Degas • Natalia Brodskaïa

Flemish Manuscript Painting in Context

A companion to the prize-winning exhibition catalogue Illuminating the Renaissance: The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe, edited by Thomas Kren and Scot McKendrick (2003), this volume contains thirteen selected papers presented at two conferences held in conjunction with the exhibition.

Chapters include Lorne Campbell's research into Rogier van der Weyden's work as an illuminator, Nancy Turner's investigation of materials and methods of painting in Flemish manuscripts, and trenchant commentary by Jonathan Alexander and James Marrow on the state of current research on Flemish illumination. Although topics are wide ranging, one recurring theme is the structure of collaboration in manuscript production. Essays uncover an important new patron of manuscript illumination and address the role of illuminated manuscripts at the Burgundian court along with the contributions of individual illuminators. A series of biographies of Burgundian scribes is also included.

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Bauhaus • Michael Siebenbrodt & Lutz Schöbe

Kandinsky

 

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) was a Russian painter credited as being among the first to truly venture into abstract art. He persisted in expressing his internal world of abstraction despite negative criticism from his peers. He veered away from painting that could be viewed as representational in order to express his emotions, leading to his unique use of colour and form. Although his works received heavy censure at the time, in later years they would become greatly influential.

Complete Works of Diego Velazquez

 

The leading figure of the Spanish Golden Age, Diego Velázquez is universally acknowledged as one of the world’s greatest artists. Celebrated for his naturalistic style and remarkable power of observation in depicting both the living model and still life, Velázquez produced artworks that have helped change the course of Western art. Delphi’s Masters of Art Series presents the world’s first digital e-Art books, allowing readers to explore the works of great artists in comprehensive detail.

 

Peter Russell (Autor)  

 

Art of Islam

 

Gaston Migeon (Autor),  

Henri Saladin (Autor)

 

Frida Kahlo • Taschen [español]

Reseña del editor: 

Las cautivadoras imágenes creadas por Frida Kahlo (la mayoría de ellas autorretratos de pequeño formato) son, en muchos sentidos, la manifestación de un trauma. Hija de un fotógrafo alemán emigrado a México y una madre mexicana de ascendencia indígena, Kahlo (1907–1954) resultó gravemente herida en un accidente de tráfico a los 18 años de edad. Sus considerables lesiones vertebrales, pélvicas y abdominales la condenaron a una vida de continuos problemas de salud y le impidieron tener hijos. Entre otras penurias, sufrió hasta 35 intervenciones quirúrgicas, largos periodos de dolor extremo, embarazos fallidos y, hacia el final de su vida, la amputación de parte de una pierna. El sufrimiento físico de Kahlo se vio a un tiempo aminorado y exacerbado por sus tumultuosas vivencias emocionales. Con 21 años contrajo matrimonio con el famoso pintor muralista Diego Rivera. La suya fue una relación tormentosa, marcada por el fuerte carácter de ambos, así como por numerosas infidelidades, un divorcio y un nuevo matrimonio. Pese a lo volátil de sus disputas, Rivera describió el día que murió Kahlo (posiblemente por suicidio) como el más trágico de su vida. Aún adolescente, Kahlo empezó a pintar en su lecho de convalecencia. En poderosos y simbólicos retratos de su padecer físico y psicológico, Kahlo supo combinar sobre el lienzo la tradición religiosa mexicana con elementos surrealistas para plasmar el dolor y la soledad, pero también el amor, el deseo, el lujo y los ideales comunistas que profesaban tanto ella como su marido. La obra de Kahlo se revalorizó póstumamente, a partir de la década de 1970, y en 1983 fue declarada propiedad del Estado mexicano. Hoy está considerada una de las más importantes pintoras del siglo xx, así como un icono feminista y una pionera del arte latinoamericano.

 

 

  Andrea Kettenmann (Autor)

Circa 1492 • Art In The Age Of Exploration

Marking the 500th anniversary of the meeting of worlds that took place at the end of the 15th century, Circa 1492 reflects on this watershed moment, one that has been called “the most significant secular event in human history.” Informed by the lasting perspective of art and cultural achievement, this exhibition catalog assesses what we have loosely termed the “Age of Exploration.” Including more than 600 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, maps, scientific instruments, and works of decorative art from four continents—most of them created during the late 15th or early 16th century—the exhibition provides a broad, thematic survey through space rather than chronologically through time. The juxtapositions presented generate a new, keener understanding, both intellectually and affectively, of this historic era that resulted in links among continents that forever changed the character of the relationships between the world’s cultures.

 

 

Editor Jay A. Levenson (Autor)  

Greek Art of the Aegean Islands • MET

The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents us with a rich sampling of the splendid cultural heritage of Greece. Not only does it emphasize the diverse geographic centers of artistic production but it also covers a broad chronological span, extending from the Early Bronze Age to the Classic Period of the fifth century B.C. Many of the objects are of particular interest in that they are recent finds, which, outside of archaeological circles, are known only to those who have actually visited the National Museum in Athens, and the many different local museums throughout the Greek islands. The loan demonstrates the significant cultural interconnections among the islands as well as the wealth and variety of materials used and the lively forms that characterize so much of Greek art.

American Naive Painting • National Gallery Of Art

Deborah Chotner with contributions by Julie Aronson, Sarah D. Cash, and Laurie Weitzenkorn

Published 1992

688 pages

The American naive paintings at the National Gallery of Art have long been appreciated as wonderfully appealing, and in some cases visually stunning, works of art. Yet with the exception of those paintings by important, known artists such as Erastus Field or Edward Hicks, few had been studied thoroughly. Whereas other volumes of the systematic catalogue build upon decades, sometimes centuries, of scholarship, many of the more than 300 pictures included here are now published for the first time. The research presented here reveals much about the growth of the United States, its centers of commerce a century and a half ago, the pathways for the spread of visual ideas in the 19th century, and the aspirations and sentiments of the middle class. The majority of the works included originated in the northeastern United States during the 19th century.

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American Impressionism and Realism The Painting of Modern Life 1885 1915 • MET

"A true historical painter ... is one who paints the life he sees about him, and so makes a record of his own epoch." This principle, voiced by the Impressionist Childe Hassam, was heeded by the artists whose contributions are the focus of this volume: the American Impressionists and the Realists of the generation that succeeded them. The authors of the book, which accompanies a major exhibition, illuminate the continuities and differences between American Impressionism and Realism, two movements that are traditionally viewed as merely opposed.

They explore the roots of American Impressionism in European art, especially in the French Impressionists' engagement with the contemporary scene. Also elucidated are the evolving responses of both the American Impressionists and Realists to the changing realities of life in the United States at the turn of the century, as the nation shifted rapidly from an agrarian to an increasingly industrialized urban society. In an examination of paintings that represent the country, the city, and the home - the triad of subjects that engaged the artists - these responses are shown to reflect a tension between enthusiasm for the new and a sense of loss of the rural past. Studying a wide range of painters, including John Singer Sargent, William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam, John Sloan, William Glackens, and George Bellows, the authors offer new insights into the threads of nationalism, optimism, euphemism, and nostalgia that link the two movements. They demonstrate that these painters of modern life endowed their European-rooted art with a distinctly American inflection and produced a selective register of an energetic nation, revealing a complex commitment to Robert Henri's assertion that "painting is the giving of evidence."

The volume brings a new approach to this area of American art history, which has tended to be more descriptive than interpretive: it offers detailed historical and social contexts for the works and movements under consideration as well as penetrating stylistic analyses. Lavish illustrations of the paintings in the exhibition, comparative works and period photographs, a biography of each of the twenty-six artists in the exhibition, a selected bibliography, and an index are included.