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Books > Arts & Architecture > History of art / art & design styles > 1400 to 1600

Lives of Leonardo (Paperback): Giorgio Vasari, Matteo Bandello, Paolo Giovio, Sabba Castiglione Lives of Leonardo (Paperback)
Giorgio Vasari, Matteo Bandello, Paolo Giovio, Sabba Castiglione; Edited by Charles Robertson
R256 Discovery Miles 2 560 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

For many people the greatest artist, and the quintessential Renaissance man, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was a painter, architect, theatre designer, engineer, sculptor, anatomist, geometer, naturalist, poet and musician. His Last Supper in Milan has been called the greatest painting in Western art. Illegitimate, left-handed and homosexual, Leonardo never made a straightforward career. But from his earliest apprenticeship with the Florentine painter and sculptor Andrea Verrochio, his astonishing gifts were recognised. His life led him from Florence to militaristic Milan and back, to Rome and eventually to France, where he died in the arms of the King, Francis I. As one of the greatest exponents of painting of his time, Leonardo was celebrated by his fellow Florentine Vasari (who was nevertheless responsible for covering over the great fresco of the Battle of Anghiari with his own painting). Vasari's carefully researched life of Leonardo remains one of the main sources of our knowledge, and is printed here together with the three other early biographies, and the major account by his French editor Du Fresne. Personal reminiscences by the novelist Bandello, and humanist Saba di Castiglione, round out the picture, and for the first time the extremely revealing imagined dialogue between Leonardo and the Greek sculptor Phidias, by the painter and theorist Lomazzo, is published in English. An introduction by the scholar Charles Robertson places these writings and the career of Leonardo in context. Approximately 50 pages of colour illustrations, including the major paintings and many of the astonishing drawings, give a rich overview of Leonardo's work and mind.

How to be a Renaissance Woman - The Untold History of Beauty and Female Creativity (Hardcover, Main): Jill Burke How to be a Renaissance Woman - The Untold History of Beauty and Female Creativity (Hardcover, Main)
Jill Burke
R648 R613 Discovery Miles 6 130 Save R35 (5%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

'Lively and intriguing ... You'll never look at Renaissance portraits in the same way' Maggie O'Farrell Plunge into the intimate history of cosmetics, and discover how, for centuries, women have turned to make up as a rich source of creativity, community and resistance The Renaissance was an era obsessed with appearances. And beauty culture from the time has left traces that give us a window into an overlooked realm of history - revealing everything from sixteenth-century women's body anxieties to their sophisticated botanical and chemical knowledge. How to be a Renaissance Woman allows us to glimpse the world of the female artists, artisans and businesswomen carving out space for themselves, as well as those who gained power and influence in the cut-throat world of the court. In a vivid exploration of women's lives, Professor Jill Burke invites us to rediscover historical cosmetic recipes and unpack the origins of the beauty ideals that are still with us today.

Lives of Veronese (Paperback, 2nd New edition): Giorgio Vasari, Raffaello Borghini, Carlo Ridolfi Lives of Veronese (Paperback, 2nd New edition)
Giorgio Vasari, Raffaello Borghini, Carlo Ridolfi; Edited by Xavier F. Salomon
R275 R215 Discovery Miles 2 150 Save R60 (22%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

'Never was a painter more nobly joyous, never did an artist take a greater delight in life, seeing it all as a kind of breezy festival and feeling it through the medium of perpetual success...He was the happiest of painters.' Henry James on Veronese, 1909 Collected here for the first time, these fascinating early biographies (one of which has never been translated before) describe and celebrate the astonishingly fertile art of Paolo Veronese. Most of what we know about Veronese comes from these three essays. 'I have known this Paolino and I have seen his beautiful works. He deserves to have a great volume written in praise of him, for his pictures prove that he is second to no other painter', wrote Veronese's contemporary Annibale Carracci in the margins to his copy of Vasari's writings, continuing 'and this fool passes over him in four lines. And just because he was not Florentine.' It was indeed a measure of his fame that Vasari, whose Life of Veronese is reprinted here, should have overcome his pro-Tuscan prejudices to write about his great Venetian contemporary; and he was followed in this by another Florentine, the theorist Raffaele Borghini. But the most striking record of the impact of Veronese's art on his countrymen is the extensive biography by his fellow Venetian, Carlo Ridolfi. Entirely original in the seriousness and passion with which he approached his subject, Ridolfi permanently changed the course of writing about art. This is the first translation of his work into English. Translated and introduced by Xavier F. Salomon, curator of Veronese: Renaissance Magnificence at the National Gallery, London. Fifty pages of colour illustrations cover the span of Veronese's breath-taking career.

Donatello - Sculpting The Renaissance (Hardcover): Peta Motture Donatello - Sculpting The Renaissance (Hardcover)
Peta Motture
R1,073 Discovery Miles 10 730 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Arguably the greatest sculptor of all time, Donatello (c.1386-1466) was at the vanguard of a revolution in sculptural practice in the early Renaissance. Combining ideas from classical and medieval sculpture to create innovative sculptural forms, Donatello had an unparalleled ability to portray emotions in works intended to inspire spiritual devotion. Pieces such as the penitent St Mary Magdalene and the bronze of David remain deeply affecting to audiences today. Working in marble, bronze, wood, terracotta and stucco, he contributed to major commissions of church and state; was an intimate of the Medici family and their circle in Florence, and highly sought after in other Italian cities. This book, specially commissioned to accompany the 2023 exhibition at the V&A, explores Donatello's extraordinary creativity within the vibrant artistic and cultural context of fifteenth-century Italy, surveying his early connection with goldsmiths' work and the collaborative nature of his workshop and processes. It also reflects on Donatello's legacy, reviewing how his sculpture inspired subsequent generations in the later Renaissance and beyond.

Lives of Tintoretto (Paperback): Giorgio Vasari, Pietro Aretino, Carlo Ridolfi, Andrea Calmo, Veronica Franco, El Greco Lives of Tintoretto (Paperback)
Giorgio Vasari, Pietro Aretino, Carlo Ridolfi, Andrea Calmo, Veronica Franco, …
R309 R265 Discovery Miles 2 650 Save R44 (14%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The most exhilarating painter of the Renaissance and arguably of the whole of western art, Tintoretto was known as Il Furioso because of the attack and energy of his style. His vaunting ambition is recorded in the inscription he placed in his studio: l disegno di Michelangelo ed il colorito di Tiziano ("Michelangelo's drawing and Titian's colour"). The Florentines Vasari and Borghini, and the Venetians Ridolfi and Boschini wrote the earliest biographies of the artist. The four accounts are related to each other and form the backbone of the critical success of Tintoretto. Borghini is the first one to give some information about Marietta Tintoretto, also an artist, and Ridolfi is the richest in anecdotes about the artist's life and personality - including the one about the inscription which he may, however, have invented. Boschini, a witty Venetian nationalist, wrote his account in dialect verse. El Greco, whose marginal notes to Vasari are included for the first time in English, Calmo and Franco knew Tintoretto personally and their writings give a real flavour of this complicated man. Unavailable in any form for many years, these biographies have been newly edited for this edition. They are introduced by the scholar Carlo Corsato, who places each in its artistic and literary context. Approximately 50 pages of colour illustrations cover the full range of Tintoretto's astonishing output.

Lives of Titian (Paperback): Giorgio Vasari, Sperone Speroni, Pietro Aretino, Ludovico Dolce, Raffaele Borghini, Franceso... Lives of Titian (Paperback)
Giorgio Vasari, Sperone Speroni, Pietro Aretino, Ludovico Dolce, Raffaele Borghini, …
R302 R257 Discovery Miles 2 570 Save R45 (15%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Titian (c. 1488-1576) was recognised very early on as the leading painter of his generation in Venice. Starting in the studio of the aged Giovanni Bellini, Titian, with his contemporary Giorgione, almost immediately started to expand the range of what was possible in painting, converting Bellini's statuesque style into something far more impressionistic and romantic. This restless spirit of innovation and improvisation never left him, and during his long life he experimented with a number of different styles, the brushwork of his last great paintings showing a mysterious poetry that has never been equalled. This volume in the series Lives of the Artists collects the major writings about Titian by his contemporaries and near contemporaries. The centrepiece is the biography by Vasari, who as a Florentine found Titian's very Venetian sense of colour and transient forms a challenge to his concept of art as design. The poet Ariosto and sparkling letter writer Aretino had a more nuanced view of their friend's work, and Priscianese's account of a dinner party with Titian, and the contributions by Speroni and Dolce, and the slightly later Tuscan critic Borghini, round out the picture of this hugely thoughtful, intellectual artist, whose paintings remain some of the most sensual and affecting in all of Western art. Mostly unavailable in any form for many years, these writings have been newly edited for this edition. They are introduced by the scholar Carlo Corsato, who places each in its artistic and literary context. Approximately 50 pages of colour illustrations cover the full range of Titian's great oeuvre.

Courtly Mediators - Transcultural Objects between Renaissance Italy and the Islamic World (Hardcover): Leah R. Clark Courtly Mediators - Transcultural Objects between Renaissance Italy and the Islamic World (Hardcover)
Leah R. Clark
R2,907 Discovery Miles 29 070 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

In Courtly Mediators, Leah R. Clark investigates the exchange of a range of materials and objects, including metalware, ceramic drug jars, Chinese porcelain, and aromatics, across the early modern Italian, Mamluk, and Ottoman courts. She provides a new narrative that places Aragonese Naples at the center of an international courtly culture, where cosmopolitanism and the transcultural flourished, and in which artists, ambassadors, and luxury goods actively participated. By articulating how and why transcultural objects were exchanged, displayed, copied, and framed, she provides a new methodological framework that transforms our understanding of the Italian Renaissance court. Clark's volume provides a multi-sensorial, innovative reading of Italian Renaissance art. It demonstrates that the early modern culture of collecting was more than a humanistic enterprise associated with the European roots of the Renaissance. Rather, it was sustained by interactions with global material cultures from the Islamic world and beyond.

A New History of Italian Renaissance Art (Hardcover, Second edition): Stephen J. Campbell, Michael W. Cole A New History of Italian Renaissance Art (Hardcover, Second edition)
Stephen J. Campbell, Michael W. Cole
R1,776 Discovery Miles 17 760 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Campbell and Cole, respected teachers and active researchers, draw on traditional and current scholarship to present complex interpretations in this new edition of their engaging account of Italian Renaissance art. The book's unique decade-by-decade structure is easy to follow, and permits the authors to tell the story of art not only in the great centres of Rome, Florence and Venice, but also in a range of other cities and sites throughout Italy, including more in this edition from Naples, Padua and Palermo. This approach allows the artworks to take centre-stage, in contrast to the book's competitors, which are organized by location or by artist. Other updates for this edition include an expanded first chapter on the Trecento, and a new `Techniques and Materials' appendix that explains and illustrates all of the major art-making processes of the period. Richly illustrated with high-quality reproductions and new photography of recent restorations, it presents the classic canon of Renaissance painting and sculpture in full, while expanding the scope of conventional surveys by offering a more thorough coverage of architecture, decorative and domestic arts, and print media.

Saints, Miracles, and Social Problems in Italian Renaissance Art (Hardcover): Diana Bullen Presciutti Saints, Miracles, and Social Problems in Italian Renaissance Art (Hardcover)
Diana Bullen Presciutti
R3,705 R2,907 Discovery Miles 29 070 Save R798 (22%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

In this book, Diana Bullen Presciutti explores how images of miracles performed by mendicant saints-reviving dead children, redeeming the unjustly convicted, mending broken marriages, quelling factional violence, exorcising the demonically possessed-actively shaped Renaissance Italians' perceptions of pressing social problems related to gender, sexuality, and honor. She argues that depictions of these miracles by artists-both famous (Donatello, Titian) and anonymous-played a critical role in defining and conceptualizing threats to family honor and social stability. Drawing from art history, history, religious studies, gender studies, and sociology, Presciutti's interdisciplinary study reveals how miracle scenes-whether painted, sculpted, or printed-operated as active agents of 'lived religion' and social negotiation in the spaces of the Renaissance Italian city.

Michelangelo (Hardcover): Gilles Neret Michelangelo (Hardcover)
Gilles Neret 1
R477 R394 Discovery Miles 3 940 Save R83 (17%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days

Italian-born Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475-1564) was a tormented, prodigiously talented, and God-fearing Renaissance man. His manifold achievements in painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, and engineering combined body, spirit, and God into visionary masterpieces that changed art history forever. Famed biographer Giorgio Vasari considered him the pinnacle of Renaissance achievement. His peers called him simply "Il Divino" ("the divine one"). This book provides the essential introduction to Michelangelo with all the awe-inspiring masterpieces and none of the queues and crowds. With vivid illustration and accessible texts, we explore the artist's extraordinary figuration and celebrated style of terribilita (momentous grandeur), which allowed human and biblical drama to exist in compelling scale and fervor. Through the power hubs of Renaissance Italy, we take in his major commissions and phenomenal capacity for compositional schemes, whether the famous Medici library in Florence, or the extraordinary 500-square-meter ceiling (1508-1512) in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel. From the towering David to the aching grief and faith of The Pieta and the vivid drama of the Sistine Chapel's Last Judgment, this is a succinct, dependable reference to a true giant of art history and to some of the most famous artworks in the world. About the series Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best-selling art book collection ever published. Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art series features: a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

The King's Painter - The Life and Times of Hans Holbein (Paperback): Franny Moyle The King's Painter - The Life and Times of Hans Holbein (Paperback)
Franny Moyle
R373 R306 Discovery Miles 3 060 Save R67 (18%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days

A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK 'A great, thrusting codpiece of a book. It is big, bombastic and richly brocaded... A jewel in its own right' The Times 'Evokes the painter and his world as vividly as a Holbein masterpiece. Beautifully written and illustrated, this book is a must for lovers of Tudor history' Tracy Borman Full of insight... This is a gorgeous book, to which I am sure I shall return again and again' Dan Jones Hans Holbein the Younger is chiefly celebrated for his beautiful and precisely realised portraiture, which includes representations of Henry VIII, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, Anne of Cleves, Jane Seymour and an array of the Tudor lords and ladies he encountered during the course of two sojourns in England. But beyond these familiar images, which have come to define our perception of the world of the Henrician court, Holbein was a protean and multi-faceted genius: a humanist, satirist, political propagandist, and contributor to the history of book design as well as a religious artist and court painter. The rich layers of symbolism and allusion that characterise his work have proved especially fascinating to scholars. Franny Moyle traces and analyses the life and work of an extraordinary artist against the backdrop of an era of political turbulence and cultural transformation, to which his art offers a subtle and endlessly refracting mirror.

Lives of Giovanni Bellini (Paperback): Giorgio Vasari, Carlo Ridolfi, Marco Boschini, Isabella D'Este, Davide Gasparotto Lives of Giovanni Bellini (Paperback)
Giorgio Vasari, Carlo Ridolfi, Marco Boschini, Isabella D'Este, Davide Gasparotto
R301 R234 Discovery Miles 2 340 Save R67 (22%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Scion of an artistic dynasty, Giovanni Bellini is arguably the greatest Venetian painter of the early Renaissance. His astonishing naturalism revolutionised altarpiece painting and is still a source of wonder, as any visit to Frari in Venice will confirm. Most of what we know about this great artist comes from the earliest biographies by Vasari and Ridolfi printed here - the Ridolfi never before translated into English. A different and very personal insight is given by extensive correspondence with Bellini's great but neglected patron Isabella d'Este.

Bruegel (Hardcover): Rainer & Rose-Marie Hagen Bruegel (Hardcover)
Rainer & Rose-Marie Hagen 1
R477 R394 Discovery Miles 3 940 Save R83 (17%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days

The great Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1526/31-1569) was an astoundingly inventive painter and draftsman, who made his art historical mark with beautiful, evocative landscapes as well as religious subjects, both notable for their vernacular language and attention to everyday, contemporary life. Immersing himself in rural or small-town communities, Bruegel is particularly notable for his depiction of peasant experience and folk culture, earning the artist nickname "Peasant Bruegel." Whether hunters shivering in the snow or a boisterous country fair, Bruegel raised the farming, festivals, gatherings, and games of peasant culture to the status of high art. Bruegel's imposing religious and moral subjects, meanwhile, such as The Triumph of Death and The Tower of Babel are as awestriking and influential today as they were in the 16th century, inspiring contemporary culture from The Lord of the Rings cinematic battle scenes to Don DeLillo's novel Underworld. From the corn harvest to the conversion of Saul, from quaint wedding processions to Christ's road to Calvary, this book brings together the rich range of Bruegel's subjects to introduce his powerful compositions of both biblical and earthly tableaux. About the series Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best-selling art book collection ever published. Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art series features: a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

Leonardo da Vinci - The Complete Works (Hardcover, UK ed.): Leonardo Da Vinci Leonardo da Vinci - The Complete Works (Hardcover, UK ed.)
Leonardo Da Vinci 3
R436 R339 Discovery Miles 3 390 Save R97 (22%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Leonardo Da Vinci is considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived, responsible for the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, The Madonna of the Carnation and Vitruvian Man. Leonardo was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer, and this captivating book provides the reader with a unique insight into the life and work of one of history's most intriguing figures. All of Leonardo Da Vinci's work is presented in this compact volume - from his paintings and frescos, to detailed reproductions of his remarkable encrypted notebooks. As well as featuring each individual artwork, sections of each are shown in isolation to reveal incredible details - for example, the different levels of perspective between the background sections of the Mona Lisa, and the disembodied hand in The Last Supper. 640 pages of colour artworks and photographs of Da Vinci's original notebooks, accompanied by fascinating biographical and historical details are here.

Rembrandt Is in the Wind - Learning to Love Art through the Eyes of Faith (Hardcover): Russ Ramsey Rembrandt Is in the Wind - Learning to Love Art through the Eyes of Faith (Hardcover)
Russ Ramsey; Foreword by Makoto Fujimura
R412 Discovery Miles 4 120 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Did you know Vincent van Gogh sold only one painting during his lifetime and that during the last three months of his life he completed an average of one painting every day? Did you know that Michelangelo's David is covered in a dusting of human skin? Did you know Caravaggio murdered several people while he was painting some of the most glorious paintings of biblical scenes the world has ever known? Rembrandt Is in the Wind by Russ Ramsey is an invitation to discover some of the world's most celebrated artists and works, while presenting the gospel of Christ in a way that speaks to the struggles and longings common to the human experience. The book is part art history, part biblical study, part philosophy, and part analysis of the human experience; but it's all story. The lives of the artists in this book illustrate the struggle of living in this world and point to the beauty of the redemption available to us in Christ. Each story is different. Some conclude with resounding triumph while others end in struggle. But all of them raise important questions about humanity's hunger and capacity for glory, and all of them teach us to love and see beauty.

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci - Selected Extracts from the Writings of the Renaissance Genius (Hardcover): Leonardo Da... The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci - Selected Extracts from the Writings of the Renaissance Genius (Hardcover)
Leonardo Da Vinci
R607 Discovery Miles 6 070 Ships in 12 - 17 working days
Albrecht DuRer's Material World (Paperback): Edward H. Wouk, Jennifer Spinks Albrecht DuRer's Material World (Paperback)
Edward H. Wouk, Jennifer Spinks
R726 Discovery Miles 7 260 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

The painter and printmaker Albrecht Durer is one of the most important figures of the German Renaissance. This book accompanies the first major exhibition of the Whitworth Art Gallery's outstanding Durer collection in over half a century. It offers a new perspective on Durer as an intense observer of the worlds of manufacture, design and trade that fill his graphic art. Artworks and artefacts examined here expose understudied aspects of Durer's art and practice, including his attentive examination of objects of daily domestic use, his involvement in economies of local manufacture and exchange, the microarchitectures of local craft and, finally, his attention to cultures of natural and philosophical inquiry and learning. -- .

A Grand Tour Journal 1820-1822 - The Awakening of the Man (Hardcover): Edward Stanley A Grand Tour Journal 1820-1822 - The Awakening of the Man (Hardcover)
Edward Stanley; Edited by Angus Hawkins
R843 R681 Discovery Miles 6 810 Save R162 (19%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days

In December 1820, at twenty-one years old, Edward Geoffrey Stanley, the future 14th earl of Derby and three-times prime minister, began an extensive tour of continental Europe. By the time of his return to England twenty months later, he had visited many of the foremost centres for art and culture in Europe, and mostly in Italy. In his travel diaries he recorded his intensive social life, his visits to historical sites, his viewings of art collections, his comments on architecture, his admiration of landscapes and his impressions of foreign societies. He was energetic, enthusiastic and discerning: the bridge of Augustus in Umbria gave him 'a stupendous idea of Roman grandeur'; the charm of the towns crowning the Tuscan hills struck him with the same delight that he felt when gazing at one of Poussin's paintings; the waterfall at Terni, which dropped 370 feet into an abyss of spray, was 'awfully magnificent'; while the ceremonies of the Italian Catholic Church he judged to be a blend of mummery, superstition and bigotry. Sights and experiences like these influenced him for the rest of his life. This precious collection of diaries, found only recently and published here for the first time, reveal Edward Stanley to have been a young man of diligence, courage and decisiveness: a future leader with a conspicuous and burgeoning sense of political and social justice. It was these characteristics, seen in early development within these pages, that shaped the man and the extraordinary career to come.

Nicholas Hilliard (Hardcover): Hearn, Karen Nicholas Hilliard (Hardcover)
Hearn, Karen
R256 Discovery Miles 2 560 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Nicholas Hilliard has helped form our ideas of the appearance of Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots, Sir Francis Drake and James I among others. His painted works open a remarkable window onto the highest levels of English/British society in the later years of the sixteenth and the early years of the seventeenth century, the Elizabethan and Jacobeans ages. In this book Karen Hearn gives us an intimate portrait of Nicholas Hilliard, his life, his work and the techniques he used to produce his exquisite miniatures. Karen Hearn is curator of Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Art at the Tate Britain. She has written on Marcus Gheeraerts II, Dynasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 1530-1630 and In Celebration: The Art of the Country House.

Durer (Hardcover): Norbert Wolf Durer (Hardcover)
Norbert Wolf
R477 R395 Discovery Miles 3 950 Save R82 (17%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days

A polymath of the German Renaissance, Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) was a prolific artist, theorist, and writer whose works explored everything from religion to art theory to philosophy. His vast body of work includes altarpieces, portraits, self-portraits, watercolors, and books, but is most celebrated for its astonishing collection of woodcut prints, which transformed printmaking from an artisan practice into a whole new art form. Durer's woodcuts astonish in scale as much as detail. Through works such as Apocalypse and the Triumphal Arch for Emperor Maximilian I, he created dense, meticulous compositions that were much larger, much more finely cut, and far more complex than any earlier woodcut efforts. With an ambitious tonal and dynamic range, he introduced a new level of conceptual, emotional, and spiritual intensity. His two major woodcut series on Christ's Passion, named The Large Passion and The Small Passion after their size, are particularly remarkable for their vivid human treatment of the Christian narrative. In his copper engraving, Melancholia I, meanwhile, Durer created a startling vision of emotional ennui, often cited as a defining early image of a depressive or melancholic state. Ever inquisitive, Durer absorbed ideas not only from masters and fellow artists in Germany but also from Italy, while his own influence extended across Europe for generations to come. In this essential TASCHEN introduction, we explore this pioneering figure's complex practice, his omnivorous intellect, and the key works which shaped his enduring legacy. About the series Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best-selling art book collection ever published. Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art series features: a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

Caravaggio. The Complete Works (Hardcover): Sebastian Schutze Caravaggio. The Complete Works (Hardcover)
Sebastian Schutze
R2,053 R1,638 Discovery Miles 16 380 Save R415 (20%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days

Caravaggio, or more accurately Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610), was always a name to be reckoned with. Notorious bad boy of Italian painting, the artist was at once celebrated and controversial: Violent in temper, precise in technique, a creative master, and a man on the run. This work offers a comprehensive reassessment of Caravaggio's entire oeuvre with a catalogue raisonne of his works. Each painting is reproduced in large format, with recent, high production photography allowing for dramatic close-ups with Caravaggio's ingenious details of looks and gestures. Five introductory chapters analyze Caravaggio's artistic career from his early struggle to make a living, through his first public commissions in Rome, and his growing celebrity status. They look at his increasing daring with lighting and with a boundary-breaking naturalism which allowed even biblical events to unfold with an unprecedented immediacy before the viewer.

Penned and Painted - The Art & Meaning of Books in Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts (Hardcover): Lucy Freeman Sandler Penned and Painted - The Art & Meaning of Books in Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts (Hardcover)
Lucy Freeman Sandler
R784 R645 Discovery Miles 6 450 Save R139 (18%) Ships in 9 - 15 working days

The idea of the book was central throughout the western European and the eastern Mediterranean world in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. From the beginning, the word for 'book'-sefer in Hebrew, biblia in Greek, and liber in Latin-was identified with sacred writings--the Holy Scriptures of Jews and Christians, who were known as 'people of the book'. The centrality of the book to medieval thought is reflected materially in the countless images of books that appear in the manuscripts of the era, be they in the most treasured, highly decorated, sacred texts or in devotional and secular works as well. In Penned & Painted, Lucy Freeman Sandler, one of one of the world's most respected authorities on medieval art, takes us on a personal but highly insightful exploration of some of the British Library's most precious manuscript holdings and describes the many uses and meanings of these 'books in books'. Through the fascinating face-to-face discovery of 60 manuscripts, she investigates the various types and forms of books as depicted in the era. How were they produced and what did they look like? What do they tell us of the lives and skills of the scribes and illuminators? What did these books record and signify? How were they displayed, consumed and how did some of these objects of supreme beauty even come to be wantonly destroyed? Penned & Painted is presented in full-colour throughout and includes a high number of images specially photographed for this volume.

The Perfect House - A Journey with the Renaissance Master Andrea Palladio (Paperback, New edition): Witold Rybczynski The Perfect House - A Journey with the Renaissance Master Andrea Palladio (Paperback, New edition)
Witold Rybczynski
R250 R139 Discovery Miles 1 390 Save R111 (44%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Renaissance master Andrea Palladio's architectural DNA can be seen on modern-day icons from Buckingham Palace to the White House, from numerous English stately homes to Virginian plantation houses. In THE PERFECT HOUSE Witold Rybczynski travels along the Brenta River in north-eastern Italy to experience the surviving original Palladian villas for himself. He sets out to discover how a rustic sixteenth-century stonemason, born Andrea di Pietro, first had to become 'cultured' before he could be one of the most respected architects of all time, and how Palladio managed to bring the elegance of Ancient Rome to the Venetian countryside. Out of the chaos of hired cars and cheap flights, towns packed with 'Ristoranti Palladio' and herds of tourists, Rybczynski savours moments of epiphany as he contemplates Palladio's perfect houses. Part travelogue, part historical biography, part architectural guide, THE PERFECT HOUSE is a delightful and enlightening exploration of the birth of domestic architecture and the man who spawned it.

Hieronymus Bosch Tarot (Cards): Travis McHenry Hieronymus Bosch Tarot (Cards)
Travis McHenry
R417 Discovery Miles 4 170 Ships in 12 - 17 working days
Raphael Trail - The Secret History of One of the World's Most Precious Works of Art (Hardcover, New title): Joanna Pitman Raphael Trail - The Secret History of One of the World's Most Precious Works of Art (Hardcover, New title)
Joanna Pitman 1
R223 Discovery Miles 2 230 Ships in 12 - 17 working days

"St George and the Dragon" is a supremely beautiful painting. It is an exquisitely rendered vision of a universal tale of good and evil. And it is also an example of how art witnesses and participates in the ebb and flow of world power. For its artist, "Raphael" the painting represented a crucial step in his ascent to the peak of the Renaissance art world and for a succession of jealous owners it was the ultimate symbol of power and prestige. Painted for a young Henry VII the painting then played a crucial part in the diplomatic intrigues in Henry VIII's rumbustious court. After Charles I's execution it moved through France into the gathering power and purchases of Catherine the Great and her Hermitage. It is a small work of art and during the Russian Revolution its vulnerability was perilous - it was shunted around Russia as war raged until, in an utterly dodgy transaction it was sold by Stalin to the US Treasury Secretary. Into the grips of a new world power. Within this perfectly rendered painting stories of greed and warfare can be traced, in its history the changing centres of world dominance can be seen and in the way its beauty has been traded the intricate connections between high culture and money and power can be disentangled. This small work of art is a repository of the very story of Western civilisation and Joanna Pitman is an author of considerable acclaim and great skill. This is a fantastic piece of literature - history at its most fascinating - storytelling at its finest.

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John D. Wright Hardcover R646 R493 Discovery Miles 4 930
Death, Torture and the Broken Body in…
John R. Decker Paperback R1,479 Discovery Miles 14 790
Holbein
Norbert Wolf Hardcover R477 R394 Discovery Miles 3 940
Albert & the Whale
Philip Hoare Paperback R253 Discovery Miles 2 530
The Hours of Marie de' Medici - A…
Eberhard Koenig Hardcover R4,388 R3,453 Discovery Miles 34 530
The Emblem in Early Modern Europe…
Peter M. Daly Hardcover R3,920 Discovery Miles 39 200
Discovery of El Greco - The…
Eric Storm Paperback R969 Discovery Miles 9 690
Life of Raphael
Giorgio Vasari Paperback R270 R231 Discovery Miles 2 310
St. Catherine of Alexandria in…
Cynthia Stollhans Hardcover R4,354 Discovery Miles 43 540

 

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