventiveness of the myriad of American, Asian, and African creations that were pillaged, exchanged, and often eventually destroyed in the context of Iberian colonization--including sculpture, painting, metalwork, mosaic, carving, architecture, and masonry--actually challenged and revolutionized sixteenth-century European definitions of what art is and what it means to be human. In this way, artifacts coming from outside Europe between 1400 and 1600 played a definitive role in what are considered distinctively European transformations: the redefinition of the frontier between the "mechanical" and the "liberal" arts and a new conception of the figure of the artist. Original and convincing, A New Antiquity is a pathbreaking study that disrupts existing conceptions of Renaissance art and early modern humanity. It will be required reading for art historians specializing in the Renaissance, scholars of Iberian and Latin American cultures and global studies, and anyone interested in anthropology and aesthetics.
Punk art history : artworks from the European no future generation by
The punk movement of the 1970s to early 1980s is examined as an art movement through archive research, interviews, and art historical analysis. It is about pop, pain, poetry, presence, and about a 'no future' generation refusing to be the next artworld avant-garde, instead choosing to be the 'rear-guard'. 103 col. and b/w illus. Author interview with Echoes & Dust.
Time, duration and change in contemporary art. Beyond the clock by
Time, Duration and Change in Contemporary Art presents a major study of time as a key aesthetic dimension of recent art practices. This book explores different aspects of time across a broad range of artistic media and draws on recent movements in philosophy, science, and technology to show how artists generate temporal experiences that resist the standardized time of modernity: Olafur Eliasson?s melting icebergs produce fragile temporal ecologies; Marina Abramovi??s performances test the durations of the human body; Christian Marclay?s The Clock conflates past and present chronologies. This book examines alternative frameworks of time, duration, and change in prominent philosophical, scientific, and technological traditions, including physics, psychology, phenomenology, neuroscience, media theory, and selected environmental sciences. It suggests that art makes a crucial contribution to these discourses not by?visualizing? time, but by entangling viewers in different sensory, material, and imaginary temporalities.
Transmodern: an art history of contact, 1920-60 by
How can we reconfigure our picture of modern art after the postcolonial turn without simply adding regional art histories to the Eurocentric canon? Transmodern examines the global dimension of modern art by tracing the crossroads of different modernisms in Asia, Europe and the Americas. Featuring case studies in Indian modernism, the Harlem Renaissance and post-war abstraction, it demonstrates the significance of transcultural contacts between artists from both sides of the colonial divide. The book argues for the need to study non-western avant-gardes and Black avant-gardes within the west as transmodern counter-currents to mainstream modernism. It situates transcultural art practices from the 1920s to the 1960s within the framework of anti-colonial movements and in relation to contemporary transcultural thinking that challenged colonial concepts of race and culture with notions of syncretism and hybridity.
Visual Vitriol : the street art and subcultures of the punk and hardcore generation by
Visual Vitriol: The Street Art and Subcultures of the Punk and Hardcore Generation is a vibrant, in-depth, and visually appealing history of punk, which reveals punk concert flyers as urban folk art. David Ensminger exposes the movement's deeply participatory street art, including flyers, stencils, and graffiti. This discovery leads him to an examination of the often-overlooked presence of African Americans, Latinos, women, and gays and lesbians who have widely impacted the worldviews and music of this subculture. Then Ensminger, the former editor of fanzine Left of the Dial, looks at how mainstream and punk media shape the public's outlook on the music's history and significance. Often derided as litter or a nuisance, punk posters have been called instant art, Xerox art, or DIY street art. For marginalized communities, they carve out spaces for resistance. Made by hand in a vernacular tradition, this art highlights deep-seated tendencies among musicians and fans. Instead of presenting punk as a predominately middle-class, white-male phenomenon, the book describes a convergence culture that mixes people, gender, and sexualities. This detailed account reveals how members conceptualize their attitudes, express their aesthetics, and talk to each other about complicated issues. Ensminger incorporates an important array of scholarship, ranging from sociology and feminism to musicology and folklore, in an accessible style. Grounded in fieldwork, Visual Vitriol includes over a dozen interviews completed over the last several years with some of the most recognized and important members of groups such as Minor Threat, The Minutemen, The Dils, Chelsea, Membranes, 999, Youth Brigade, Black Flag, Pere Ubu, the Descendents, the Buzzcocks, and others.
Women Artists of the Harlem Renaissance by
Women artists of the Harlem Renaissance dealt with issues that were unique to both their gender and their race. They experienced racial prejudice, which limited their ability to obtain training and to be taken seriously as working artists. They also encountered prevailing sexism, often an even more serious barrier. Including seventy-two black and white illustrations, this book chronicles the challenges of women artists, who are in some cases unknown to the general public, and places their achievements in the artistic and cultural context of early twentieth-century America. Contributors to this first book on the women artists of the Harlem Renaissance proclaim the legacy of Edmonia Lewis, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Augusta Savage, Selma Burke, Elizabeth Prophet, Lois Maillou Jones, Elizabeth Catlett, and many other painters, sculptors, and printmakers. In a time of more rigid gender roles, women artists faced the added struggle of raising families and attempting to gain support and encouragement from their often-reluctant spouses in order to pursue their art. They also confronted the challenge of convincing their fellow male artists that they, too, should be seen as important contributors to the artistic innovation of the era.
Women Art Workers and the Arts and Crafts Movement by
This book constitutes the first comprehensive history of the network of women who worked at the heart of the English Arts and Crafts movement from the 1870s to the 1930s. Challenging the long-standing assumption that the Arts and Crafts simply revolved around celebrated male designers like William Morris, it instead offers a new social and cultural account of the movement, which simultaneously reveals the breadth of the imprint of women art workers upon the making of modern society. Thomas provides unprecedented insight into how women navigated authoritative roles as 'art workers' by asserting expertise across a range of interconnected cultures: from the artistic to the professional, intellectual, entrepreneurial and domestic. Through examination of newly discovered institutional archives and private papers, Thomas elucidates the critical importance of the spaces around which women conceptualised alternative creative and professional lifestyles.
Art and Visibility in Migratory Culture by
This book explores the idea that art can enact small-scale resistances against the status quo in the social domain. These acts, which we call "little resistances," determine the limited yet potentially powerful political impact of art. From different angles, seventeen authors consider the spaces where art events occur as "political spaces," and explore how such spaces host events of disagreements in migratory culture. The newly coined word "migratory" refers to the sensate traces of the movements of migration that characterize contemporary culture. In other words, movement is not an exceptional occurrence in an otherwise stable world, but a normal, generalized process in a world that cannot be grasped in terms of any given notion of stability. Thus the book offers fresh reflections on art's power to move people, in the double sense of that verb, and shows how it helps to illuminate migratory culture's contributions to this process.
Art Was Their Weapon by
The politics, art, and culture of Perth's Workers Art Guild are detailed in this comprehensive history, as well as the personal and professional lives of some of the movement's key figures. The Workers' Art Guild was a left-leaning political force and influential cultural movement of the 1930s and 1940s in Perth. Police and intelligence arms kept close tabs on the Guild and its members, jailing some and intimidating many others prior to and during the period of the banning of the Communist Party in Australia. The book covers the personal and professional lives of key figures such as writer Katharine Susannah Prichard and theatre maverick Keith George, while charting the influence of the Communist Party on Western Australian artists.
A People's Art History of the United States by
Most people outside of the art world view art as something that is foreign to their experiences and everyday lives. A People’s Art History of the United States places art history squarely in the rough-and-tumble of politics, social struggles, and the fight for justice from the colonial era through the present day. Author and radical artist Nicolas Lampert combines historical sweep with detailed examinations of individual artists and works in a politically charged narrative that spans the conquest of the Americas, the American Revolution, slavery and abolition, western expansion, the suffragette movement and feminism, civil rights movements, environmental movements, LGBT movements, antiglobalization movements, contemporary antiwar movements, and beyond. A People’s Art History of the United States introduces us to key works of American radical art alongside dramatic retellings of the histories that inspired them. Stylishly illustrated with over two hundred images, this book is nothing less than an alternative education for anyone interested in the powerful role that art plays in our society.
Propaganda Art in the 21st Century by
How to understand propaganda art in the post-truth era--and how to create a new kind of emancipatory propaganda art. Propaganda art--whether a depiction of joyous workers in the style of socialist realism or a film directed by Steve Bannon--delivers a message. But, as Jonas Staal argues in this illuminating and timely book, propaganda does not merely make a political point; it aims to construct reality itself. Political regimes have shaped our world according to their interests and ideology; today, popular mass movements push back by constructing other worlds with their own propagandas. In Propaganda Art in the 21st Century, Staal offers an essential guide for understanding propaganda art in the post-truth era. Staal shows that propaganda is not a relic of a totalitarian past but occurs today even in liberal democracies. He considers different historical forms of propaganda art, from avant-garde to totalitarian and modernist, and he investigates the us versus them dichotomy promoted in War on Terror propaganda art--describing, among other things, a fictional scenario from the Department of Homeland Security, acted out in real time, and military training via videogame. He discusses artistic and cultural productions developed by such popular mass movements of the twenty-first century as the Occupy, activism by and in support of undocumented migrants and refugees, and struggles for liberation in such countries as Mali and Syria. Staal, both a scholar of propaganda and a self-described propaganda artist, proposes a new model of emancipatory propaganda art--one that acknowledges the relation between art and power and takes both an aesthetic and a political position in the practice of world-making.
Vanguardia: socially engaged art and theory by
The avant garde is dead, or so the story goes for many leftists and capitalists alike. But in an era of neoliberal austerity, neocolonial militarism and ecological crisis, this postmodern view seems increasingly outmoded. Rejecting 'end of ideology' post-politics, Vanguardia delves into the changing praxis of socially engaged art and theory in the age of the Capitalocene. Covering the major events of the last decade, from anti-globalisation protests, Occupy Wall Street, the Maple Spring, Strike Debt and the Anthropocene, to the Black Lives Matter and MeToo campaigns, Vanguardia puts forward a radical leftist commitment to the revolutionary consciousness of avant-garde art and politics.
Art and Social Movements: cultural politics in Mexico and Aztlán by
Art and Social Movements offers a comparative, cross-border analysis of the role of visual artists in three social movements from the late 1960s through the early 1990s: the 1968 student movement and related activist art collectives in Mexico City, a Zapotec indigenous struggle in Oaxaca, and the Chicano movement in California. Based on extensive archival research and interviews, Edward J. McCaughan explores how artists helped to shape the identities and visions of a generation of Mexican and Chicano activists by creating new visual discourses. McCaughan argues that the social power of activist artists emanates from their ability to provoke people to see, think, and act in innovative ways. Artists, he claims, help to create visual languages and spaces through which activists can imagine and perform new collective identities and forms of meaningful citizenship. The artists' work that he discusses remains vital today--in movements demanding fuller democratic rights and social justice for working people, women, ethnic communities, immigrants, and sexual minorities throughout Mexico and the United States. Integrating insights from scholarship on the cultural politics of representation with structural analyses of specific historical contexts, McCaughan expands our understanding of social movements.
It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful: how AIDS activists used art to fight a pandemic by
Shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas Prize The story of art collective Gran Fury--which fought back during the AIDS crisis through direct action and community-made propaganda--offers lessons in love and grief. In the late 1980s, the AIDS pandemic was annihilating queer people, intravenous drug users, and communities of color in America, and disinformation about the disease ran rampant. Out of the activist group ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), an art collective that called itself Gran Fury formed to campaign against corporate greed, government inaction, stigma, and public indifference to the epidemic. Writer Jack Lowery examines Gran Fury's art and activism from iconic images like the "Kissing Doesn't Kill" poster to the act of dropping piles of fake bills onto the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Lowery offers a complex, moving portrait of a collective and its members, who built essential solidarities with each other and whose lives evidenced the profound trauma of enduring the AIDS crisis. Gran Fury and ACT UP's strategies are still used frequently by the activists leading contemporary movements. In an era when structural violence and the devastation of COVID-19 continue to target the most vulnerable, this belief in the power of public art and action persists.
Marking Time: art in the age of mass incarceration by
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award A Smithsonian Book of the Year A New York Review of Books "Best of 2020" Selection A New York Times Best Art Book of the Year An Art Newspaper Book of the Year A powerful document of the inner lives and creative visions of men and women rendered invisible by America's prison system. More than two million people are currently behind bars in the United States. Incarceration not only separates the imprisoned from their families and communities; it also exposes them to shocking levels of deprivation and abuse and subjects them to the arbitrary cruelties of the criminal justice system. Yet, as Nicole Fleetwood reveals, America's prisons are filled with art. Despite the isolation and degradation they experience, the incarcerated are driven to assert their humanity in the face of a system that dehumanizes them. Based on interviews with currently and formerly incarcerated artists, prison visits, and the author's own family experiences with the penal system, Marking Time shows how the imprisoned turn ordinary objects into elaborate works of art. Working with meager supplies and in the harshest conditions--including solitary confinement--these artists find ways to resist the brutality and depravity that prisons engender. The impact of their art, Fleetwood observes, can be felt far beyond prison walls. Their bold works, many of which are being published for the first time in this volume, have opened new possibilities in American art. As the movement to transform the country's criminal justice system grows, art provides the imprisoned with a political voice. Their works testify to the economic and racial injustices that underpin American punishment and offer a new vision of freedom for the twenty-first century.
Gender Violence, Art, and the Viewer by
The works covered in college art history classes frequently depict violence against women. Traditional survey textbooks highlight the impressive formal qualities of artworks depicting rape, murder, and other violence but often fail to address the violent content and context. Gender Violence, Art, and the Viewer investigates the role that the art history field has played in the past and can play in the future in education around gender violence in the arts. It asks art historians, museum educators, curators, and students to consider how, in the time of #MeToo, a public reckoning with gender violence in art can revitalize the field of art history. Contributors to this timely volume amplify the voices and experiences of victims and survivors depicted throughout history, critically engage with sexually violent images, open meaningful and empowering discussions about visual assaults against women, reevaluate how we have viewed and narrated such works, and assess how we approach and teach famed works created by artists implicated in gender-based violence. Gender Violence, Art, and the Viewer includes contributions by the editors as well as Veronica Alvarez, Indira Bailey, Melia Belli Bose, Charlene Villaseñor Black, Ria Brodell, Megan Cifarelli, Monika Fabijanska, Vivien Green Fryd, Carmen Hermo, Bryan C. Keene, Natalie Madrigal, Lisa Rafanelli, Nicole Scalissi, Hallie Rose Scott, Theresa Sotto, and Angela Two Stars. It is sure to be of keen interest to art history scholars and students and anyone working at the intersections of art and social justice.
Taking Place: building histories of queer and feminist art in North America by
Taking place examines feminist and queer alternative art spaces across Canada and the United States from the late-1960s to the present. It looks at how queer and feminist artists working in the present day engage with, respond to and challenge the institutions they have inherited. Through a series of regional case studies, the book interrogates different understandings of 'alternative' space and the possibilities the term affords for queer and feminist artistic imaginaries.
Africa's Struggle for Its Art by
A major new history of how African nations, starting in the 1960s, sought to reclaim the art looted by Western colonial powers For decades, African nations have fought for the return of countless works of art stolen during the colonial era and placed in Western museums. In Africa's Struggle for Its Art, Bénédicte Savoy brings to light this largely unknown but deeply important history. One of the world's foremost experts on restitution and cultural heritage, Savoy investigates extensive, previously unpublished sources to reveal that the roots of the struggle extend much further back than prominent recent debates indicate, and that these efforts were covered up by myriad opponents. Shortly after 1960, when eighteen former colonies in Africa gained independence, a movement to pursue repatriation was spearheaded by African intellectual and political classes. Savoy looks at pivotal events, including the watershed speech delivered at the UN General Assembly by Zaire's president, Mobutu Sese Seko, which started the debate regarding restitution of colonial-era assets and resulted in the first UN resolution on the subject. She examines how German museums tried to withhold information about their inventory and how the British Parliament failed to pass a proposed amendment to the British Museum Act, which protected the country's collections. Savoy concludes in the mid-1980s, when African nations enacted the first laws focusing on the protection of their cultural heritage. Making the case for why restitution is essential to any future relationship between African countries and the West, Africa's Struggle for Its Art will shape conversations around these crucial issues for years to come.
The Opioid Epidemic and US Culture: expression, art, and politics in an age of addiction by
The Opioid Epidemic and US Culture brings a new set of perspectives to one of the most pressing contemporary topics in Appalachia and the nation as a whole. A project aimed both at challenging dehumanizing attitudes toward those caught in the opioid epidemic and at protesting the structural forces that have enabled it, this edited volume assembles a multidisciplinary community of scholars and practitioners to consider the ways that people have mobilized their creativity in response to the crisis. From the documentary The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia to the role of cough syrup in mumble rap, and from a queer Appalachian zine to protests against the Sackler family's art-world philanthropy, the essays here explore the intersections of expressive culture, addiction, and recovery. Written for an audience of people working on the front lines of the opioid crisis, the book is essential reading for social workers, addiction counselors, halfway house managers, and people with opioid use disorder. It will also appeal to the community of scholars interested in understanding how aesthetics shape our engagement with critical social issues, particularly in the fields of literary and film criticism, museum studies, and ethnomusicology.
Encounters Beyond the Gallery: relational aesthetics and cultural difference by
Encounters Beyond the Gallery challenges the terms of their exclusion, looking to relational art, Deleuze-Guattarean aesthetics and notions of perception, as well as anthropological theory for ways to create connections between seemingly disparate worlds. Embracing a unique and experimental format, the book imagines encounters between the art works and art worlds of Rirkrit Tiravanija, Tamil women, the Shipibo-Conibo of Eastern Peru and a fictional female contemporary artist named Rikki T, in order to rethink normative aesthetic and cultural categories. Its method reflects the message of the book, and embraces a plurality of voices and perspectives to steer critical attention towards the complexity of artistic life beyond the gallery.
Etching Our Own Image: voices from within the Arab-American art movement by
Etching Our Own Image: Voices From Within the Arab American Art Movement is a celebration of Arab American art and identity. In the wake of 9/11, the need for Arab Americans to define themselves, rather than be defined by others has galvanized an artistic movement. This collection of writers includes poets, musicians, playwrights, creative writers, painters, conceptual artists, comedians and scholars of the arts who have gathered to assert for themselves what it means to be Arab American a...
Self-representation in an expanded field : from self-portraiture to selfie, contemporary art in the social media age by
Defined as a self-image made with a hand-held mobile device and shared via social media platforms, the selfie has facilitated self-imaging, becoming a ubiquitous part of globally networked contemporary life. Beyond this, selfies have facilitated a diversity of image making practices and enabled otherwise representationally marginalized constituencies to insert self-representations into visual culture. In the Western European and North American art-historical context, self-portraiture has been somewhat rigidly albeit obliquely defined, and selfies have facilitated a shift regarding who literally holds the power to self-image. Like self-portraits, not all selfies are inherently aesthetically or conceptually rigorous or avant-garde. But--as this project aims to ... address via a variety of interdisciplinary approaches--selfies have irreversibly impacted visual culture, contemporary art, and portraiture in particular. Selfies propose new modes of self-imaging, [move] forward emerging aesthetics and challenge established methods; they prove that as scholars and image-makers it is necessary to adapt and innovate in order to contend with the most current form of self-representation to date.
Amazing Grace by
Described by those who knew him best as a Buddha, a Merlin, and "a cross between Brer Rabbit and St. Francis of Assisi," the artist Beauford Delaney was anything but ordinary. James Baldwin, his closest friend, wrote that "He has been starving and working all of his life--in Tennessee, in Boston, in New York, and now in Paris. He has been menaced more than any other man I know by his social circumstances and also by all the emotional and psychological stratagems he has been forced to use to survive; and, more than any other man I know, he has transcended both the inner and the outer darkness." Indeed, these themes--grinding poverty, excruciating psychological torment, and the transcendence of inner and outer darkness through the light of his art--give shape and drama to Beauford Delaney's most extraordinary life. In Amazing Grace: A Biography of Beauford Delaney David Leeming, author of the acclaimed life of James Baldwin, tells the story of one of the most important black artists of our time with an affection, tact, and insight all too rare in recent biography. In chronicling Delaney's remarkable trajectory from a strong religious family in Knoxville to his death in an Parisian insane asylum, Leeming maintains a dual focus on Delaney's troubled inner life--his complicated homosexuality and the "voices" that would drive him mad--and his vibrant external life--his friendships with an amazing range of writers, artists, and musicians. Delaney seems to have known everyone, from Henry Miller, Jean Genet, Countee Cullen, and Elizabeth Bishop to Al Hirshfield, W.C. Handy, Alfred Steiglitz, Georgia O'Keefe, Louis Armstrong, and virtually every other significant creative figure in New York and Paris. In many ways, Delaney's life focuses the major currents of twentieth century art. Leeming quotes generously from the journals, notebooks, letters, and critical reviews, tracing Delaney's movement away from representation--the street scenes and portraits of his "blues aesthetic"--into the abstract paintings where his dominant concern is with the "architecture" of color and a religious sense of light that "held the power to illuminate, even to redeem and reconcile and heal." Along the way, we're treated to a wealth of delightful anecdotes--Delaney in the manner of a Zen master telling James Baldwin to look at the water standing in a gutter; William de Kooning trying to tell Delaney how to market his work better and Delaney responding by rolling his eyes, patting de Kooning on the shoulder, and saying "Bless you, child"; Delaney immersed in the cafe life of Greenwich Village and Montparnasse, painting in his unheated studio in a parka and wool hat, giving away to friends and strangers what little money came to him. Amazing Grace illuminates both the work and milieu of a major black talent and gives us a portrait of a man spiritually devoted to his art, a man we would have very much liked to know and who, after closing the book, we feel we have known.
Andy Warhol by
In a work of great wisdom and insight, art critic and philosopher Danto delivers a compact, masterful tour of Andy Warhol's personal, artistic, and philosophical transformations.
Botticelli: artist and designer by
A revealing look at the commercial strategy and diverse output of this canonical Renaissance artist. In this vivid account, Ana Debenedetti reexamines the life and work of Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli through a novel lens: his business acumen. Focusing on the organization of Botticelli's workshop and the commercial strategies he devised to make his way in Florence's very competitive art market, Debenedetti looks with fresh eyes at the remarkable career and output of this pivotal artist within the wider context of Florentine society and culture. Uniquely, Debenedetti evaluates Botticelli's celebrated works, like The Birth of Venus, alongside less familiar forms such as tapestry and embroidery, showing the breadth of the artist's oeuvre and his talent as a designer across media.
Caravaggio by
After staying in Milan for his apprenticeship, Michelangelo da Caravaggio arrived in Rome in 1592. There he started to paint with both realism and psychological analysis of the sitters. Caravaggio was as temperamental in his painting as in his wild life. As he also responded to prestigious Church commissions, his dramatic style and his realism were seen as unacceptable. Chiaroscuro had existed well before he came on the scene, but it was Caravaggio who made the technique definitive, darkening the shadows and transfixing the subject in a blinding shaft of light. His influence was immense, firstly through those who were more or less directly his disciples. Famous during his lifetime, Caravaggio had a great influence upon Baroque art. The Genoese and Neapolitan Schools derived lessons from him, and the great movement of Spanish painting in the seventeenth century was connected with these schools. In the following generations the best endowed painters oscillated between the lessons of Caravaggio and the Carracci.
Cezanne by
Paul Cézanne, a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter, was an important catalyst to the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavor to the modern and radically different world of art that emerged full bore in the 20th century. Cézanne successfully melded the structural impulse of Classicism with the color and emotion of Romanticism, inspiring the generations of artists who followed him to see and portray the world in a more abstract manner. Unusual for an artist, Cézanne rotated his attention relatively equally throughout his career among portrait painting, figure painting, still lifes, and landscapes. As with all things, Cézanne adopted his own approach to painting a still life. Many of his still lifes contain optical contradictions and distortions. The landscapes of Cézanne emphasize the structure and form of nature and its elements' relationships in space, while de-emphasizing the more minor details of the scene. Not until the end of his life and career--just 10 years before his death in 1906--did Cézanne gain the recognition he enjoys today as a truly talented and cutting-edge man of the arts. When Cézanne was finally embraced by the public and the art critics, many younger artists traveled to Aix-en-Provence in the south of France to observe Cézanne at work. Cézanne's advice to his young admirers was to engage in their own artistic endeavor and to find their unique style rather than to replicate his.
Claude Monet by
For Monet, the act of creation was always a painful struggle. His obsession to express emotions and to transmit light effects over nature was much more intense than his contemporaries. In his words: "Skills come and go... Art is always the same: a transposition of Nature that requests as much will as sensitivity. I strive and struggle against the sun...should as well paint with gold and precious stones."
Degas by
Edgar Degas began as a classical painter of genre history scenes and died as one of the greatest and most innovative names in French art--although as with so many other artists, he did not receive a great deal of recognition in his lifetime. Along the way his style changed completely from strict academic formalism to near-abstract scenes of contemporary Parisian life. His primary subject was the human form, especially that of women, and he also loved the vibrancy of horse racing. Degas is usually labeled an Impressionist because he was friendly with many of the Impressionist painters and was a founder of the Impressionist movement, but he actually rejected the characterization and referred to his style as "realism." Unlike the Impressionists, he painted only in a studio, forsaking the Impressionists' embrace of painting en plein air. Degas first went to the Paris Opera to see the ballet when he was over 40 years old, and for the next 30 years made the dancers his principal subjects and grand obsession. He is particularly remembered for his paintings of young ballet dancers. He rarely shows the public performance of the dance, instead depicting rehearsals, dance classes, costume fittings, and the long waits between dancing. His main intrigue and desire was to show the strain behind the perfection.
Diego Rivera by
« Je connaissais Diego Rivera, le muraliste mexicain, bien avant de découvrir les nombreux autres « Diego Rivera » qui hantèrent le monde du début du XXe siècle à la fin des années 1950. [...] Si ses peintures de chevalet et ses dessins forment une grande part de ses oeuvres de jeunesse comme de la maturité, ses peintures murales uniques font exploser les murs par la virtuosité de leur composition époustouflante. Sur ces murs s'exposent tout à la fois l'homme, sa légende et ses mythes, son talent technique, son intensité narrative et les convictions idéologiques qu'il aimait afficher. » (Gerry Souter) Dépassant son admiration, Gerry Souter, auteur du remarquable Frida Kahlo, n'hésite pas à ramener Diego Rivera à une dimension humaine, en constatant ses choix politiques, ses amours, et « qu'au fond de lui bouillonnait le Mexique, langue de ses pensées, sang de ses veines, azur du ciel au-dessus de sa tombe. »
Edward Hopper: an intimate biography by
New York Times Notable Book Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist Wall Street Journal--One of Five Best Artist Biographies Edward Hopper's canvasses are filled with stripped-down spaces and unrelenting light, evocative landscapes, and the lonely aspects of men and women seemingly isolated in their surroundings. What kind of man had this haunting vision, and what kind of life engendered this art? No one is better qualified to answer these questions than art historian Gail Levin, author and curator of the major studies and exhibitions of Hopper's work. In this intimate biography she reveals the true nature and personality of the man himself--and of the woman who shared his life, the artist Josephine Nivison.
Frida Kahlo by
Behind Frida Kahlo's portraits, lies the story of both her life and work. It is precisely this combination that draws the reader in. Frida's work is a record of her life, and rarely can we learn so much about an artist from what she records inside the picture frame. Frida Kahlo truly is Mexico's gift to the history of art. She was just eighteen years old when a terrible bus accident changed her life forever, leaving her handicapped and burdened with constant physical pain. But her explosive character, raw determination and hard work helped to shape her artistic talent. And although he was an obsessive womanizer, the great painter Diego Rivera was by her side. She won him over with her charm, talent and intelligence, and Kahlo learnt to lean on the success of her companion in order to explore the world, thus creating her own legacy whilst finding herself surrounded by a close-knit group of friends. Her personal life was turbulent, as she frequently left her relationship with Diego to one side whilst she cultivated her own bisexual relationships. Despite this, Frida and Diego managed to save their frayed relationship. The story and the paintings that Frida left us display a courageous account of a woman constantly on a search of self discovery.
Georgia O'Keeffe A Life by
One of the greatest and most admired artists of the twentieth century, Georgia O'Keeffe led a life rich in intense relationships--with family, friends, and especially with fellow artist Alfred Stieglitz. Her extraordinary accomplishments, such as the often eroticized flowers, bones, stones, skulls, and pelvises she painted with such command, are all the more remarkable when seen in the context of the struggle she waged between the rigorous demands of love and work. When Roxana Robinson's definitive biography of O'Keeffe was first published in 1989, it received rave reviews and was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. 0This new edition features a new foreword by the author setting O'Keefe in an artistic context over the last thirty years since the book was first published, as well as previously unpublished letters of the young O'Keeffe to her lover, Arthur MacMahon. It also relates the story of Robinson's own encounter with the artist. As interest in O'Keeffe continues to grow among museum-goers and scholars alike, this book remains indispensable for understanding her life and art.
Giacometti by
Giacometti One 1901-1922 1 The Bregaglia Valley lies deep in a cleft of southeastern Switzerland. A meeting place between north and south, a place much traveled through since Roman days, it has nevertheless retained a character all its own. A telling evidence of this is the religion of Bregaglia''s inhabitants, sternly Protestant amid surrounding Catholics. From the foot of the Maloja Pass the valley slopes steeply downward to the Italian frontier at Castasegna, a distance of twelve miles. It is a region of precipitous slopes, jagged peaks, icy streams, high meadows, and simple villages. Beautiful but austere. Before winter''s snows first fall to the valley floor, the sun leaves it. From early November till mid-February, the sheer mountain walls cut off all sunlight, and the coldest time of day or night is high noon, when fiercest cold is driven down to the frost-encrusted depths. "It''s a sort of purgatory," Diego sometimes said. However that may be, it was there that everything began for the sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti. It was there that circumstances led him to become an artist, there that they assumed their fullest meaning, there that the allegory of his life pointed its most profound and valuable moral. Life in Bregaglia was hard in the years before electricity and automobiles. Amenities were few, pleasures rare. The local men frequently left home to seek their fortune in less trying climates. If they often went away, they usually came back sooner or later, either for good or for regular visits. Austere and rigorous as it may be, and perhaps for that very reason, there is something about the valley which attaches itself to men''s hearts and so dwells in their mind''s eye that other places seem insipid by comparison. Therefore, it was not unnatural, after a stay in Warsaw and another inBergamo, that a young fellow named Alberto Giacometti returned about 1860 to the small Bregaglia village of Stampa. And there, on the 15th of November 1863, he married a girl named Ottilia Santi. The Giacometti family had by then been a long time in the valley, having come originally from somewhere in central Italy, where the name is a common one. Prosperity, however, had so far eluded the Giacomettis. The Santis, on the other hand, were people of substance. Ottilia brought with her in marriage the prospect of material as well as emotional security. Among other things, her family owned the inn at Stampa, named after a ten-thousand-foot peak which dominates the northern side of the valley: the Piz Duan. Ottilia''s husband became the innkeeper. Whatever may have been his ability in other respects, Giacometti was a potent husband. He fathered eight children, of whom seven were males. The third of these, a son, born on March 7, 1868, was named Giovanni. He grew up to be a gentle, pensive boy and early showed an interest in drawing. While at school, he came to feel that he would like to be an artist. The innkeeper encouraged his son in this ambition, helped him with money when possible, and sent him to study in Paris. Giovanni Giacometti was a man of medium height, robust, with red hair and beard, and blue eyes. Gentle, sensitive, sincere, he liked other people and was liked by them. His work resembles him. Neither adventuresome nor innovative, yet it shows spirit and imagination. His paintings are still pleasing today because he looked with incorruptible pleasure at life, and they have a certain nobility because he had. The start of his career was beset by difficulty and hardship. His father helped occasionally if he could, but there were days when Giovanni went hungry. Having finished his studies in Paris, he went to Italy and stayed some time in a town on the Bay of Naples not far from Pompeii. This was the most painful period of his life, and in later years he spoke of it often. But he returned periodically to Bregaglia. Early in 1900, he suffered a profoundly troubling bereavement. His father died. The innkeeper who had understood and sustained the artistic aspirations of his son did not live to see them fulfilled, and this must have been a further causeof distress to Giovanni. If so, it may not be coincidence that in the year of his father''s death he made up his mind at the age of thirty-two to marry. Annetta Stampa was not beautiful! She was handsome. The distinction already says something important about this forceful, extraordinary woman. She was about the same height as her husband, physically vigorous, with a prominent nose, dark eyes, and black, wiry hair. In her bearing there was something commanding, though at the same time outgoing and warm. Throughout her life, which proved to be an exceptionally long one, she made a powerful impression on others, and most of all on the members of her own family. The Stampas were people of means. They owned houses and land. Thus, like his father, Giovanni Giacometti married a woman who was able to better his condition in life. An excellent cook, fastidious housekeeper, and vigilant holder of purse strings, she assured the family''s well-being and comfort during the years before Giovanni''s paintings began to sell. She was a woman of indomitable resolve and principle, went to church regularly, and held a stern view of propriety. Yet she was not provincial or narrow-minded. She read the newspapers and her house was well supplied with books. She loved talk, especially a good argument, and had a ready sense of humor. Knowing what she thought about most things, including art, she never hesitated to speak her mind. Borgonovo, "the new village," lies along a gentle slope about a mile up the valley from Stampa. Annetta had been born there. Her parents lived there, and it was there in the Church of San Giorgio, where his father''s funeral had taken place only eight months before, that Giovanni Giacometti was married to Annetta Stampa on the 4th of October 1900. And it was in Borgonovo that the newly married couple first settled. They rented an apartment on the second floor of a plain three-story house in the center of the village. Giovanni may have been a mild-mannered, temperate, and unassuming man, but, like his father, he proved to be a potent husband. Three months after their wedding his wife became pregnant, and at one o''clock in the morning on the 10th of October 1901 theirfirst child, a son, was born. The happy parents named him Giovanni Alberto Giacometti. Because his father''s name was also Giovanni, the child was never called anything but Alberto by his parents or by anyone else, and the name certainly suited him, for it means illustrious through nobility. In time, everyone, and even he, may have forgotten that Alberto''s first name was Giovanni, but the fact--and its significance--remained. The first few months of the infant''s life were those during which the valley lies in the shadow. It was not long before an event occurred in the lives of the parents and their child which may have affected decisively his way of looking at the world, and also--because he happened to be a genius--our way of looking at it. Copyright © 1983, 1985 by James Lord
Goya by
Goya ist einer der zugänglichsten Maler. Seine Kunst ist wie sein Leben ein offenes Buch und es ist nicht die Kunst einer idealen, sondern einer garstigen und unheimlichen Welt. Er kam als Sohn eines Vergolders in einem kleinen Bergdorf mit hundert Einwohnern zur Welt. Als Kind arbeitete er zusammen mit seinen Geschwistern auf dem Feld, bis sein Zeichentalent entdeckt wurde. Dank der Vermittlung eines Gönners kam er als 14-Jähriger zu einem Hofmaler in Saragossa in die Lehre und zog als 19-Jähriger nach Madrid. Abgesehen von wunderbar dekorativen Kartons für die Gobelinmanufaktur und fünf kleinen Bildern malte Goya bis zu seinem 37. Jahr nichts Bedeutendes, doch nach seiner Bestellung zum Hofmaler entfaltet er eine Produktivität, die der von Rubens nicht nachsteht. Es folgt ein zeitweise von Krankheit getrübtes Jahrzehnt unglaublichen Schaffens und der Skandale. In seinen Radierungen zeigt er sich als herausragender Zeichenkünstler. In seiner Malerei ist er stark von Velásquez beeinflusst und wie dieser von seinem Modell abhängig, wobei er sich einer rücksichtslosen Wirklichkeitstreue befleißigt, die gelegentlich auch in die Karikatur umschlägt. Hässlichkeit wird genau so dramatisiert wie Liebreiz und Schönheit. Seine Grafikzyklen, die Kaprizen und die Kapriolen sind aufs Sorgfältigste durchdacht und psychologische Meisterwerke. Seine "fantastischen Figuren" erfüllen uns mit einer hämischen Freude, regen unsere diabolischen Instinkte an und lassen uns erschauern. Am deutlichsten offenbar wird sein Genie in seinen Radierungen über die Schrecken des Krieges. Neben diesen Darstellungen wirkt jedes andere Kriegsbild blass und sentimental. Er konzentriert sich auf vereinzelte Szenen der Grausamkeit. Nirgendwo sonst zeigt er eine solche Beherrschung von Form und Bewegung, so dramatische Gesten und eine so gekonnte Wirkung von Licht und Dunkel wie in diesem Aufbegehren gegen die Gewalt. Doch malte er auch volksnahe Vergnügungen sowie Portraits. Vergessen wir nicht, dass dieser außerordentlich vielseitige Künstler auch das schönste spanische Aktbild, die Nackte Maja, schuf.
Gustav Klimt by
Gustav Klimt nasceu na Áustria em 1862 e passou a sua vida profissional em Viena, cidade cujo caos artístico era um local extraordinário para viver. No início da sua carreira recebeu uma comissão para pintar uma série de frescos, e recebeu o prémio "Cruz de Ouro para Mérito Artístico" pelos seus murais em Burgtheater. O seu nome contudo está mais ligado à Secessão Vienense. Este movimento revolucionário separou-se definitivamente do público, da arte académica.A atmosfera de Nuda Veritas de Klimt pode ser associada à lenta languidez das óperas de Strauss ou às produções teatrais de Schnitzler. As suas pinturas, assim como alguns dos seus desenhos que escaparam ao fogo, demonstram uma sensualidade de rara delicadeza. Para Klimt "Toda a arte é erótica", quer seja expressa pela extravagante decoração Bizantina da sua obra Judith I, ou através da simples nudez.
Henri Matisse by
Henri Matisse's experiments with form and color revolutionized the twentieth-century art world. In this concise critical biography, Kathryn Brown explores Matisse's long career, beginning with his struggles as a student in Paris and culminating in his celebrated use of paper cutouts and stained glass in the last decade of his life. The book challenges various myths about Matisse and offers a fresh perspective on his creativity and legacy. Chapters explore the artist's enthusiasm for fashion and cinema, his travels, personal ties, interest in African art, love of literature, and willingness to challenge audience expectations. Through close readings of Matisse's works, Brown offers new insight into the artist's friendships and battles with dealers, critics, collectors, and fellow artists.
Jackson Pollock by
Born in 1912, in a small town in Wyoming, Jackson Pollock embodied the American dream as the country found itself confronted with the realities of a modern era replacing the fading nineteenth century. Pollock left home in search of fame and fortune in New York City. Thanks to the Federal Art Project, he quickly won acclaim, and after the Second World War became the biggest art celebrity in America. For De Kooning, Pollock was the ""icebreaker."" For Max Ernst and Masson, Pollock was a fellow member of the European surrealist movement. And for Motherwell, Pollock was a legitimate candidate for the status of the Master of the American School. During the many upheavals in his life in New York in the 1950s and 60s, Pollock lost his bearings--success had simply come too fast and too easily. It was during this period that he turned to alcohol and disintegrated his marriage to Lee Krasner. His life ended, like that of 50's film icon James Dean, behind the wheel of his Oldsmobile, after a night of drinking. This book throws light on a new era in art and on the personality of Pollock, the undisputed master of Abstract American Expressionism.
Jan Van Eyck Within His Art by
A new assessment of the inventive and influential artist Jan van Eyck. Jan van Eyck (1390-1441) was one of the most inventive and influential artists in the entire European tradition. The realism of his paintings continues to astound observers more than six centuries on, even though our world is saturated by high-resolution images. However, viewers today are as like to be absorbed by Van Eyck's personality as his realism. While he sometimes directly painted himself into his works, he also suggested his presence through an array of inscriptions, signatures, and even a personal motto. Incorporating a wealth of new research and recent discoveries within a fresh exploration of the paintings themselves, this book reveals how profoundly Jan van Eyck transformed the very idea of what an artist could be.
John Singer Sargent by
Painter of languid, elegant, Edwardian beauties and sharply dressed gentlemen, John Singer Sargent was the ultimate society painter. He knew everyone who was anyone and was on personal terms with many of them, including Edward VII and the U.S. presidents Roosevelt and Wilson. This social standing was justified. Sargent was one of the greatest portrait painters ever, able to convey the personality and style of his sitters--comparable to the great Velázquez himself, of whom he was a great admirer. Sargent was born in Florence, Italy, in early January 1856 while his American parents were on an extended European tour that turned into a lifetime of travel. Sargent would continue the traveling tradition that he was born into for the whole of his life. Sargent never married and never had children, but his much younger sister, Violet, was a frequent subject of his paintings, watercolors, and sketches. From 1897 to 1907, Sargent was in great demand as a portraitist, on both sides of the Atlantic. By 1907, however, he had wearied of the portrait and turned his attention to landscapes, primarily done as watercolors. In 1918, during WWI, Sargent traveled to the Western Front in France. What he witnessed there would inspire his next major work, Gassed, which currently hangs in the Imperial War Museums in London. Sargent had a rare wide-ranging talent and pursued it agressively.
Keith Haring's Line by
In the thirty years since his death, Keith Haring--a central presence on the New York downtown scene of the 1980s--has remained one of the most popular figures in contemporary American art. In one of the first book-length treatments of Haring's artistry, Ricardo Montez traces the drawn and painted line that was at the center of Haring's artistic practice and with which the artist marked canvases, subway walls, and even human flesh. Keith Haring's Line unites performance studies, critical race studies, and queer theory in an exploration of cross-racial desire in Haring's life and art. Examining Haring's engagements with artists such as dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones, graffiti artist LA II, and iconic superstar Grace Jones, Montez confronts Haring's messy relationships to race-making and racial imaginaries, highlighting scenes of complicity in order to trouble both the positive connotations of inter-racial artistic collaboration and the limited framework of appropriation.
Leonardo Da Vinci by
"War Leonardos deutliche Berufung zur wissenschaftlichen Forschung eine Hilfe oder ein Hindernis für seine Arbeit als Künstler? Er wird gewöhnlich als ein Beispiel für die Möglichkeit eines Bündnisses von Kunst und Wissenschaft angeführt. In ihm, so heißt es zumeist, erhielt das schöpferische Genie durch die analytische Fähigkeit zusätzlichen Antrieb; der Verstand verstärkte die Vorstellungskraft und die Gefühle. [...]Leonardo war ein tiefgründiger Gelehrter und unvergleichlicher Schöpfer und ist der einzige Mensch in unserer Geschichte, der in die geheimnisvollsten Verstecke der Wahrheit eingedrungen ist und gleichzeitig Visionen der strahlendsten Schönheit heraufbeschworen hat, der die Wissenschaft des Aristoteles mit der Kunst des Phidias verbunden hat.""Dadurch, dass er die Natur und alle für ihre vollkommene Wiedergabe wichtigen Wissenschaften - Anatomie, Perspektive, Physiognomie - leidenschaftlich studierte und klassische Modelle konsultierte, sich gleichzeitig allerdings die für ihn typische Unabhängigkeit bewahrte, konnte er bei der Kombination von Präzision mit Freiheit und von Wahrheit mit Schönheit nicht fehl gehen. Die raison d'être und der Ruhm des Meisters beruhen auf dieser endgültigen Emanzipation, dieser perfekten Meisterschaft der Modellierung, der Lichtgebung und des Ausdrucks, dieser Weite und Freiheit. Auch andere mögen neue Wege gebahnt haben, aber niemand reiste weiter oder stieg höher als er."
The Life and Masterworks of Salvador Dalí by
Painter, designer, creator of bizarre objects, author and film maker, Dalí became the most famous of the Surrealists. Buñuel, Lorca, Picasso and Breton all had a great influence on his career. Dalí's film, An Andalusian Dog, produced with Buñuel, marked his official entry into the tightly-knit group of Parisian Surrealists, where he met Gala, the woman who became his lifelong companion and his source of inspiration. But his relationship soon deteriorated until his final rift with André Breton in 1939. Nevertheless Dalí's art remained surrealist in its philosophy and expression and a prime example of his freshness, humour and exploration of the subconscious mind. Throughout his life, Dalí was a genius at self-promotion, creating and maintaining his reputation as a mythical figure.
Marcel Duchamp by 
Mary Cassatt by
One of the few women Impressionists, Mary Cassatt (1844-19226) had a life of paradoxes: American born, she lived and workeed in France, a clasically trained artist, she preferred thecompany of radicals; never married, she painted exquisite and beloved portraits of mothers and children. This book provides new insight into the personal life and artistic endeavors of this extraordinary woman.
Michelangelo by
Michel-Ange (Michelangelo Buonarroti) (Caprese, 1475 - Rome, 1564). Michel-Ange, comme Léonard de Vinci, avait plusieurs cordes à son arc et était à la fois sculpteur, architecte, peintre et poète. Il porta à leur apothéose le mouvement musculaire et l'effort, équivalents plastiques de la passion, à ses yeux. Il façonna son dessin, le poussant jusqu'aux limites extrêmes des possibilités de son âme tourmentée. Il n'y a aucun paysage dans la peinture de Michel-Ange. Toutes les émotions, toutes les passions, toutes les pensées de l'humanité furent personnifiées dans les corps nus des hommes et des femmes. Il ne les conçut presque jamais dans l'immobilité ou le repos.Michel-Ange devint peintre pour exprimer à travers un matériau plus malléable ce qui animait sa nature titanesque, ce que son imagination de sculpteur voyait, mais que la sculpture lui refusait. Ainsi cet admirable sculpteur devint le réateur des décorations les plus lyriques et les plus épiques jamais vues dans l'histoire de la peinture : les fresques de la chapelle Sixtine au Vatican. La profusion des inventions disséminées sur cette vaste surface est merveilleuse. Ce sont en tout 343 personnages principaux qui sont représentés avec une variété d'expressions prodigieuse, plusieurs de taille colossale, à côté de figures plus secondaires introduites pour leur effet décoratif. Le créateur de ce vaste plan n'avait que trente-quatre ans lorsqu'il s'attela au projet.Michel-Ange nous oblige à élargir notre conception du beau. Pour les Grecs, le critère était la beauté physique, mais Michel-Ange, sauf dans quelques exceptions, comme sa peinture d'Adam sur le plafond de la chapelle Sixtine, et ses sculptures de la Pietà, ne prêtait que peu d'attention à la beauté. Bien que maîtrisant parfaitement l'anatomie et les lois de la composition, il osait les ignorer toutes deux, si nécessaire, afin de suivre son idée : exagérer les muscles de ses personnages, et même les placer dans des positions inappropriées au corps humain. Dans son ultime fresque, celle du Jugement dernier sur le mur de l'autel de la chapelle, il laissa se déverser le torrent de son âme. Qu'étaient les règles en comparaison d'une souffrance intérieure qui devait s'épancher ? C'est à juste titre que les Italiens de son temps parlaient de la terribilità de son style. Michel-Ange fut le premier à donner à la forme humaine la possibilité d'exprimer toute une variété d'émotions psychiques. Dans ses mains, elle devint un instrument duquel il jouait, comme un musicien sur son orgue, en tirant des thèmes et des harmonies d'une diversité infinie. Ses personnages transportent notre imagination bien au-delà de la signification personnelle des noms qui leur sont attachés.
Munch by
Edvard Munch (1863-1944), a Norwegian painter involved in Expressionism, was so attached to his work that he called his paintings his children, which is rather unsurprising given that they were deeply personal. Indeed, Munch expressed much of his own inner turmoil through his art, particularly in the earlier part of his career. He painted not what he saw, but what he felt when he saw it, allowing his morbidity and illness to imbue his paintings with a sombre tone. These darker paintings, including his famous The Scream, endured and would greatly influence German Expressionism.
Norman Rockwell by 
Picasso by
Picasso era español y por eso, según dicen, comenzó a dibujar antes que a hablar. Cuando niño, se sintió atraído de manera instintiva hacia las herramientas del artista. En sus primeros años pasaba horas en feliz concentración dibujando espirales con un sentido y un significado que sólo él conocía. Otras veces dejaba de lado sus juegos infantiles para trazar sus primeras imágenes en la arena. Tan temprana expresión artística encerraba la promesa de un raro don. No hay que olvidar hacer mención de Málaga, pues fue ahí donde, el 25 de octubre de 1881, nació Pablo Ruiz Picasso, y fue ahí donde pasó los primeros diez años de su vida. El padre de Picasso era pintor y profesor en la Escuela de Bellas Artes y Oficios. Picasso aprendió de él los rudimentos del entrenamiento académico formal en arte. Luego fue a estudiar a la Academia de las Artes en Madrid, pero no se graduó. Antes de cumplir los dieciocho años había llegado al punto de mayor rebeldía; repudió la estética anémica de la academia junto con la prosa pedestre del realismo y, naturalmente, se unió a aquellos artistas y escritores que se llamaban a sí mismos modernistas, a los inconformistas, aquellos a los que Sabartés llamó "la élite del pensamiento catalán" y que se habían agrupado en torno al café de artistas Els Quatre Gats. Durante 1899 y 1900 los únicos temas que Picasso consideró meritorios fueron aquellos que reflejaban la "verdad final", la fugacidad de la vida humana y la inevitabilidad de la muerte. Sus primeras obras, agrupadas bajo el nombre de "Periodo Azul" (1901-1904), consisten en pinturas con matices azulados y fueron el resultado de la influencia de un viaje que realizó por España y de la muerte de su amigo Casagemas. Aunque Picasso mismo insistió varias veces en la naturaleza subjetiva e interna de su Periodo Azul, su génesis y, en especial, el azul monocromático se explicaron durante muchos años como el simple resultado de varias influencias estéticas. Entre 1905 y 1907, Picasso inició un nuevo periodo, conocido como el "Periodo Rosa", que se caracterizó por un estilo más alegre con colores rosados y anaranjados. En Gosol, en el verano de 1906, la forma del desnudo femenino asumió una importancia extraordinaria para Picasso; identificó una desnudez despersonalizada, original y simple con el concepto de "mujer". La importancia que los desnudos femeninos tendrían para Picasso en cuanto a temática durante los siguientes meses (en el invierno y la primavera de 1907) se hizo patente cuando creó la composición de una pintura grande titulada Las señoritas de Aviñón. De la misma manera que el arte africano se considera como el factor que llevó al desarrollo de la estética clásica de Picasso en 1907, las lecciones de Cézanne se perciben como la piedra angular de este nuevo avance. Esto se relaciona, en primer lugar, con la concepción espacial del lienzo como una entidad compuesta, sujeta a un determinado sistema de construcción. Georges Braque, a quien Picasso conoció en el otoño de 1908 y con quien encabezó el movimiento cubista durante los seis años de su apogeo, quedó asombrado por la semejanza que los experimentos pictóricos de Picasso guardaban con los suyos. En cierto momento, explicó: "La dirección principal del cubismo era la materialización del espacio". Después de su periodo cubista, en la década de 1920, Picasso volvió a un estilo artístico más figurativo y se acercó más al movimiento surrealista. Representó cuerpos monstruosos y distorsionados, pero en un estilo muy personal. Después del bombardeo de Guernica en 1937, Picasso creó una de sus obras más famosas, que se convirtió en símbolo crudo de los horrores de esa guerra y, de hecho, de todas las guerras. En la década de 1960, su estilo artístico cambió de nuevo y Picasso comenzó a volver la mirada al arte de los grandes maestros y a basar sus pinturas en la obra de Velázquez, Poussin, Goya, Manet, Courbet y Delacroix. Los últimos trabajos de Picasso fueron una mezcla de estilos que dio lugar a una obra más colorida, expresiva y optimista. Picasso murió en 1973, en su villa de Mougins. El simbolista ruso Georgy Chulkov escribió: "La muerte de Picasso es una tragedia. Sin embargo, aquellos que creen que pueden imitar a Picasso y aprender de él son ciegos e inocentes. ¿Aprender qué? Estas formas no tienen una contraparte emocional fuera del infierno, pero estar en el infierno significa anticipar la muerte. Los cubistas difícilmente cuentan con un conocimiento tan ilimitado".
Piet Mondrian by
Pioneer and leader of the abstract art movement, Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) was known for his straight lines and pure colours. Fascinated by the mathematical laws of the universe, this Dutch artist nourished his work with his scientific discoveries and created a new abstract language alongside his allies Wassily Kandinsky and Fernand Léger. As his investigations advanced, his works purified and intensified to the rhythm of the travels and encounters that he enjoyed. Recognised during his lifetime as the founder of an avant-garde movement, he propagated his knowledge and his artistic vision to illustrious architects and stylists and still today remains a cherished source of inspiration
Radiant Child: the story of young artist Jean-Michel Basquiat by
Somewhere in Brooklyn, a little boy dreams of being a famous artist, not knowing that one day he would make himself a king. Jean-Michel Basquiat and his unique, collage-style paintings rocketed to fame in the 1980s as a cultural phenomenon unlike anything the art world had ever seen. However, before that, he was a little boy who saw art everywhere: in poetry books and museums, in games, in the words that we speak and in the pulsing energy of New York City. Now, award-winning illustrator Javaka Steptoe's vivid text and bold artwork echoing Basquiat's own style introduces young readers to the powerful message that art doesn't always have to be neat or clean - and definitely not inside the lines - to be beautiful.
Rembrandt by
Ein Gemälde Rembrandts stellt ein lebendige Einheit dar, die die Vielfalt der Gedanken und Gefühle seines künstlerischen Schöpfers widerspiegelt und seinen eigenen Regeln folgt. Menschliche Charaktere und ihre geistige Verfassung: Dieser motivische Grundansatz zieht sich wie ein roter Faden durch all seine Schaffensphasen. Gequält von familiären Problemen, nahm er Zuflucht in der Malerei, die allem Anschein nach gerade von diesen unruhigen und sorgenvollen Zeiten profitierte. Seine Angst in dem Optimismus seiner Themen und in der Stärke der dunklen Farben ausblendend, war er schließlich siegreich.
Renoir by
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in Limoges on 25 February 1841. In 1854, the boy's parents took him from school and found a place for him in the Lévy brothers' workshop, where he was to learn to paint porcelain. Renoir's younger brother Edmond had this to say this about the move: "From what he drew in charcoal on the walls, they concluded that he had the ability for an artist's profession. That was how our parents came to put him to learn the trade of porcelain painter." One of the Lévys' workers, Emile Laporte, painted in oils in his spare time. He suggested Renoir makes use of his canvases and paints. This offer resulted in the appearance of the first painting by the future impressionist. In 1862 Renoir passed the examinations and entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and, simultaneously, one of the independent studios, where instruction was given by Charles Gleyre, a professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. The second, perhaps even the first, great event of this period in Renoir's life was his meeting, in Gleyre's studio, with those who were to become his best friends for the rest of his days and who shared his ideas about art. Much later, when he was already a mature artist, Renoir had the opportunity to see works by Rembrandt in Holland, Velázquez, Goya and El Greco in Spain, and Raphael in Italy. However, Renoir lived and breathed ideas of a new kind of art. He always found his inspirations in the Louvre. "For me, in the Gleyre era, the Louvre was Delacroix," he confessed to Jean. For Renoir, the First Impressionist Exhibition was the moment his vision of art and the artist was affirmed. This period in Renoir's life was marked by one further significant event. In 1873 he moved to Montmartre, to the house at 35 Rue Saint-Georges, where he lived until 1884. Renoir remained loyal to Montmartre for the rest of his life. Here he found his "plein-air" subjects, his models and even his family. It was in the 1870s that Renoir acquired the friends who would stay with him for the remainder of his days. One of them was the art-dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, who began to buy his paintings in 1872. In summer, Renoir continued to paint a great deal outdoors together with Monet. He would travel out to Argenteuil, where Monet rented a house for his family. Edouard Manet sometimes worked with them too. In 1877, at the Third Impressionist Exhibition, Renoir presented a panorama of over twenty paintings. They included landscapes created in Paris, on the Seine, outside the city and in Claude Monet's garden; studies of women's heads and bouquets of flowers; portraits of Sisley, the actress Jeanne Samary, the writer Alphonse Daudet and the politician Spuller; and also The Swing and The Ball at the Moulin de la Galette. Finally, in the 1880s Renoir hit a "winning streak". He was commissioned by rich financiers, the owner of the Grands Magasins du Louvre and Senator Goujon. His paintings were exhibited in London and Brussels, as well as at the Seventh International Exhibition held at Georges Petit's in Paris in 1886. In a letter to Durand-Ruel, then in New York, Renoir wrote: "The Petit exhibition has opened and is not doing badly, so they say. After all, it's so hard to judge about yourself. I think I have managed to take a step forward towards public respect. A small step, but even that is something."
Roy Lichtenstein by
The first book-length study to examine the materials and techniques used in the fabrication and painting of the American pop artist Roy Lichtenstein's outdoor sculpture. Vibrant color was essential to the paintings of the American pop artist Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997), and when he began exploring the creation of outdoor sculpture in the late 1970s, vivid hues remained an important part of his artistic vocabulary. Today, preserving these remarkable works after they have endured decades in outdoor environments around the world is an issue of pressing concern. This abundantly illustrated volume is based on extensive archival research of Lichtenstein's studio materials, interviews with his assistants, and a thorough technical analysis of the sculpture Three Brushstrokes. The book concludes with a chapter showing various options for the care, conservation, and restoration of his sculptural works, making this an essential resource for conservators, curators, and others interested both in the iconic artist and modern sculpture in general.
Runaway Girl: the artist Louise Bourgeois by
Introduces the life of renowned modern artist Louise Bourgeois, who is known primarily for her sculptures.
Sturtevant: Warhol Marilyn by
An illustrated examination of a work-a Warhol that isn't by Warhol-that embodies a shift in attitudes about artistic authorship and originality. Warhol Marilyn (1965) is not a work by Andy Warhol but by the artist Elaine Sturtevant (1930-2014). Throughout her career, Sturtevant (as she preferred to be called) remade and exhibited works by other contemporary artists, among them Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Rauschenberg. For Warhol Marilyn, Sturtevant used one of Warhol's own silkscreens from his series of Marilyn printed multiples. (When asked how he made his silkscreened work, Warhol famously answered, "I don't know. Ask Elaine.") In this book, Patricia Lee examines Warhol Marilyn as representing a shift in thinking about artistic authorship and originality, highlighting a decisive moment in the rethinking of the contemporary artwork. Lee describes the cognitive dissonance a viewer might feel on learning the identity of Warhol Marilyn's author, and explains that mistaken identity is part of Sturtevant's intention for the operation of the work. She discusses the ways that Sturtevant's methodology went against the grain of a certain interpretation of modernism, and addresses the cultural significance of both Warhol and Monroe as celebrity figures. She considers Dorothy Podber's shooting a bullet through a stack of Warhol's Marilyns (thereafter known as The Shot Marilyns) at the Factory in 1964 and its possible influence on Sturtevant's decision to remake the work. Lee writes that Sturtevant's critical reception has been informed by some fictional forebears- the made-up artist Hank Herron (whose nonexistent work duplicating paintings by Frank Stella was reviewed by a fictional critic), and (suggested by Sturtevant herself) Pierre Menard, the title character of Jorge Luis Borges's "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote," who recreates a section of Cervantes's masterpiece line by line. And finally, she explores installation contexts and display strategies for Sturtevant's work as illuminating her broader artistic aims and principles.
Van Gogh's Second Gift: a Spiritual Path to Deeper Creativity by
Cliff Edwards, a well-known Vincent Van Gogh author and scholar, explores Van Gogh's second gift--the surprising written works of Van Gogh in letters to his brother, fellow artists, and friends. Edwards illuminates Van Gogh's vision and creative process for readers as a way of living and creating more deeply. Van Gogh's Second Gift gives us another side of Van Gogh, whose poetic, creative, and original mind opened up startling insights on the creative process. A perfect book for creatives and those who want to understand more about one of the world's most beloved artists, the genius creator of works like Starry Night. Focusing on more than 40 letter excerpts, Edwards offers clear background and insights into Van Gogh's life and creative ideas, as well as suggestions for reflection and personal engagement. Van Gogh sketches are scattered throughout the book.
Vermeer's Wager by
Vermeer's Wager stands at the intersection of art history and criticism, philosophy and museology. Using a familiar and celebrated painting by Johannes Vermeer as a case study, Ivan Gaskell explores what it might mean to know and use a work of art. He argues that art history as generally practiced, while successfully asserting certain claims to knowledge, fails to take into account aspects of the unique character of works of art. Our relationship to art is mediated, not only through reproduction - particularly photography - but also through displays in museums. In an analysis that ranges from seventeenth-century Holland, through mid-nineteenth-century France, to artists' and curators' practice today, Gaskell draws on his experience of Dutch art history, philosophy and contemporary art criticism. Anyone with an interest in Vermeer and the afterlife of his art will value this book, as will all who think seriously about the role of photography in perception and the core purposes of art museums.
Whistler by
Whistler saltó repentinamente a la fama, como una estrella errante en un momento crucial en la historia del arte, un campo en el que fue pionero. Como los impresionistas a los que admiraba, deseaba imponer sus propias ideas. La obra de Whistler puede dividirse en cuatro periodos. El primero puede llamarse periodo de investigación, en el cual recibió la influencia del realismo de Gustave Courbet y del arte japonés. Después, Whistler descubrió su propia originalidad en la serie de Nocturnos y de los Jardines de Cremorne, con las que entró en conflicto con los academicistas, que querían que un trabajo artístico contara una historia. Cuando pintó el retrato de su madre, Whistler lo tituló Composición en gris y negro y fue una obra simbólica de sus teorías estéticas. Cuando pintó Los jardines del placer de Cremorne no lo hizo para representar figuras identificables, como hizo Renoir cuando tocó temas similares, sino para capturar la atmósfera. Adoraba la bruma que flotaba sobre las orillas del Támesis, la luz pálida y las chimeneas de las fábricas que por las noches se convertían en mágicos minaretes. La noche redibujaba el paisaje, borrando los detalles. Este fue el periodo en el que se convirtió en un aventurero del arte; su obra, que rayaba en la abstracción, escandalizó a sus contemporáneos. El tercer periodo está dominado por los retratos de cuerpo completo, que le dieron fama. Era capaz de imbuir una profunda originalidad a este género tradicional. Trató de capturar una parte del alma de sus modelos y colocó a sus personajes en su entorno natural. Esto daba a sus modelos una extraña presencia, de modo que parecen a punto de levantarse y salirse del cuadro para enfrentar al observador. Al extraer la esencia poética de las personas, creó retratos que sus contemporáneos describían como "medios", y que fueron la inspiración para que Oscar Wilde escribiera El retrato de Dorian Gray. Hacia el final de su vida, el artista comenzó a pintar paisajes y retratos en la tradición clásica, con una fuerte influencia de Velázquez. Whistler demostró ser sumamente riguroso en cuanto a que sus pinturas coincidieran con sus teorías. Jamás titubeó en batirse con los más famosos teóricos del arte de su día. Su personalidad, sus arrebatos y su elegancia fueron el foco perfecto para la curiosidad y la admiración. Fue amigo cercano de Stéphane Mallarmé y fue admirado por Marcel Proust, quien le rindió homenaje en su libro En busca del tiempo perdido. También fue un caballero provocativo, una figura quisquillosa de sociedad, artista exigente y osado innovador.
William Morris by
Through his eclecticism, William Morris (1834-1896) was one of the most emblematic personalities of the nineteenth century. Painter, architect, poet and engineer, wielding the quill as well as the brush, he jolted Victorian society by discarding standards established by triumphant industry. His commitment to the writing of the Socialist Manifesto was the logical result of the revolution he personified in his habitat, the form of his design and the colours he used. Forerunner of twentieth-century designers, he co-founded with John Ruskin the Arts and Crafts movement. As an independent man, William Morris led the way to Art Nouveau and later Bauhaus. Through the essential body of his written and visual work, Arthur Clutton-Brock's masterwork deciphers the narrow relationship between ideals and creation, as well as between evolution and revolution.
Women in Art : 50 fearless creatives who inspired the world by
Illustrated profiles of 50 pioneering female artists--from the 11th century to today--from the author of the New York Times bestseller Women in Science. A charmingly illustrated and inspiring book, Women in Art highlights the achievements and stories of 50 notable women in the arts--from well-known figures like painters Frida Kahlo and Georgia O'Keefe, to lesser-known names like 19th-century African American quilter Harriet Powers and Hopi-Tewa ceramic artist Nampeyo. Covering a wide array of artistic mediums, this fascinating collection also contains infographics about artistic movements throughout history, statistics about women's representation in museums, and notable works by women. Women in Art celebrates the success of the bold female creators who inspired the world and paved the way for the next generation of artists.
World of Manet by
An account of the life, career and paintings of 19th century French artist Edouard Manet, with background information on the time. -- Provided by publisher.
Interpreting art by
How do people make sense of works of art? And how do they write to make others see the same way? There are many guides to looking at art, histories of art history and art criticism, and accounts of various 'theories' and 'methods', but this book offers something very unlike the normal search for difference and division: it examines the general and largely unspoken norms shared by interpreters of many kinds. Ranging widely, though taking writing within the Western tradition of art history as its primary focus, Interpreting Art highlights the norms, premises, and patterns that tend to guide interpretation along the way. Why, for example, is the concept of artistic 'intention' at once so reviled and yet so hard to let go of? What does it really involve when an interpretation appeals to an artwork's 'reception'? How can 'context' be used by some to keep things under control and by others to make the interpretation of art seem limitless? And how is it that artworks only seem to grow in complexity over time? Interpreting Art reveals subtle features of art writing central to the often unnoticed interpretative practices through which we understand works of art. In doing so, the book also sheds light on possible alternatives, pointing to how writers on art might choose to operate differently in the future.
The Art of Sculpture by
A stunning visual history of sculpture from prehistory through modernityThis book presents an aesthetic of sculptural art, which has too often submitted to the rule of architecture and painting. Herbert Read emphasizes the essential and autonomous nature of sculpture-"Form in its full spatial completeness," in the words of British sculptor Henry Moore. The Art of Sculpture provides historical support and theoretical rigor to this conception. Along the way, this incisive and wide-ranging book takes readers on a breathtaking tour of great works of sculpture from prehistoric times to the modern era. Please note: All images in this ebook are presented in black and white and have been reduced in size.
A Short Guide to Writing about Art by
Key Benefit:A Short Guide to Writing About Art, Eighth Edition,the best-selling book of its kind, equips students to analyze pictures (drawings, paintings, photographs), sculptures and architecture, and prepares them with the tools they need to present their ideas in effective writing.Key Topics:This concise yet thorough guide to “seeing and saying” addresses a wealth of fundamental matters, such as distinguishing between description and analysis, writing a comparison, using peer review, documenting sources, and editing the final essay.Market:This book is a perfect complement to any art course where writing is involved
Visual Literacy : writing about art by
Acquaints students with the critical issues that shape the discipline of art. This book seeks to teach them to write about art from a variety of scholarly and rhetorical perspectives.
Dictionary of Visual Discourse: a dialectical lexicon of terms by
Exploring the languages and cultures of visual studies and offering a theoretical introduction to the many languages of visual discourse, this substantial dictionary explains the foundations of current theoretical and academic discourse, and the different forms of visual culture in everyday life. It is essential reading for students in visual studies, the sociology of visual culture, cultural and media studies, philosophy, art history and theory, design, film and communication studies.
Symbolist Art Theories by
Henri Dorra, in his comprehensive new book, presents the development and the aesthetic theories of the symbolist movement in art and literature. Included are writings (many never before translated or reprinted) by artists, designers, architects, and critics, along with Dorra's learned commentary. Fifty photographs of symbolist works complement his encyclopedic coverage. Dorra traces symbolism and its roots from artist to artist and critic to critic from the 1860s to the early twentieth century. The decorative arts and architecture are examined as well as painting and sculpture. The Arts and Crafts movement, art nouveau, the work of Eiffel in France and Sullivan in the United States are all well represented. The close relations between symbolist poets and artists are reflected in the chapter on literary developments. Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, and Mallarmé are here, but so, too, are writers less well-known. A section on the Post-Impressionists and the "Artists of the Soul" rounds out Dorra's rich and varied text, and his epilogue lays the groundwork for what was to follow symbolism. Dorra beautifully integrates the different aesthetic branches of symbolism, the different media and national variations, without ever losing sight of the whole. The historical context provided makes this a particularly appealing collection for students and scholars of art history and literature, as well as for anyone interested in the evolution of symbolism.
Mini-Masterpieces: exploring art history with hands-on projects for kids by
Learn to create art just like the famous artists who inspire us?it's easier than you think! Known for her colorful painted paper lessons, elementary art teacher Laura Lohmann has created the go-to art history book to creatively engage kids. Mini Masterpieces: Exploring Art History With Hands-On Projects for Kids encourages young artists to explore various art materials through projects inspired by a diverse collection of famous artists past and present from around the world. This invaluable guide to creating beautiful art includes: 52 art projects thoroughly tested by more than 800 kids to get them just right--perfect for ages 5-12 and all different skill levels. Step-by-step full-color photos, helpful tips and techniques (including how to make painted paper), and a list of must-have inexpensive art supplies. Background information about each unique artist that will help young artists get to know them and their body of work. Learning art history has never been more fun!
The Art Teacher's Survival Guide for Elementary and Middle Schools by
The perennial bestseller--now in a new edition Authoritative and practical, this comprehensive guide offers everything a teacher needs to know for conducting an effective art instruction and appreciation program. The Third Edition of The Art Teacher's Survival Guide for Elementary and Middle Schools includes a complete update on public-relations guidelines, and reference material examples. The revised edition also features many new projects, an update on current projects and includes an explanation of the hot topic amongst art educators, Teaching Artistic Behavior (TAB/choice). Choice-based art education is reflected in the authors' discussion of teaching in mixed-media, ceramics, photography, sculpture, and art history. More than 100 creative art projects, from drawing to digital media Offers teaching tools, tips, and multicultural curriculum resources Includes new material on logical ways to encourage individual and personal solutions to a problem Gives teachers more latitude as to how individuality is suggested in a lesson This is an invaluable compendium for art educators and classroom teachers alike.
Activity-Based Teaching in the Art Museum by
This groundbreaking book explores why and how to encourage physical and sensory engagement with works of art. An essential resource for museum professionals, teachers, and students, the award winning Teaching in the Art Museum (Getty Publications, 2011) set a new standard in the field of gallery education. This follow-up book blends theory and practice to help educators--from teachers and docents to curators and parents--create meaningful interpretive activities for children and adults. Written by a team of veteran museum educators, Activity-Based Teaching in the Art Museum offers diverse perspectives on embodiment, emotions, empathy, and mindfulness to inspire imaginative, spontaneous interactions that are firmly grounded in history and theory. The authors begin by surveying the emergence of activity-based teaching in the 1960s and 1970s and move on to articulate a theory of play as the cornerstone of their innovative methodology. The volume is replete with sidebars describing activities facilitated with museum visitors of all ages. Table of Contents Introduction Part I History 1 The Modern History of Presence and Meaning A philosophical shift from a language-based understanding of the world to direct, physical interaction with it. 2 A New Age in Museum Education: The 1960s and 1970s A brief history of some of the innovative museum education programs developed in the United States in the late 1960s and 1970s. The sudden and widespread adoption of nondiscursive gallery activities during this period, especially but not exclusively in programs designed for younger students and school groups, expressed the spirit of the times. Part II Theory 3 Starts and Stops Two attempts by American museum educators to articulate a theory for their new, nondiscursive programs: the first deriving from the early work of Project Zero, the Harvard Graduate School of Education program founded by the philosopher Nelson Goodman to study arts learning as a cognitive activity; the second stemming from the work of Viola Spolin, the acclaimed theater educator and coach whose teaching methods, embodied in a series of "theater games," were detailed in her well-known book Improvisation for the Theater (1963). 4 A Theory of Play in the Museum A theory of play that posits activities in the museum as forms of play that take place in spaces (or "playgrounds") temporarily designated as such by educators and their adult visitors or students. Play is defined essentially as movement--both physical and imaginary (metaphorical)--toward and away from, around, and inside and outside the works of art that are foregrounded within those spaces. Gallery activities conceived in this way respond to the possibilities that the objects themselves offer for the visitor to explore and engage with them. The particular movements characterizing an activity are crucially conditioned by the object in question; they constitute a process of discovery and learning conceptually distinct from, but supportive of, traditional dialogue-based modes of museum education, which they supplement rather than supplant. Part III Aspects of Play 5 Embodiment, Affordances The idea of embodiment adopted here recognizes that both mind and body are joined in their interactions with things. Investigating works of art thus involves apprehending them physically as well as intellectually--in the sense of responding to the ways in which a particular work allows and even solicits the viewer''s physical grasp of it. 6 Skills Ways in which objects present themselves to us, as viewers, and what we might do in response as they fit with the bodily skills we have developed over the course of our lives. Such skills might be as simple as getting dressed, washing, or eating; or as specialized as doing one''s hair, dancing, playing an instrument, or acting--all of which may allow us to "grasp" and even feel that we inhabit particular works of art. 7 Movement Embodied looking is always looking from somewhere. We apprehend objects as we physically move around and in front of them; they reveal themselves differently as we approach them from different viewpoints. Viewers orient themselves spatially to both the surfaces of objects and to the things and spaces depicte4d in or suggested by representational works of art. Activity-based teaching gets visitors and students to move among the objects--away from them, close to them, and even into them. 8 The Senses Both adult visitors and younger students come to the museum expecting to use their eyes, yet "visual" art appeals to several of the senses at once, though rarely to the same degree. Sculpture, for example, almost always appeals to touch (whether or not that is actually possible or allowed) as well as sight. A painting depicting a scene in which people appear to be talking may induce viewers to not only look but also "listen" to what the figures might be saying. 9 Drawing in the Museum Looking at art with a pencil in hand amplifies viewers'' ability to imaginatively touch and feel their way across and around an artwork. Contour drawing by its nature requires participants to imagine that they are touching the contours of an object beneath the tips of their pencils. Other types of drawing allow viewers to feel their way around objects through observation and movement. 10 Emotion Visitors'' emotional responses to art represent a complex process with many components, from physiological to cognitive, and a particular work of art may elicit a wide range of emotional reactions. This chapter describes specific ways in which museum educators can go well beyond merely asking visitors how a work of art makes them feel. 11 Empathy and Intersubjectivity One aspect of viewers'' emotional responses to art that is often taken for granted, if not neglected altogether: the empathetic connections that human beings make to images of other people. This chapter advocates an approach that prompts viewers to physically engage with the representations of people they see. 12 Mindful Looking Mindfulness involves awareness and attention, both as a conscious practice and as an attitude that gallery teachers can encourage in museum visitors. This is not solely a matter of cultivating the mind, however; it is also a matter of cultivating the body, since mindfulness is only possible when mind and body are in a state of harmonious, relaxed attentiveness. Mindfulness practice in the art museum actively directs the viewer''s focus on the object itself and insists on returning to it over and over; yet it also balances activity with conscious stillness. Afterword Acknowledgments
Digital Technologies in Early Childhood Art by
Through art children make sense of their experiences and the world around them. Drawing, painting, collage and modelling are open-ended and playful processes through which children engage in physical exploration, aesthetic decision-making, identity construction and social understanding. As digital technologies become increasingly prevalent in the lives of young children, there is a pressing need to understand how digital technologies shape important experiences in early childhood, including early childhood art. Mona Sakr shows the need to consider how particular dimensions of the art-making process are changed by the use of digital technologies and what can be done by parents, practitioners and designers to enable children to adopt playful and creative practices in their interactions with digital technologies. Incorporating different theoretical perspectives, including social semiotics and posthumanism, and drawing on various research studies, this book highlights how children engage with different facets of art-making with digital technologies including: remix and mash-up; distributed ownership; imagined audiences and changed sensory and social interactions.
ArtBreak: a creative guide to joyful and productive classrooms by
Play is the central, universally significant activity of childhood. Self-directed play in which adults have a supporting rather than directing role is critical to the development and well-being of children. Yet as children have their days and nights increasingly scripted and planned for them, opportunities for play have disappeared over the last half century, especially in schools. ArtBreak's innovation lies in its creative framework. Former school counselor, current professor of counseling, and practicing artist Katherine Ziff developed and tested the program over five years, integrating theory and practice from art therapy, counseling, and child-centered education. The result is a choice-based, guided play experience based on the developmental and restorative possibilities of art making. A detailed how-to guide, this book is the flexible and accessible toolbox that teachers, parents, and counselors need to facilitate relaxing, art-based play that allows children to freely explore, plan, and pursue their own interests with adult support. Easy to implement, ArtBreak can be added to the regular routines of classroom, home, therapy office, or other community setting at whatever scale suits space, time, and budget. No art training is required, only a willingness to embark on a play journey with children.
Crafting Creativity and Creating Craft by
This nine chapter volume explores creativity in art teaching through contemporary craft. A variety of artists, educators and historians share with readers their wealth of practical resources and frameworks for utilizing craft media (fiber, ceramics, baskets, needlepoint, knitting, etc.) and craft approaches (grassroots projects, digital communities, craftivism, etc.) within contemporary K-12 art education, museum and community programming, and teaching artist residencies. Authors representing a variety of specialties in craft, art, and education examine the resurgence of the handmade and homemade in contemporary youth culture, digital implications of how we define and teach craft creatively, and the overlap of design, function, and beauty in artists' work. The anthology also describes the challenges and potentialities of working with craft in education settings, including the overarching craft of teaching practices. Each chapter provides a range of creative frameworks and practical models that educators can use comprehensively: from dynamic digital resources, to community groups, and lesson plans and activities in craft with art classes and special needs classes. The book serves to propose a working definition and rationale of the functions of craft in daily life, popular and youth culture, and larger social issues (including craft, D. I. Y., and activism/"craftivism").
Nature's Palette: a color reference system from the natural world by
First published in 1814 and expanded in 1821 Syme's edition of 'Werner's Nomenclature of Colours' attempted to establish a universal color reference system to help identify, classify and represent species from the natural world. Werner's set of 54 color standards was enhanced by Patrick Syme with the addition of color swatches and further references from nature, taking the total number of hues classified to 110. The resulting resource proved invaluable not only to artists but also to zoologists, botanists, mineralogists and anatomists. In 'Nature's Palette' this technicolour trove has, for the first time, been enhanced with the addition of illustrations of the animals, vegetables and minerals Werner referenced alongside each color swatch and accompanied by expert text explaining the uses and development of color standards in relation to zoology, botany, mineralogy and anatomy. This fully realized color catalog includes elegant contemporary illustrations of every animal, plant or mineral that Syme cited. Readers can see for themselves Tile Red in the Cock Bullfinch's breast, Shrubby Pimpernel and Porcelain Jasper; or admire the Berlin Blue that Syme identified on the wing feathers of a Jay, in the Hepatica flower and in Blue Sapphire. Displays of contemporary collector's cabinets of birds, butterflies, eggs, flowers and minerals are interspersed at intervals throughout the compendium, with individual specimens color matched to color swatches. Still a much-loved reference among artists, naturalists and everyone fascinated by color today, 'Werner's Nomenclature of Colours' finds its fullest expression in this beautiful and comprehensive color reference system.
The Secret Lives of Color by
One of USA Today's "100 Books to Read While Stuck at Home During the Coronavirus Crisis" A dazzling gift, the unforgettable, unknown history of colors and the vivid stories behind them in a beautiful multi-colored volume. "Beautifully written . . . Full of anecdotes and fascinating research, this elegant compendium has all the answers." --NPR, Best Books of 2017 The Secret Lives of Color tells the unusual stories of seventy-five fascinating shades, dyes, and hues. From blonde to ginger, the brown that changed the way battles were fought to the white that protected against the plague, Picasso's blue period to the charcoal on the cave walls at Lascaux, acid yellow to kelly green, and from scarlet women to imperial purple, these surprising stories run like a bright thread throughout history. In this book, Kassia St. Clair has turned her lifelong obsession with colors and where they come from (whether Van Gogh's chrome yellow sunflowers or punk's fluorescent pink) into a unique study of human civilization. Across fashion and politics, art and war, the secret lives of color tell the vivid story of our culture. "This passionate and majestic compedium will leave you bathed in the gorgeous optics of light." --Elle
Design Elements, Color Fundamentals by
Color is an integral part of any design solution. Design Elements, Color Fundamentals is an essential resource for designers who want to create memorable design and successfully communicate with their audience. It is the second book in Rockport's Design Elements series, which focuses on the core elements of design. With this book, designers will: --Learn how to effectively communicate with color and integrate color with type and image to affect meaning and create order --See how known pairings and selection methods can be used in real-world projects --Explore hundreds of visual examples, illustrating how effective color combinations can be applied to any project, across media, and in diverse, cultural, and geographic situations --Realize the basic tenets of color theory as it is broken down into clear and actionable directives --Uncover tips and techniques for using color in client-based design work Discover the basic rules for working with color as well as when it's OK to break the rules with Design Elements, Color Fundamentals!
The Art of Color by
"In this book Itten examines two different approaches to understanding the art of color. Subjective feelings and objective color principles are the two poles which are described in detail and clarified with numerous color reproductions. The key to this knowledge lies in the color circle and the seven color contrasts which are found on pages 35-109. The problems of visual, emotional and symbolic color effects are carefully explored with numerous color illustrations. The systematic color exercises are followed by outstanding reproductions of paintings by the great masters--28 large-size, four-color plates--which offer insight into all the epochs of Western painting from the Early Middle Ages to Klee and Picasso. With each reproduction is one of Professor Itten's famous analyses which proves how conscious awareness and use of color contrast has been an important means of expression." -- Book Jacket.
Interaction of Color by
"The text of Interaction of Color provides the careful reader with the content of Josef Albers' famous color course. His teaching is based on learning by direct perception, and not by theories or color systems"--Hannes Beckmann.
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