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According to the defined canons of art technique, a portrait should be, above all, a faithful representation of its model. However, this gallery of 1000 portraits illustrates how the genre has been transformed throughout history, and has proven itself to be much more complex than a simple imitation of reality.
Beyond exhibiting the skill of the artist, the portrait must surpass the task of imitation, as just and precise as it may be, to translate both the intention of the artist as well as that of its patron, without betraying either’s wishes. Therefore, these silent witnesses, carefully selected in these pages, reveal more than faces of historic figures or anonymous subjects: they reveal a psychological depth more than an identity, illustrate an allegory, serve as political and religious propaganda, and embody the customs of their epochs.
With its impressive number of masterpieces, biographies, and commentaries on works, this book presents and analyses different portraits, consequently exposing to the reader, and to any art lover, a reflection of the evolution of society, and above all the upheavals of a genre that, over 30 centuries of painting, has shaped the history of art.

From ancient pottery to Tiffany stained glass, decorative art has been a fundamental part of the human experience for generations. Whilst fine art is confined to galleries and museums, decorative art is the art of the everyday, combining beauty with functionality in objects ranging from the prosaic to the fantastical. In this work, Victoria Charles celebrates the beauty and artistic potential behind even the most quotidian of objects. Readers will walk away from this text with a newfound appreciation for the subtle artistry of the manufactured world.

Long thought of as the neglected stepchild of painting, the art of drawing has recently begun to enjoy a place in the sun. With major museums around the world, from the Met to the Uffizi, mounting exhibitions focused on the art of draughtsmanship, drawing is receiving more critical and academic attention than ever before. This captivating text gives readers a sweeping analysis of the history of drawing, from Renaissance greats like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, to modernist masters in the XXth century, and everyone in between.

“All living beings are Buddhas and have wisdom and virtue within them.”
(Buddha)

Buddha ranks among the most often depicted holy figures of the world - perhaps appearing more than Christ, a subject widely treated by Western artists. Venerated in all the nations of Asia, and even beyond, his image took form along the Silk Road, the birthplace of many schools of Buddhism. Indeed, the Buddhist religion recognizes many Buddhas representing various traditions: such as Buddhism of “the Ancient Teaching” (Theravada),
“the Great Vehicle” (Mahayana) and Tantric Buddhism (Varjrayana).
A figure adored by all, Buddha has been captured in every art form: sculpture, often of monumental size, like the now destroyed Buddhas of Bamyan, painting and above all in countless cave murals, such as those of Ajanta in India or Dunhuang in China.
Perfect for all those passionate about Asian art, from neophytes to Buddhists, this fascinating work invites the reader to discover or rediscover Buddha, his history, his codes, and also his innumerable faces through one thousand representations selected from among the most beautiful works held in the world’s greatest museums.

From the Antiquity to the twentieth century, this sculpture collection offers a truly original vision of western art. Here are the most sensual and harmonious masterworks to the most provocative and minimalist sculptures.
Sculpture shapes the world and our concept of beauty, leaving everlasting silhouettes and always creating new intriguing ones. These masterworks are the mirror of an era, of an artist and his public and through this sculpture gallery, one visits not only the history of art, but History as well. Between the acclaimed ideals of beauty and the most controversial works, 1000 Sculptures of Genius will give you a true panoramic view of Western sculpture. Along with numerous references, comments on masterworks and biographies, this work enables the reader to rediscover the Western world heritage and is the perfect guide for art students and statuary lovers.

History has shown that erotic images, whether accepted or rejected, have always put forth new ideas of eroticism, as evidenced in the works reproduced throughout this book. From ancient fertility statues to Renaissance engravings designed to encourage procreation within marriage, erotic art has always held an important place in society.

Here, for the first time, 1,000 authentic images of erotic art have been brought together, spanning centuries and civilisations to demonstrate the evolution of the genre. In an era such as ours when eroticism is abundant in advertising and the media, this book gives a refreshing insight into the background of erotic imagery, highlighting the artistic value of beautiful works of eroticism executed with skill.

Since the mythical Tower of Babel, humans have continuously tried to erect monuments to match their oversized egos. With ancient ziggurats, the Taj Mahal or the Empire State Building, man has for centuries demonstrated his force by raising structures for purposes both religious and profane.
Witnesses without words, symbols of a people’s values — devotion, patriotism, power — symbols of a civilisation’s grandeur, these monuments still fascinate and attract an ever-growing public that is captivated by the creativity and ingenuity of these architects and stonemasons.
Their historical message goes far beyond mere art history, for they tell us of the lives and evolution of the peoples of the past, as does the Parthenon in Athens, many times destroyed, rebuilt, reused, attacked, pillaged and restored once again.
This work, through 1000 monuments chosen from around the globe, retraces human history, the techniques, styles and philosophies necessary for the construction of so many splendours over the centuries, providing a panorama of the most celebrated monuments while evoking the passion of their makers. The reader can explore the changing values of humanity through the edifices it has built and understand these structures as triumphs of humankind.

From the early Renaissance through Baroque and Romanticism to Cubism, Surrealism, and Pop, these canonical works of Western Art span eight centuries and a vast range of subjects. Here are the sacred and the scandalous, the minimalist and the opulent, the groundbreaking and the conventional. There are paintings that captured the feeling of an era and those that signalled the beginning of a new one; works of art that were immediately recognised for their genius, and others that were at first met with resistance.
All have stood the test of time and in their own ways contribute to the dialectic on what makes a painting great, how notions of art have changed, to what degree art reflects reality, and to what degree it alters it. Taken together, these great works illuminate the changing preoccupations and insights of our ancestors, and give us pause to consider which paintings from our own era will ultimately join the canon.

The watercolour technique was for a long time the great companion to drawing. A mixture of water and pigments permitting great artistic freedom, it was often employed for preparatory sketches. Albrecht Dürer was one of the first to take advantage of all that watercolour offered. In the 18th century, English artists created of it an autonomous medium freed from academic constraints, an evolution which would have a considerable impact for following generations. Amongst the most famous artists to have produced watercolours, we find Turner, Whistler, Constable, Sargent, Van Gogh, Kandinsky, Klee, and Schiele.

From the thousand-year-old statues celebrating fertility, to the odalisques of the modern painters, erotic art has always held a prominent place in societies, whatever their morals or cultural references. This work assembles one thousand images of erotic art, from all times and all continents, to illustrate how the representation of these pleasures of the flesh testifies to the evolution of different civilisations and their histories. While eroticism abounds today in advertising and in the media, this book offers an exceptional view into the archives of erotic imagery and emphasises the artistic value of these magnificent illustrations of sin.

From the cave paintings of Lascaux, to the Madonnas of the Renaissance Italians, from the revolutionary Impressionists to the provocative canvases of the Pop Art movement—30 Millennia of Painting reunites the essential works of pictorial art, spanning the history of art from prehistory to the present. Featuring a thousand internationally recognizable paintings, these cultural treasures are presented in historical context, along with extended captions and biographies of one hundred of the most influential artists. An artistic, cultural, and educational resource, this book invites us to consider the interaction between history and art, and the influence artists through the ages have had on each other, as well as the future of the discipline. A veritable voyage through time and space, art and history, this guide offers a global vision of the evolution of painting.

From its prehistoric origins to the conceptual modernity of the 21st century, sculpture has literally and figuratively moulded the art world. Offering an integral view at its evolution of form across civilisations and epochs, this work presents the masterpieces of sculpture that, with their timeless silhouettes, have shaped the current notion of beauty. Full of reflection on various eras, artists, and their times, this gallery in high relief presents numerous references, commentaries on works, and artist biographies. 30 Millennia of Sculpture opens the door to history and art, making it an ideal guide for both students and neophytes.

At the beginning of the 20th-century, trends started to emerge that began to diverge from a naturalistic conception of reality and set out to explore beneath the mere superficial appearance of things. Throughout, the author shows that, regardless of the multitude of stylistic backgrounds in individual Western countries, everywhere, realisation that a work of art was no longer made in the spirit of the old aesthetics of imitation as if taken from nature, but rather rises from its own independent dimension of existence. A work of art is now autonomous.

In this book, the author traces and analyses the origins and the history of abstract art as well as iconic movements and groundbreaking visionaries in an original and exciting way.

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.

African Art invites you to explore the dynamic origins of the vast artistic expressions arising from the exotic and mystifying African continent.
Since its rediscovery through the colonial exhibitions at the end of the 19th century, African art has been an unlimited source of inspiration for artists who, over time, have perpetually recreated these artworks.
The power of Sub-Saharan African art lies within its visual diversity, demonstrating the creativity of the artists who continue to conceptualise new stylistic forms. From Mauritania to South Africa and from the Ivory Coast to Somalia, statues, masks, jewellery, pottery, and tapestries compose a variety of daily and ritual objects brought forth from these richly varied societies.

It is a paradox that Marquet belongs more to the past and future than to the present. His art awaits the silence that is yet to fall. He nevertheless teaches us to appreciate the riches of meditation, directing us to that exalted place of peace so central to his vision.

Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) is widely regarded as one of the most significant artists of the Northern Renaissance. Born in Nuremberg, Germany, Dürer became renowned for his mastery of various mediums, including painting, printmaking, and wood-cutting.

Throughout his life, Dürer produced a vast array of works that demonstrated his technical skill and innovative vision. His art often incorporated religious and classical themes, and his use of perspective and realism helped to establish new standards in European art.

Beyond his artistic achievements, Dürer was also a prolific writer and thinker. His treatises on geometry, human proportion, and the theory of perspective remain influential in the fields of art and science to this day.

In this comprehensive biography, readers will gain insight into Dürer's life and work, exploring the cultural and political context in which he lived and the impact he had on the art world. Drawing on extensive research and analysis, this book presents a compelling portrait of one of the most important figures of the Renaissance.

Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) war eine bahnbrechende Persönlichkeit der nordischen Renaissance. Er schuf ein umfangreiches Werk in verschiedenen Medien, darunter Malerei, Druckgrafik und Zeichnung. Geboren und aufgewachsen in Nürnberg, reiste Dürer viel durch Europa und vertiefte sich in die Kunst und Kultur Italiens, der Niederlande und darüber hinaus.

Dürers künstlerisches Schaffen zeichnet sich durch eine akribische Liebe zum Detail und eine tiefe Auseinandersetzung mit der natürlichen Welt aus. Seine Werke weisen oft komplexe Kompositionen und eine ausgefeilte Symbolik auf, die sein Interesse an Mathematik, Wissenschaft und Humanismus widerspiegeln. Dürers Verwendung der Perspektive und seine meisterhafte Darstellung von Licht und Schatten setzten neue Maßstäbe für den Realismus in der europäischen Kunst.

Neben seinen Beiträgen zur bildenden Kunst war Dürer auch ein produktiver Schriftsteller, der Abhandlungen über Mathematik, Perspektive und menschliche Proportionen verfasste. Er unterhielt ein ausgedehntes Netzwerk von Korrespondenzpartnern, darunter Künstlerkollegen, Gelehrte und Mäzene, und seine Briefe geben unschätzbare Einblicke in sein Leben und Werk.

Diese Biographie bietet eine umfassende Untersuchung von Dürers Leben und Werk, die seine Entwicklung als Künstler und seine Interaktionen mit den kulturellen und politischen Kräften seiner Zeit nachzeichnet. Durch die Analyse von Dürers Werken und Schriften sowie zeitgenössischen Berichten und Archivmaterial entsteht ein differenziertes Porträt einer der bedeutendsten Persönlichkeiten der europäischen Kunstgeschichte.

Born in 1860 in a small Czech town, Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) was an artist on the forefront of Art Nouveau, the modernist movement that swept Paris in the 1910s, marking a return to the simplicity of natural forms, and changing the world of art and design forever. In fact,
Art Nouveau was known to insiders as the “Mucha style” for the legions of imitators who adapted the master’s celebrated tableaux. Today, his distinctive depictions of lithe young women in classical dress have become a pop cultural touchstone, inspiring album covers, comic books, and everything in between. Patrick Bade and Victoria Charles offer readers an inspiring survey of Mucha’s career,
illustrated with over one hundred lustrous images, from early Parisian advertisements and posters for Sarah Bernhardt, to the famous historical murals painted just before his death, at the age of 78.

Pionnier au Portugal, son pays d’origine, Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso (1887-1918) fut aussi bien influencé par l’impressionnisme que par le fauvisme, l’expressionnisme et le futurisme. C’est en côtoyant des artistes tels qu’Amedeo Modigliani, Diego Rivera et Antoni Gaudí avec qui il se lia d’amitié, qu’il développa son propre style, mêlant tradition et modernité. Emporté prématurément par la maladie, cet artiste avant-gardiste encore peu connu laissa quelque cent-cinquante toiles et reste considéré comme l’un des plus grands artistes portugais de sa génération.

Pedro Lapa est le directeur artistique du Musée Coleção Berardo et est également professeur à la Faculté de Lettres de l’Université de Lisbonne, où il a obtenu son doctorat en Histoire de l’Art. Il a organisé de nombreuses expositions parmi lesquelles « Picabia » au Centre Culturel de Belém, à Lisbonne en 1997 ; « Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso », au Musée Pouchkine, à Moscou en 2003 ; « James Coleman », au Musée National d’Art Contemporain à Lisbonne, en 2004 ; « Cinco Pintores da Modernidade Portuguesa » (« Cinq peintres de la modernité portugaise ») à La Fondation Caixa Catalunga, à Barcelone, ainsi qu’au Musée d’Art Moderne de São Paulo. Il est aussi le co-auteur d’un catalogue raisonné dédié à l’œuvre de Joaquim Rodrigo paru en 1999 et a publié de nombreux ouvrages sur l’art moderne et contemporain. Parmi les plus récents : Pedro Barateiro, Fictionnalising the Object et Creating Other Links, publiés aux éditions Bom Dia Books en 2015, ainsi que History and Interregnum: Three Works by Stan Douglas, paru la même année aux éditions Archive Books.

Equally famous for his masterful canvasses and tumultuous mental health, Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) was, in many ways, the prototypical tortured artist. A lifelong sufferer of painfully degenerative tuberculosis, Modigliani was famous for denying his disease with a frenzied bohemian lifestyle of hard drinking, drug abuse, and passionate love affairs. But at the same time, he managed to produce some of the modern movement’s most enduring masterpieces, and today his work sells for record-breaking sums whenever it comes up for auction.

In this fascinating examination of Modigliani’s life and works, Klaus H. Carl, Frances Alexander, and Jane Rogoyska turn their penetrating gaze on this most enigmatic of artistic geniuses. Their insightful text is accompanied by extracts from D.H. Lawrence’s highly sensual novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover, chosen to complement Modigliani’s art and to give a new perspective to it.

The first appearances of graffiti “tags” (signatures) on New York City subway trains in the early 1970s were disregarded as incidents of vandalism or the rough, violent cries of the ignorant and impoverished. However, as the graffiti movement progressed and tags became more elaborate and ubiquitous, genuine artists emerged whose unique creativity and unconventional media captured the attention of the world. Featuring gallery and street works by several contributors to the graffiti scene, this book offers insight into the lives of urban artists, describes their relationship with the bourgeois art world, and discusses their artistic motivation with unprecedented sensitivity.

Realism is a monolithic, lockstep, strictly governed method of painterly visualisation shattered into nuances of interpretation. Where you paint can make you a Regional Realist. What you paint might label you a Genre Realist, while who you paint might classify your work as Portrait Realist—or maybe a Portrait Regionalist Realist if you paint Native Americans in the West, or sea captains on the East Coast. Of the variations cited, there are even further nuances that mock the concept of “American Realism” as an all-embracing style. What remains are American Realist artists, each facing subject matter that is part of the fabric of the American scene. The result of their efforts is determined by the filtering of their perceptions through their individual intellects, skill sets, training, regional influences, ethnic influences and basic nurturing. If there is any binding together it is within the tradition of Realist Art in the United States, which accepts such a range from Winslow Homer's poetic watercolours of the 1860s to the haunting minutiae of Andrew Wyeth and melancholy light of Edward Hopper in the 1950s and 1960s. This book presents a cross-section of American Realist artists spanning more than 100 years of art. It begins as some artists struggle with the influences of Europe and other home-grown painters bring their nineteenth-century American scenes to life, and ends as today's generation of Realist painters co-exist with American Modernism and absorb this new freedom into the latest incarnation of their art.

Mantegna was born in 1431. He trained in painting at the Padua School which Donatello and Paolo Uccello had previously attended. Even at a young age commissions for his work flooded in, as for the frescoes of the Ovetari Chapel in Padua. In a short space of time Mantegna found his niche as a modernist due to his highly original ideas, particularly the use of perspective in his works. His marriage with Nicolosia Bellini, the sister of Giovanni, paved the way for his entree into Venice. Mantegna reached an artistic maturity with his altarpiece of San Zeno. He remained in Mantua and became the artist for one of the most prestigious courts in Italy - the Court of Gonzague. Despite his links with Bellini and Leonardo da Vinci, Mantegna refused to adopt their innovative use of colour or leave behind his own technique of engraving. The Camera Picta is considered his most accomplished work.

Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) epitomises the grace, intelligence, and poetry of the eighteenth century, a period when French tastes reigned supreme throughout Europe. He is renowned as a pivotal figure in Rococo art. Watteau excels in depicting scenes of daily life and theatrical costumes. His work, while highly stylised, reveals an undercurrent of melancholy beneath its apparent frivolity. It captures profound emotions, hinting at love that transcends mere physical attraction and showcasing the enigmatic ambience present in his landscapes and the wistful gaze in lovers’ eyes. Watteau’s exceptional sense of colour imparts feelings of softness and mystery, akin to a pervasive musical undertone. His robust draughtsmanship places him among the greatest artists, and his inherent poetic essence evokes dreamlike visions.

Spanish architect and designer Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) is an important and influential
figure in the history of Spanish art. His use of colour, application of different materials and introduction of movement in his constructions were an innovation in the realm of architecture. In his journal, Gaudí freely expressed his own feelings on art, “the colours used in architecture have to be intense, logical and fertile.”

The author, Jeremy Roe, is interested in a wide range of photography and architectural detail.
This interest drives the author and enables him to reveal the context of the art of Barcelona while he guides us through an introduction to Antoni Gaudí, master of some of the most famous
constructions, design objects and greatest works in Spanish architecture. This book offers a great insight into Gaudí’s work.

El arquitecto y diseñador español Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) es una importante e influyente figura en la historia del arte contemporáneo de España. El uso del color, la utilización de diferentes materiales y la introducción de movimiento en sus construcciones fueron toda una innovación en el terreno de la arquitectura. En su diario, Gaudí expresó sus propios sentimientos sobre el arte: “los colores usados en arquitectura tienen que ser intensos, lógicos y fértiles”.
El autor, Jeremy Roe, utiliza una amplia gama de detalles fotográficos y arquitectónicos que le permiten revelar el contexto del arte de Barcelona mientras nos introduce en el mundo de Gaudí, maestro de algunas de las más famosas construcciones, objetos de diseño y grandes obras de la arquitectura española. Este libro ayuda a comprender a Gaudí y su legado.

"Art is not made to decorate rooms. It is an offensive weapon in the defense against the enemy."
(Pablo Picasso)
The beginning of the twentieth century was a period marked by intense aesthetic and ideological
research. Caught up in the chaos of historical world conflicts, artists went beyond the simple
role of witnesses to become true players in the unstable atmosphere. Well-aware of their
influence, painters, sculptors and architects, each with their own media, attempted to inform the
public about contemporary issues or solve problems caused by cultures advancing at a rapid
assembly-line speed. Picasso's masterpiece Guernica remains to this day the ultimate symbol of
pacifistic revolts.
Lavishly illustrated, this book will help the reader understand the period when artists adjusted
to the accelerating pace of their world by creating works of timeless modernity.

"I f you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and
films and me, and there I am. There's nothing behind it." (Andy Warhol)
During the second half of the twentieth century, in a world transformed by international
tensions, the centre of artistic creation shifted from Europe to the United States. In a world
where major countries asserted their power, individualism now ruled. The art world was a
perfect example of this phenomenon; even now, the emphasis of creativity is placed on the
individual instead of the trend. Moreover, growing globalization and the various types of
media have facilitated a multiplication of means and offered artists new possibilities.
Now, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, everything has the potential to be art, and art, more
than ever, is the opportunity to take risks - to present and transform almost anything. This work
invites the reader to discover the diversity of this most recent artistic environment.

The Art Deco movement emerged from the remnants of a world that had been torn apart after World War I. This aesthetic movement came to embody dreams of industry and prosperity. In the whirl of the Jazz Age and frenzy of the “Roaring Twenties”, the streamlined silhouette of the flapper girl was reflected in the architectural aesthetic of Art Deco -the rounded curve was conquered by the androgynous straight line. Architecture, painting, furniture, and sculpture evolved into oeuvres enhanced with sharp lines and broken angles. Although short-lived, this movement still influences contemporary design today.

The Art Deco movement emerged from the remnants of a world that had been torn apart after World War I. This aesthetic movement came to embody dreams of industry and prosperity. In the whirl of the Jazz Age and frenzy of the “Roaring Twenties”, the streamlined silhouette of the flapper girl was reflected in the architectural aesthetic of Art Deco -the rounded curve was conquered by the androgynous straight line. Architecture, painting, furniture, and sculpture evolved into oeuvres enhanced with sharp lines and broken angles. Although short lived, this movement still influences contemporary design today.

Covering 27 museums throughout 27 European capitals, here you can discover some of the most beautiful museum collections in Europe, their creation, and the story of their acquisitions led by the most well-known curators and art enthusiasts. Additionally, it highlights the various cultural policies and points of view concerning the promotion of artistic heritage in Europe. The most emblematic European museums are presented along with some well-kept and fascinating secrets, such as in Nicosia of Cyprus and Sofia in Bulgaria.

Art Nouveau designates a decorative and architectural style developed in the 1880s and 1890s in the West. Born in reaction to the Industrial Revolution and to the creative vacuum it left behind, Art Nouveau was at the heart of a “renaissance” in the decorative arts. The primary objective of the movement was the creation of a new aesthetic of nature through a return to the study of natural subjects. In order to achieve this, such artists as Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Antoni Gaudí, Jan Toorop, and William Morris favoured innovation in technique and novelty of forms.

After its triumph at the Paris Universal Exposition in 1900, the trend continued and has inspired many artists ever since. Art Deco, the successor of Art Nouveau, appeared after World War II.

Art Nouveau designates a decorative and architectural style developed in the 1880s and 1890s in the West. Born in reaction to the Industrial Revolution and to the creative
vacuum it left behind, Art Nouveau was at the heart of a “renaissance” in the decorative arts. The primary objective of the movement was the creation of a new aesthetic of nature through a return to the study of natural subjects. In order to achieve this, such artists as Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Antoni Gaudí, Jan Toorop, and William Morris favoured innovation in technique and novelty of forms.

After its triumph at the Paris Universal Exposition in 1900, the trend continued and has inspired many artists ever since. Art Deco, the successor of Art Nouveau, appeared after World War II.

La expresión Art Nouveau hace referencia a un estilo decorativo y arquitectónico desarrollado en Occidente en las décadas de 1880 y 1890. Nacido como reacción a la revolución industrial y al vacío creativo que dejó tras de sí, el Art Nouveau fue el núcleo de un “renacimiento” de las artes decorativas. El objetivo fundamental del movimiento era la creación de una nueva estética de la Naturaleza a través de un retorno al estudio de los temas naturales. Para lograrlo, artistas como Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Antoni Gaudí, Jan Toorop y William Morris favorecieron la innovación en la técnica y la novedad de las formas.
Después de su triunfo en la Exposición Universal de París de 1900, la tendencia ha continuado inspirando a muchos artistas desde entonces. El Art Déco, sucesor del Art Nouveau, surgió tras la Segunda Guerra Mundial.

India, with its extensive
and colourful history, has produced an artistic tradition in many forms. Architecture, painting, sculpture, calligraphy, mosaics, and artisan products all display the country’s cultural, religious, and philosophical richness. From Hinduism, with its pantheon of imagery of gods, goddesses, animals, and many other figures, to Islam, with its astounding architecture and intricate calligraphy; the many facets of India have given rise to a fascinating and beautiful collection of artworks.
Featuring incredible images
and a text written by a renowned scholar on the subject, this work offers an in-depth look at the masterpieces of India, showcasing this fascinating country and her artists while covering a wide range of styles and techniques.

Islamic art is not the art of a nation or of a people, but that of a religion. Spreading from the Arabian Peninsula, the proselyte believers conquered, in a few centuries, a territory spreading from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. Multicultural and multiethnic, this polymorphic and highly spiritual art in which all representations of God were prohibited developed canons and various motifs of great decorative value. Thorough and inventive, these artists expressed their beliefs by creating monumental masterpieces such as the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, the Taj Mahal in Agra and the Alhambra in Granada, architectural works in which one recognises the stylisation of motifs of the Muslim ceramics. Lively and colourful, Islamic art mirrors the richness of these people whose common denominator was the belief in one singular truth: the absolute necessity of creating works whose beauty equalled their respect for God.

The art of Siberia is a fascinating subject, and the artifacts discovered in the hidden archives of the Russian Museum of Ethnography in St. Petersburg are nothing less than extraordinary. Artwork, day-to-day subjects and photos dating from the turn of the century all represent the testimonies of the Siberian people who refused to yield to the hegemony of a modern world.

“The Devil holds the strings which move us!” (Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil, 1857). Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer… the Devil has many names and faces, all of which have always served artists as a source of inspiration. Often commissioned by religious leaders as images of fear or veneration, depending on the society, representations of the underworld served to instruct believers and lead them along the path of righteousness. For other artists, such as Hieronymus Bosch, they provided a means of denouncing the moral decrepitude of one’s contemporaries. In the same way, literature dealing with the Devil has long offered inspiration to artists wishing to exorcise evil through images, especially the works of Dante and Goethe. In the 19th century, romanticism, attracted by the mysterious and expressive potential of the theme, continued to glorify the malevolent. Auguste Rodin’s The Gates of Hell, the monumental, tormented work of a lifetime, perfectly illustrates this passion for evil, but also reveals the reason for this fascination. Indeed, what could be more captivating for a man than to test his mastery by evoking the beauty of the ugly and the diabolic?

Since the foundation of the Au Lac kingdom three centuries ago – famous for their bronze drums and their magnificent artilleries – until the works of the painters from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts of Indochina, created in Hanoi in 1925, the arts of Vietnam have been marked by its profoundly original cultures and the fusion between Asia and the Occident. The modern Vietnamese civilization has therefore inherited a very rich and multifaceted history.

The history of mankind has always gone hand in hand with the history of war. War has elevated empires to blinding heights only to bring them crashing down again. It has immortalised brilliant individuals but traumatised entire generations of people. For better or worse, war has helped shape civilisation and society as we know it today. Only recently, in the last century, has man’s perspective on war changed fundamentally. No longer a glorious undertaking, it has become the impersonation of the worst that humanity has to offer. Nowhere is this drastic change more visible than in war-inspired art. The art of war has come a long way, from the boasting of Ramesses II about his victory at Kadesh in the reliefs of Abu Simbel to Picasso’s famous anti-war painting Guernica. This book will trace and illustrate this development with fascinating artwork from two millennia of art history along with textual accounts of battle, written by contemporary and early modern scholars, compiled by Victoria Charles. Additionally, the book features excerpts from a well-known treatise written by the greatest military thinker of mankind: Sun Tzu.

In un mondo in cui le scarpe sono diventate un prodotto di consumo di massa, questi accessori hanno perso il significato di un tempo: l’industria moderna ha adempiuto al suo compito, ovvero alla produzione di grandi quantità a prezzi bassi. C’è stato un tempo, però, in cui la scarpa è stata simbolo della forza della legione romana, del potere dei signorotti medievali o dell’oppressione della donna cinese.
La storia della calzatura è ricca e affascinante, come rivela l’autrice Marie-Josèphe Bossan: completando la sua analisi con una iconografia d’eccezione, l’autrice conferisce a questi oggetti, ormai di uso comune, una qualità universale, il cui rango è pari a quello di un’opera d’arte, che documenta l’intera storia dell’ umanità.

El arte naif se hizo popular por primera vez a finales del siglo diecinueve. Hasta ese momento, esta forma de expresión creada por artistas sin formación y caracterizados por su espontaneidad y simplicidad contaba con poco reconocimiento entre los
artistas profesionales y los críticos de arte. Influenciada por las artes primitivas, la pintura naif se caracteriza por la fluidez de sus líneas, por su vivacidad y sus colores alegres, así como por sus formas más bien sencillas, claramente definidas.

El arte naif está representado por artistas como Henri Rousseau, Séraphine de Senlis, André Bauchant y Camille Bombois. Este movimiento también consiguió encontrar
partidarios en el extranjero, incluyendo a artistas tan destacados como Joan Miró, Guido Vedovato, Niko Pirosmani e Ivan Generalic.

Influenced by the masters of Antiquity, the genius of Michelangelo and Baroque sculpture, particularly of Bernini, Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) is one of the most renowned artists in history. Though Rodin is considered a founder of modern sculpture, he did not set out to critique past classical traditions. Many of his sculptures were criticised and considered controversial because of their sensuality or hyperrealist qualities. His most original works departed from traditional themes of mythology and allegory, and embraced the human body, celebrating individualism and physicality.

This book uncovers the life and career of this highly acclaimed artist by exploring his most famous works of art, such as the Gates of Hell, The Thinker and the infamous The Kiss.

At the beginning of the XXth century, there was an unprecedented explosion of creativity in all artistic fields. Overwhelming both Europe and North America, the Russian Ballet revolutionized theatrical design with their stage sets and their costumes that were ablaze with colour yet refind in effect, bearing much of the mystic of the Orient yet also visually influenced by the work of the Persian miniaturists. Together with Diaghilev, Léon Bakst showed himself to be the most talented of the theatre group designers of his time. The costumes he devised with exclusive art seemed to shimmer with a thousand colours. Dazzled by such powers of imagination, the author, Jean Cocteau, dedicated his book "Bonjour Monsieur Bakst" to him. The great contemporary composers Tchaïkovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Stravinsky, among others, all had occasion to call upon his creative genius. Today, his designs remain very popular and may still be seen on stage scenes all over the world, admired by a public that remains as enthusiastic as ever.

The Baroque period lasted from the beginning of the 17th-century to the middle of the 18th-century. Baroque art was artists’ response to the Catholic Church’s demand for solemn grandeur following the Council of Trent, and through its monumentality and grandiloquence, it seduced the great European courts. Amongst the Baroque arts, architecture has, without doubt, left the greatest mark in Europe: the continent is dotted with magnificent Baroque churches and palaces, commissioned by patrons at the height of their power. The works of Gian Lorenzo Bernini of the Southern School and Peter Paul Rubens of the Northern School alone show the importance of this artistic period. Rich in images encompassing the arts of painting, sculpture and architecture, this work offers a complete insight into this passionate period in the history of art.

The Baroque period lasted from the beginning of the seventeenth century to the middle of the eighteenth century. Baroque art was artists’ response to the Catholic Church’s demand for solemn grandeur following the Council of Trent, and through its monumentality and grandiloquence it seduced the great European courts. Amongst the Baroque arts, architecture has, without doubt, left the greatest mark in Europe: the continent is dotted with magnificent Baroque churches and palaces, commissioned by patrons at the height of their power. The works of Gian Lorenzo Bernini of the Southern School and Peter Paul Rubens of the Northern School alone show the importance of this artistic period. Rich in images encompassing the arts of painting, sculpture and architecture, this work offers a complete insight into this passionate period in the history of art.

The Bauhaus movement is one of the most significant cultural developments of the 20th century. Walter Gropius founded this institute of design in 1919; it was active first in Weimar, then in Dessau and Berlin. Several renowned architects of the time period served as directors of the school: Walter Gropius from 1919 to 1928, Hannes Meyer from 1928 to 1930 and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from 1930 to 1933. The works of the Bauhaus artists, Lyonel Feininger, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Gerhard Marcks, Oskar Schlemmer and László Moholy-Nagy, as well as those of the students and young faculty members, Josef Albers, Herbert Bayer, Marcel Breuer, Gunta Stölzl and Joost Schmidt, were greatly admired and aroused the interest of museums across the world. Bauhaus was founded to explore new aesthetic perspectives and creative teaching programmes for the education of architects, designers and artists for a post-war democratic society. The school’s syllabus featured a combination of creative training, basic artistic knowledge, workshop production, and learning to work as a team. Animated by an acute social awareness, the Bauhaus would soon combine its creativity with industrialisation and mass production, and conceive numerous products which were not only beautiful but useful, durable and affordable. In 1933 the Nazi closure of the Bauhaus triggered the emigration of many of its members, and thus the ideas produced there were spread worldwide. The design standards created by the Bauhaus are still observed in today’s architecture and design schools, as well as in general art classes. The products of the Bauhaus, such as Marcel Breuer’s well-known steel pipe furniture, became classic, inexpensive design standards. The Bauhaus buildings have made architectural history and now are classified as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. This book features an overview of the history of the Bauhaus, accompanied by numerous images, and sheds light on its evolution and connection with other movements.

It was in 1946 that the world first came to hear of a coral atoll in the Marshall Islands called Bikini. The following year, French couturier Louis Réard borrowed the name and applied it to a bathing costume for women. Breaking decades of boring conformity, Réard dared to ‘undress’ women’s bodies in order to better emphasise what remained clothed – albeit in tiny wisps of material. By accepting the bikini as popular beachwear, women also found themselves thinking differently about their bodies. An ideal of perfection was repeatedly reinforced by the appearance of such stars as Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot, and Ursula Andress on the cinema screen, all of whom were featured in bikinis that accentuated their own gloriously curvaceous contours. More than a bathing costume, the bikini made its own contribution to the sexual revolution during the 1970s, and, even more so, to the changing relationship between men and women in general.
This book investigates the history of the bikini as a way of noting the change in society’s perception of women. Furthermore, it examines how women have taken control of the way they look and laid claim to their own sexual equality. Discover here, through a wealth of photographs, this progression of femininity, which spans more than 50 years.

Pierre Bonnard was the leader of a group of post-impressionist painters who called themselves the Nabis, from the Hebrew word meaning ‘prophet’. Bonnard, Vuillard, Roussel and Denis, the most distinguished of the Nabis, revolutionized the spirit of decorative techniques during one of the richest periods in the history of French painting. Influenced by Odilon Redon and Puvis de Chavannes, as well as by popular imagery and Japanese etchings, this post-impressionist group was, above all, a close circle of friends who shared the same cultural background and interests. An increasing individualism in their art often threatened the group’s unity, and although tied together by a common philosophy, their work clearly diverged. This publication lets us compare and put into perspective the artists within this fascinating group.

The works presented in this collection offer a palette of extraordinary poetic expressions: candid in Bonnard, ornamental and mysterious in Vuillard, gently dream-like in Denis, grim and almost bitter in Vallotton. The author shares with us the lives of these artists to the very source of their creative gifts.

Hieronymus Bosch was painting frightful, yet vaguely likable monsters long before computer games were ever invented, often with a touch of humor. His works are assertive statements about the mental illness that befalls any man who abandons the teachings of Christ. With a life that spanned 1450 to 1516, Bosch experienced the thick of the highly charged Renaissance and its wars of religion. Medieval tradition and values were crumbling, paving the way to thrust man into a new universe where faith lost some of its power and much of its magic. Bosch set out to warn doubters of the perils awaiting all and any who lost their faith in God. His favorite allegories were hell, heaven and lust. He believed that everyone had to choose between one of two options: heaven or hell. Bosch brilliantly exploited the symbolism of a wide range of fruits and plants to lend sexual overtones to his themes, which author Virginia Pitts Rembert meticulously deciphers to provide readers new insights into this fascinating artist and his works.

For more than a millennium, from its creation in 330 A.D. until its fall in 1453, the Byzantine Empire was a cradle of artistic effervescence that we are only beginning to rediscover. Endowed with the rich heritage of Roman, Eastern and Christian cultures, Byzantine artists developed an architectural and pictorial tradition, marked by symbolism, whose influence extended far beyond the borders of the Empire. Today, Italy, Northern Africa, and the Near East preserve the vestiges of this sophisticated artistic tradition, with all of its mystical and luminous beauty.

The magnificence of the palaces, churches, paintings, enamels, ceramics and mosaics from this civilisation guarantees Byzantine art’s powerful influence and timelessness.

For more than a millennium, from its creation in 330 A.D. until its fall in 1453, the Byzantine Empire was a cradle of artistic effervescence that we are only beginning to rediscover. Endowed with the rich heritage of Roman, Eastern and Christian cultures, Byzantine artists developed an architectural and pictorial tradition, marked by symbolism, whose influence extended far beyond the borders of the Empire. Today, Italy, Northern Africa, and the Near East preserve the vestiges of this sophisticated artistic tradition, with all of its mystical and luminous beauty. The magnificence of the palaces, churches, paintings, enamels, ceramics and mosaics from this civilisation guarantees Byzantine art's powerful influence and timelessness.

Introduced to painting and perspective by his father, a theatre decorator, the Venetian Giovanni Antonio Canal, known as Canaletto (1697-1768), is best known for his vedute. Whilst the amateurs of his time brought back their landscape paintings as evidence of their travels in Italy, Canaletto became the incarnation of La Serenissima of the baroque period. A forerunner in his method of spacing out the different planes of his works, he embellished his pictures with details in order to better highlight the distances and used a camera obscura in the composition of his paintings. With the precision of the lines and the tonality of the palette, Canaletto’s paintings are still the most beautiful panoramas in the history of art. Over the course of this inspired, richly-illustrated text, Octave Uzanne shares with the reader his passion for this striking Venetian painter of the eitghteenth century.

Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840), a prominent German painter of the 19th century, was a vital figure in the Romantic movement. His artwork is characterised by its poetic and melancholic essence, displaying a profound sense of spirituality and transcendence. In his paintings, he masterfully blended external nature depictions with deep inner symbolism. His often desolate landscapes and grand architecture evoke a yearning for peace, solitude, and spiritual elevation. The skilful utilisation of light and shadow in his composition amplifies the emotional resonance of Friedrich's art, imbuing it with an almost mystical quality.

The artistic legacy of Caspar David Friedrich continues to influence contemporary landscape painting. His unparalleled aptitude for capturing the infinite within the finite renders his work a timeless representation of humanity's quest for transcendence and spiritual connection. This biography delves into the life and creations of this remarkable artist, celebrating his invaluable contributions to the evolution of Romantic painting.

The strict prohibition on the representation of the human form has channeled artistic creation into architecture and architectural decoration. This book is a magical tour through Central Asia - Khirgizia, Tadjikistan, Turkmenia, and Uzbekistan - a cradle of Ancient civilisations and are pository of the Oriental arts inspired by Buddhism and Islam. There are magnificent, full-colour photographs of the abandoned cities of Mervand Urgench, Khiva, the capital of the Kharezm, with its mausoleum of Sheikh Seid Allahuddin,and, the Golden Road to Samarkand, the Blue City, a center of civilisation for 2,500 years.
form has channeled artistic creation into architecture and
architectural decoration. This book is a magical tour
through Central Asia - Khirgizia, Tadjikistan, Turkmenia,
and Uzbekistan - a cradle of Ancient civilisations and a
repository of the Oriental arts inspired by Buddhism and
Islam. There are magnificent, full-colour photographs of the
abandoned cities of Mervand Urgench, Khiva, the capital of
the Kharezm, with its mausoleum of Sheikh Seid Allahuddin,
and, the Golden Road to Samarkand, the Blue City, a
center of civilisation for 2,500 years.

Chagall loved blue.
“The blue of the sky which ceaselessly combats the clouds which pass, which pass…” (Baudelaire).
Marc Chagall’s journey began in his native Russia and concluded with his Parisian triumph, the extraordinary ceiling of the Paris Opera House, commissioned by André Malraux.
On the way, he embraced the spirit of the twentieth century without ever disowning his Jewish-Russian origins.
This work follows the path of the artist through his early works, his discovery of the United States and his passion for France.
Marc Chagall, unaffiliated with any movement but influenced by his encounters with Bakst, Matisse and Picasso, remains, undeniably, the painter of poetry.

A Chagall le encantaba el azul.
“El azul del cielo que incesante combate las nubes que pasan, que pasan” (Baudelaire). El viaje de Marc Chagall se inicia en su nativa Rusia y culmina con su triunfo en París, el extraordinario techo de la Casa de la Ópera de París que le comisionó Malraux.
A lo largo del camino, su inspiración se empapó en el espíritu del siglo XX, sin jamás negar sus orígenes judeo-rusos.
Esta obra sigue la huella del artista desde sus primeros trabajos hasta su descubrimiento de Estados Unidos y su pasión por Francia.
Marc Chagall, que jamás se afilió a ningún movimiento, pero que recibió la influencia de sus encuentros con Bakst, Matisse y Picasso, puede considerarse sin duda alguna el pintor de la poesía.

Chaim Soutine (1893-1943), the unconventional and controversial painter of Belorussian origin, combines influences of classical European painting with Post-Impressionism and Expressionism. As a member of the ‘Artists from Belarus’, a group within the Parisian school, he created an oeuvre mainly consisting of landscapes, still lifes, and portraits. His individual style, characterised by displays of humour and despair, and by the use of luminous colours, makes him a modern master who is still little understood.

In this engaging text, established artist biographer Klaus H. Carl explores the difficult life of an artist whose fascinating work owes much to the struggles he faced with enduring determination.

As the centre of Far-Eastern art, China has always fascinated Westerners, who take an interest in its religious leaders and savants as much as in its artists. Sophisticated and mysterious, Chinese art has persistently developed for 10,000 years through unequalled talent, which long ago established its artistic preeminence. Admired and imitated by all, today Chinese paintings and porcelain are the timeless reminders of a decadent past which continues to astound people around the world.

Dealing not only with architecture, sculpture and painting but also with bronze and porcelain, this text offers a complete panorama of Chinese arts and civilisation until the fall of the Empire in 1911.

As the centre of Far-Eastern art, China has always fascinated Westerners, who take an interest in its religious leaders and savants as much as in its artists. Sophisticated and mysterious, Chinese art has persistently developped for 10,000 years through unequaled talent, which long ago established its artistic preeminence. Admired and imitated by all, today Chinese paintings and porcelain are the timeless reminders of a decadent past which continues to astound people around the world. Dealing not only with architecture, sculpture and painting, but also with bronze and porcelain, this text offers a complete panorama of Chinese arts and civilisation until the fall of the Empire in 1911.

Since the dawn of Christianity, artists have been fascinated and stirred by the figure of Christ. His likeness appears in frescoes on the walls of catacombs that date from Roman times; he is featured in the stained glass windows of Gothic churches; and he can be found in various forms in today’s pop culture. The Biblical Saviour is not a static, immaterial deity: Christ’s mortal birth, unusual life, and dramatic death make him an accessible subject for religious and secular artists alike. Whether they show the spirituality of God Incarnate or the earthly characteristics of a flesh-and-blood man, artistic depictions of Christ are the most controversial, moving, or inspirational examples of religious art.
This richly illustrated book explores the various ways that Christ is rendered in art, from Cimabue’s Nativity scenes and Fra Angelico’s paintings of the Crucifixion to the provocative portraits of Salvador Dalí and Andres Serrano. Author Ernest Renan guides the reader through the most iconic representations of Christ in art – tender or graphic, classical or bizarre, these images of the Messiah reveal the diverse roles of the Son of God in the social milieus and personal lives of the artists.

For Monet, the act of creation was always a painful struggle. His obsession with expressing emotions and his desire to transmit light effects over nature were 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.”

« Ami lecteur, voilà pourquoi l'audace m'est venue de vous soumettre quelques aspects de Claude Monet. L'artiste a vécu un moment supérieur de l'art, et, par là même, de la vie. Il ne manquera pas de bons juges pour le dire. Mais c'est l'être humain que je cherche au-delà de l'artiste, l'homme qui, livré tout entier à ses impulsions les plus hautes, a osé regarder en face les problèmes de l'univers pour les aborder ensemble et les fondre dans le bloc esthétique d'une sensibilité affinée… »— Georges Clemenceau

With Impression, Soleil Levant, exhibited in 1874, Claude Monet (1840-1926) took part in the creation of the Impressionism movement that introduced the 19th century to modern art. All his life, he captured natural movements around him and translated them into visual sensations. Considered the leader of Impressionism, Monet is internationally famous for his poetic paintings of water lilies and beautiful landscapes. He leaves behind the most well-known masterpieces that still fascinate art lovers all over the world.
Nathalia Brodskaïa is a curator at the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. She has published monographs on Rousseau, Renoir, Derain, Vlaminck, and Van Dongen, as well as many books on the Fauves and Naïve Art. She is currently working on a study of French painters at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century.

Per Claude Monet la creazione artistica è sempre stata una lotta sofferta. Attribuiva maggiore importanza di quanto non facessero i suoi contemporanei a un aspetto essenziale dell’Impressionismo: comunicare all’osservatore le emozioni prodotte dalla luce.
Per usare le parole di Monet: «Le tecniche vanno e vengono […] L’arte rimane la stessa: una rappresentazione della natura che richiede impegno e sensibilità. Io mi misuro e combatto con il sole […]. Bisognerebbe dipingere con oro e pietre preziose».

John Constable (1776–1837) is arguably one of England’s best loved artists; his fame and popularity are rivalled only by those of his great contemporary, J M W Turner. Turner, his reputation rests on a handful of very well known paintings, usually Suffolk scenes such as Flatford Mill or Hay-Wain. Many of the magisterial productions of his last years, including Hadleigh Castle and The Opening of the Waterloo Bridge, are a far cry from the Suffolk scenes, whilst his accomplishments in the difficult and competitive genre of marine painting have been consistently undervalued.
Barry Venning’s introduction presents Constable’s background, his family life, his education and the early friendships from which he drew patronage, support and advice. Barry Venning discusses the artist’s relationship with the great tradition of European landscape painting and examines the historical and cultural context within which Constable lived and worked.

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon: five young women that changed modern art forever. Faces seen simultaneously from the front and in profile, angular bodies whose once voluptuous feminine forms disappear behind asymmetric lines - with this work, Picasso revolutionised the entire history of painting. Cubism was thus born in 1907. Transforming natural forms into cylinders and cubes, painters like Juan Gris and Robert Delaunay, led by Braque and Picasso, imposed a new vision upon the world that was in total opposition to the principles of the Impressionists. Largely diffused in Europe, Cubism developed rapidly in successive phases that brought art history to all the richness of the 20th-century: from the futurism of Boccioni to the abstraction of Kandinsky, from the Suprematism of Malevich to the Constructivism of Tatlin.

Linking the core text of Guillaume Apollinaire with the studies of Dr Dorothea Eimert, this work offers a new interpretation of modernity’s crucial moment and permits the reader to rediscover, through their biographies, the principal representatives of the movement.

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon: five young women that changed modern art forever. Faces seen simultaneously from the front and in profile, angular bodies whose once voluptuous feminine forms disappear behind asymmetric lines - with this work, Picasso revolutionised the entire history of painting. Cubism was thus born in 1907. Transforming natural forms into cylinders and cubes, painters like Juan Gris and Robert Delaunay, led by Braque and Picasso, imposed a new vision upon the world that was in total opposition to the principles of the Impressionists. Largely diffused in Europe, Cubism developed rapidly in successive phases that brought art history to all the richness of the 20th century: from the futurism of Boccioni to the abstraction of Kandinsky, from the suprematism of Malevich to the constructivism of Tatlin. Linking the core text of Guillaume Apollinaire with the studies of Dr. Dorothea Eimert, this work offers a new interpretation of modernity’s crucial moment, and permits the reader to rediscover, through their biographies, the principal representatives of the movement.

Dada shocked the world between the years 1916 and 1922. Dada was not an art movement in the normal sense. It was a storm that broke over the art scene of the time, as the war upon the peoples. They consciously staged anti-art events. According to Max Ernst, it was the ‘outbreak of anger and zest for life’ at the same time. The indignation about the monstrous genocide during World War I was great and equally at the ‘civilization that had brought it about.’ Dada was an international uprising.

The war radically changed the art scene in the vibrant cities of Europe. The international links that had brought forth artistic masterpieces, primarily between France, Italy, Germany and Russia, were abruptly torn apart. The intellectual elite that had stayed at home and those who had come back from the war sobered sought new ways to express their experiences and insights. Among the contributors were Duchamp, Picabia, Taeuber-Arp, Man Ray, Schwitters and Arp.

From the Middle Ages to contemporary times, decorative art can be defined by the artistic materials, designs and objects used in both architecture and interior design. Similar to many art forms, decorative art continues to evolve, originating with pieces as simple as a chair, noted for its utility, to purely ornamental objects, celebrated for their aesthetic beauty. Decorative Art aims to eulogise these often undervalued objects by giving praise to all mediums of decorative art throughout the centuries. Never originally considered as fine art, their artistic potential was not acknowledged until the 20th century, when industrial production replaced artisanal creation. The age, authenticity and above all the uniqueness of these precious objects have now become the new standards of quality and beauty found in decorative art. Join us in discovering the evolution of decorative art through this enticing survey of major masterpieces throughout time.

Der sexuelle Akt verleiht dem Gesichtsausdruck
einen Ausdruck von besonderer Intensität und eine schwer zu beschreibende Unergründlichkeit. Der Augenblick des absoluten Glücks spiegelt sich sowohl bei der Frau wie auch beim Mann in den Augen, den Lippen und der Gesichtsmuskulatur. Wenn die Gewalt der Sinne ihren Höhepunkt erreicht, erscheint im Blick des andern eine ganz neue, bisher unbekannte Person.

Anhand von alten erotischen Gravuren ergründet Hans-Jürgen Döpp das Geheimnis dieses Ausdrucks der Fülle.

Die Ikonenmalerei, als bedeutendste Ausdrucksform der orthodoxen christlichen Kunst, erreichte in der Ukraine zwischen dem 11. und 18. Jahrhundert ihren Höhepunkt. Dieses Buch präsentiert den malerischen Stil während dieser gesamten Zeitspanne und zeigt, wie die ukrainische Ikone auf erstaunliche Weise die Traditionen der ostbyzantinischen Kunst mit den stilistischen Eigenheiten der ukrainischen Ikonenmalerei verbindet.

Das Buch erklärt die Entwicklung der Ikonenmalerei über fünf Jahrhunderte in den wichtigsten ukrainischen Kunstzentren wie Kiew, Tschernigow, Transsylvanien, Galizien und Wolhynien. Es bietet auch Einblicke in das Leben und Schaffen der Meister dieser Kunstform. Obwohl das Genre strenge stilistische Beschränkungen mit sich bringt, zeigen die ukrainischen Ikonen eine bemerkenswerte Vielfalt in Bezug auf Hintergrund und Zusammenhang. Dies ist zum Teil auf polnische und österreichische Einflüsse in diesen vom Westen geprägten Regionen der Ukraine zurückzuführen. Der Autor wurde mit der Kunstmedaille der Ukraine, dem Orden der Prinzessin Olga, ausgezeichnet.

Seit über hundertfünfzig Jahren ist die Bauchbinde die Zierde der Zigarre. Bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg wurde sie in mehrfarbigem Steindruckverfahren hergestellt. Die Modelle, die zu dieser Zeit gedruckt wurden, sind wahrhaftige Kunstobjekte. Sie bestechen beispielsweise durch wunderschöne Flora- oder Wappenabbildungen und ermöglichen dem Betrachter mit ihren Porträts historischer Persönlichkeiten gleichzeitig - auf angenehm unterhaltende Weise - sich vergangener Zeiten zu erinnern und in ihnen zu schwelgen.

Dieses einmalige Buch umfaßt an die 1800 schönsten Stücke aus der Van Reeth-Sammlung, wobei die ausgewählten Bauchbinden zu den seltensten und ältesten überhaupt zählen. Sie geben dem Buch seinen außergewöhnlichen Reiz und wecken in dem Betrachter dieses himmlische Vergnügen, wie es auch dem einen oder anderen eine gute Havanna bereitet.

“I was aware of Diego Rivera, the Mexican muralist, long before I encountered the many other “Diego Riveras” that roamed the world between the beginning of the twentieth century and the late 1950s. […] While his easel paintings and drawings constitute a large body of both his early and late work, his unique murals explode off walls in virtuoso performances of mind-staggering organisation. On those walls the man, his legend and myths, his technical talent, his intense story-telling focus and self-indulgent ideological convictions all come together.”
(Gerry Souter)
Gerry Souter, the author of the remarkable Frida Kahlo, overcomes his huge admiration for Diego Rivera to give the artist a human dimension, found in his political choices, his love affairs and his belief that “this truth was Mexico, the language of his thoughts, the blood in his veins, the azure sky above his resting place.”

«Y a conocía a Diego Rivera, el muralista mexicano, mucho antes de encontrarme con los otros ‘Diego Rivera’ que circulaban por el mundo entre principios del siglo XX y finales de la década de los 50. (…) Mientras que sus pinturas de caballete constituyen un amplio corpus dentro de su obra temprana y tardía, sus murales únicos hacen estallar las paredes en una explosión de representaciones de gran virtuosismo cuya organización conmociona la mente del espectador. En esas paredes se juntan el hombre, su leyenda y sus mitos, su talento técnico, su intensa focalización sobre la narración de la Historia y sus convicciones ideológicas propensas a la autoindulgencia.» (Gerry Souter)

Gerry Souter, autor del excelente libro Frida Kahlo, hace a un lado su gran admiración por Diego Rivera para darle al artista una dimensión humana, basada en sus opiniones políticas, sus amoríos y su convicción de que «en lo profundo de su ser (…) estaba México, el lenguaje de sus pensamientos, la sangre en sus venas, el cielo azul por encima de su lugar de reposo.»

Transylvanian mystique and legendary hauntedness surround the most infamous Bram Stoker’s protagonists, forming a legacy that allows the myth to continue into modern times, maintaining a cultish following, yet broadening to a general fascination. Intrigued by evil and gore, Stoker developed a literary presence that was effortlessly translated to screen by the likes of Murnau, Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee and Francis Ford Coppola. Dracula became such an obsession as it embodied a taboo subject matter: the desire for blood and sex.

Filled with extraordinary pictures of the Count, his literary companions, and the movie idols, this is a treasure only to be read by daylight!

La redécouverte de la légende est l’ oeuvre de Bram Stoker. Son Dracula (1887) reste un mythe moderne, teinté de romantisme macabre, créé à l’époque victorienne, éloigné de sa source d’inspiration ou du filon populaire (les “vrais” vampires). Stoker a choisi le nom de Dracula pour sa sonorité.

Il n’était pas loin du patronyme du prince dont le père, Vlad Dracul, portait les armes de l’Ordre Occidental du Dragon (drac : diable, en roumain). Revu et corrigé depuis le début du siècle par le cinema (Murnau, Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, Francis Ford Coppola) et aujourd’hui par la science-fiction et la bande dessinée, le mythe de Dracula a quelque chose en plus : il sublime deux tabous, le sang et le sexe. Histoire, légende, mythe, trois raisons suffisantes pour faire un ouvrage richement illustré de documents rarissimes.

Dracula ist ein Mythos, der Jung und Alt gleichermaßen fasziniert. Mehr als hundert Jahre nach seinem Erfolg als Titelheld von Bram Stokers gleichnamigem Roman (Dracula, 1887) ist es mehr als an der Zeit, dem unangefochtenen Helden des Unheimlichen ein umfassendes Oeuvre zu widmen.

In diesem Bildband erfährt der Dracula Spezialist und -laie den historischen Ursprung des Mythos, der bis in das 15. Jahrhundert zurückreicht, seine fiktionale Verarbeitung im 19. und seine Adaption für den Film, das Fernsehen, die Bühne etc. im 20. Jahrhundert. Ein Muss für jeden, der sich für Dracula und die Welt des Grusels interessiert.

Elizabeth Miller ist Professorin für englische Literatur an der Memorial University von Neufundland, Kanada.

Oscillating between the majesty of the Greco-Byzantine tradition and the modernity predicted by Giotto, Early Italian Painting addresses the first important aesthetic movement that would lead to the Renaissance, the Italian Primitives. Trying new mediums and techniques, these revolutionary artists no longer painted frescoes on walls, but created the first mobile paintings on wooden panels. The visages of the figures were painted to shock the spectator in order to emphasise the divinity of the character being represented. The bright gold leafed backgrounds were used to highlight the godliness of the subject. The elegance of both line and colour were combined to reinforce specific symbolic choices. Ultimately the Early Italian artists wished to make the invisible – visible. In this magnificent book, the authors emphasise the importance that the rivalry between the Sienese and Florentine schools played in the evolution of art history. The reader, in the course of these forgotten masterworks, will discover how the sacred began to take a more human form, opening a discrete but definitive door through the use of anthropomorphism, a technique that would be cherished by the Renaissance.

Oscillating between the majesty of the Greco-Byzantine tradition and the modernity predicted by Giotto, Early Italian Painting addresses the first important aesthetic movement that would lead to the Renaissance, the Italian Primitives. Trying new mediums and techniques, these revolutionary artists no longer painted frescoes on walls, but created the first mobile paintings on wooden panels. The visages of the figures were painted to shock the spectator in order to emphasise the divinity of the character being represented. The bright gold leafed backgrounds were used to highlight the godliness of the subject. The elegance of both line and colour were combined to reinforce specific symbolic choices. Ultimately the Early Italian artists wished to make the invisible – visible. In this magnificent book, the authors emphasise the importance that the rivalry between the Sienese and Florentine schools played in the evolution of art history. The reader, in the course of these forgotten masterworks, will discover how the sacred began to take a more human form, opening a discrete but definitive door through the use of anthropomorphism, a technique that would be cherished by the Renaissance.

The climax to the act of love casts an indefinable expression on the face – an expression of urgent intensity. A woman, a man, in that moment experiences an ecstasy that for an instant is visible in the eyes and on the lips. A wave of pleasure runs through the body, marking the transition between desire and orgasm. For this fleeting second, when just how violent the senses can be is laid bare, the person involved is not the same as the person immediately before or the person immediately after. With the help of prints and etchings from former centuries, author Hans-Jürgen Döpp looks for an explanation of this very personal mystery that leads to fulfilment.

Degas was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking, and drawing. His career was long and his style, unlike that of most famous artists who worked into their old age, never ceased developing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism and is especially identified with the subject of dance (over half of his works depict dancers such as The Dance Class or the sculpture Little Ballet Dancer). These display his mastery in the depiction of movement, as do his less common themes of horse racing and female nudes (After the Bath). His portraits are considered to be among the finest in the history of art. His work was strongly influenced by Ingres and Delacroix combining the expressive qualities of Ingres with the colour of Delacroix.

L'œuvre de Manet contribua à l'apparition des mouvements d'avant-garde. Bien que de la même génération que Monet, Renoir et Sisley, il était pour eux un maître. La hardiesse de la peinture d'Edouard Manet, son indépendance vis-à-vis des canons académiques ouvrit de nouveaux horizons créatifs.

Cet ouvrage comporte deux parties : la première se compose de l’admirable texte d'Emile Zola qui parle tant de l'ami que de l'artiste et la seconde, écrite par Natalia Brodskaïa, conservatrice au musée de l’Ermitage de Saint-Pétersbourg, est plus scientifique.

La confrontation de ces deux approches laisse transparaître le modernisme d'Edouard Manet.

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.

In his works, Hopper poetically expressed the solitude of man confronted with the American way of life as it developed in the 1920s. Inspired by the movies and particularly by the various camera angles and attitudes of characters, his paintings expose the alienation of mass culture. Created using cold colours and inhabited by anonymous characters, Hopper’s paintings also symbolically reflect the Great Depression.

Through a series of different reproductions (etchings, watercolours, and oil-on-canvas paintings), as well as thematic and artistic analysis, the author sheds new light on the enigmatic and tortured world of this outstanding figure.

In his works, Hopper poetically expressed the solitude of man confronted to the American way of life as it developed in the 1920s. Inspired by the movies and particularly by the various camera angles and attitudes of characters, his paintings expose the alienation of mass culture. Done in cold colours and inhabited by anonymous characters, Hopper’s paintings also symbolically reflect the Great Depression.

Through a series of different reproductions (etchings, watercolours, and oil-on-canvas paintings), as well as thematic and artistic analysis, the author sheds new light on the enigmatic and tortured world of this outstanding figure.

Egon Schiele (1890-1918) is one of the great Expressionist painters. He was taught by Gustav Klimt, and at a very early age, like his Viennese Secession predecessors, broke with the traditions of official Austrian art. His numerous self-portraits and nude models remained consistent throughout his career in keeping with his erotic, sensual and tormented visions of art. The paintings and text included in this book display the extraordinary talent of this artist who, sadly, died of Spanish influenza at the age of twenty-eight in Vienna.

Egyptian art is perhaps the most impersonal that exists. The artist effaces himself. But he has such an innate sense of life, a sense so directly moved and so limpid that everything of life which he describes seems defined by that sense, to issue from the natural gesture, from the exact attitude, in which one no longer sees stiffness. His impersonality resembles that of the trees bowing in the wind with a single movement and without resistance, or that of the water which wrinkles into equal circles all moving in the same direction.

From afar, Egyptian art seems changeless and forever like itself. From nearby, it offers, like that of all the other peoples, the spectacle of great evolutions, of progress toward freedom of expression, of researches in imposed hieratism. Egypt is so far from us that it all seems on the same plane. One forgets that there are fifteen or twenty centuries, the age of Christianity — between the “Seated Scribe” and the great classic period, twenty-five or thirty centuries, fifty, perhaps — twice the time that separates us from Pericles and Phidias — between the pyramids and the Saite school, the last living manifestation of the Egyptian ideal.

Egypt died of her need of eternity.

El Renacimiento se inició a finales del siglo catorce en Italia y ya estaba extendido por toda Europa en la segunda mitad del siglo dieciséis. El redescubrimiento del esplendor de la antigua Grecia y Roma supuso el comienzo del renacimiento de las artes como consecuencia de la descomposición de la certeza dogmática de la Edad Media. Surgió una generación de artistas que comenzaron a innovar dentro del ámbito de la pintura, así como de la escultura y arquitectura. Representando lo ideal y lo actual, lo sacro y lo profano, este período supuso un marco de referencia que ejercería su influencia sobre el arte europeo a lo largo de los siguientes cuatro siglos.

Leonardo da Vinci, Miguel Ángel, Botticelli, Fra Angélico, Giorgione, Mantegna, Rafael, Durero y Bruegel se encuentran entre los artistas que hicieron contribuciones considerables al arte del Renacimiento.

El Simbolismo apareció en Francia y Europa entre la década de 1880 y el principio del siglo veinte. Los simbolistas, fascinados por la mitología de la Antigüedad, intentaban escapar del reino del pensamiento racional impuesto por la ciencia. Deseaban trascender el mundo de lo visible y lo racional para alcanzar el mundo del pensamiento puro, coqueteando constantemente con los límites del inconsciente.

Los franceses Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon, los belgas Fernand Khnopff y Félicien Rops, los ingleses Edward Burne-Jones y Dante Gabriel Rossetti, así como el holandés Jan Toorop son los artistas más representativos del movimiento.

Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (1755-1842) was not only the rare woman of her time who integrated herself into the French Royal Academy of Painting, but also beloved portraitist to the aristocracy. Her paintings are testament to a key period of history: she was appointed painter and friend to Marie Antoinette before the French Revolution, and took flight across Europe before returning under the reign of Napoleon, all the while continuing to paint. Self-taught, Vigée-Lebrun knew how to get the best from her models, mastering painting effects to perfection and making use of a delicate and refined style.

An icon in the Art Nouveau movement, Émile Gallé (1846-1904) sought to portray the beauty and simplicity of nature in his glass art. His designs, referred to as “poetry in glass”, range from fine pottery and jewellery to furniture. Everything Gallé produced contains traces of his masterful technique which reflects his innovativeness as an artist and his skill as a designer. In this rich text, Gallé unravels the beauty and ingenuity found within his own work.

Encaustic painting is one of the world’s most venerable art forms, having been practised consistently around the world since the ancient Egyptians first used it to decorate sarcophagi, and enjoying continuing popularity in the modern era with artists such as Paul Klee and Diego Rivera. In this new text, Jennifer Margell offers readers a comprehensive introduction to the technique, featuring instructive how-tos for encaustic art beginners, revealing interviews with some of the most celebrated practitioners of the medium, and a gallery featuring one of the largest published collections of encaustic art.

The English school of painting was officially recognised at the beginning of the 18th century through the work of William Hogarth. It includes works by the most famous English artists, such as Thomas Gainsborough, Joseph Mallord William Turner, John Constable, Edward Burne-Jones, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. This subject is introduced with a very unique text, published in 1882: a French study of English pictorial art. The author, Ernest Chesneau, was highly-cultured, an art historian and inspector of Fine Arts. He explains the beginnings of this school which excels in portraiture and landscapes, and reminds us of the English brilliance regarding watercolours, not forgetting to include the work of the Pre-Raphaelites.

Once, when Picasso, in the evening of his life, was asked about the difference between art and eroticism, his pensive answer was: “But—there is no difference.” Instead, as others warned about eroticism, Picasso warned about the experience of art: “Art is never chaste; one should keep it away from all innocent ignoramuses. People insufficiently prepared for art, should never be allowed close to art. Yes, art is dangerous. If it is chaste, it is not art.”

The term ‘Erotic Art’ is muddied by a miasma of ambiguous terms. Art and pornography, sexuality and sensuality, obscenity and morality are all involved to such an extent that it seems almost impossible to reach an objective definition, which is not unusual in the history of art. How is it possible to speak of erotic art?

Hans-Jürgen Döpp