Despite his posthumous fame as a painter of flowers, still-lifes, gardens, landscapes and city scenes, during his lifetime Vincent van Gogh believed that his portraits constituted his most important works. Although as an artist he was `touched by so many different things', he was nevertheless committed to the art of portraiture - a quality that distinguished him from his contemporaries. Van Gogh was passionate in his avoidance of bland, photographic resemblances, in the hope of capturing the essential character of his models by means of expressive colour and brushwork. Showcasing a dramatic set of portraits created during Van Gogh's ten-year career, this book reflects the strong visual impact with which the artist captured the diversity of contemporary life. In his many portraits, we can discern the artist's desire to record expressively a number of themes, from the plight of the agricultural workers in his native Brabant and the destitution of prostitutes and their children in urban Europe, to the lives of his cosmopolitan acquaintances in Paris, including cafe owners and art dealers. It was here that he began his remarkable sequence of self-portraits. With reference to Van Gogh's extensive correspondence, Skea elaborates how the artist perceived his chosen subjects as would a writer, and how he felt that his portraits should somehow evoke what he considered to be the spiritual underpinning of human existence

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood heralded an exciting new direction in British art, and the works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt and their contemporaries remain some of the most popular, evocative and recognisable Victorian art. Liverpool patrons and artists encouraged the group when London critics were hostile, and the city became home to its own Pre-Raphaelite school. Artists such as William Windus, John Lee, James Campbell and William Davis adopted Pre-Raphaelite principles whilst developing their own unique style and identity. The Walker Art Gallery, Lady Lever Art Gallery and Sudley House hold some of the finest works by both London-based and Liverpool Pre-Raphaelite artists, 71 of which are featured in this book.

In Black Bodies, White Gold Anna Arabindan-Kesson uses cotton, a commodity central to the slave trade and colonialism, as a focus for new interpretations of the way art, commerce, and colonialism were intertwined in the nineteenth-century Atlantic world. In doing so, Arabindan-Kesson models an art historical approach that makes the histories of the Black diaspora central to nineteenth-century cultural production. She traces the emergence of a speculative vision that informs perceptions of Blackness in which artistic renderings of cotton-as both commodity and material-became inexorably tied to the monetary value of Black bodies. From the production and representation of "negro cloth"-the textile worn by enslaved plantation workers-to depictions of Black sharecroppers in photographs and paintings, Arabindan-Kesson demonstrates that visuality was the mechanism through which Blackness and cotton became equated as resources for extraction. In addition to interrogating the work of nineteenth-century artists, she engages with contemporary artists such as Hank Willis Thomas, Lubaina Himid, and Yinka Shonibare CBE RA, who contend with the commercial and imperial processes shaping constructions of Blackness and meanings of labor.

In this magisterial book, Henri Dorra synthesizes more than fifty years of study to present a comprehensive examination of Paul Gauguin's symbolism. Drawing on his profound grasp of the artistic and social contexts in which Gauguin worked, Dorra provides new, complex insights into and interpretations of Gauguin's multilayered symbolism. "The Symbolism of Paul Gauguin" is lavishly illustrated with a major visual compendium of the artist's prodigious output. The highly readable narrative, based on a sophisticated understanding of Gauguin's oeuvre, offers a masterly interpretation of recurrent images and their interrelationships in the contemporaneous artistic and social context. Dorra discusses Gauguin's iconography and the artist's treatments of similar themes in various media, from prepatory drawings for paintings to related ceramics and wood carvings. He traces Gauguin's meanings in literary sources from classical mythology and the Bible to late ninetheenth-century literature. He also links the form and content of the artist's work to his unusual ancestry and upbringing. As the final scholarly work by an internationally recognized expert on nineteenth-century French symbolism, this book provides a profound new perspective on Gauguin and his work.

Of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Jewish artists, a large number turned toward radical socialist politics. These artists, even the most secularized among them, were deeply influenced by the Jewish traditions, teachings, and culture in which they were raised. The communal thrust of Judaism that calls upon Jews to bear the responsibility for the moral, spiritual, and material welfare of their community informed the creative output of these artists. Baigell explores the meaningful yet little-examined connections between religious heritage, social concerns, and political radicalism in the Jewish American art world from the time of the Great Migration from Eastern Europe in the 1880s to the beginning of World War II. Focusing on political cartoons published in left-wing Yiddish- and English-language newspapers and magazines, Baigell shows how artists commented on current events using biblical and other Jewish references within a medium of expression that had the widest possible audience. Set against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution, the Depression, and the rise of fascism during the 1930s, the book examines the work of such well-known artists as William Gropper and Mark Rothko, and brings to light the work of lesser-known artists, such as Leon Israel and Louis Ribak. Artists' personal correspondence, newspaper articles, and the writings of art critics all reveal the intimate connections between Jewish memories, religious customs, and radical socialist concerns.

Dazzling works on paper from a vast and celebrated collection The Harvard Art Museums house one of the most significant collections of works on paper in North America. Among its many strengths are sheets by draftsmen of the French School, including notable masters such as Simon Vouet, Claude Lorrain, Nicolas Poussin, Jean-Antoine Watteau, François Boucher, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, and Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Following an introductory essay that charts the formation of this group of drawings, this catalogue provides thorough entries on more than 100 outstanding examples from the 16th to 18th century that encompass a range of genres and motifs—from landscapes and figure studies to historical and mythological scenes—many of which were produced for major commissions or mark key moments in the development of style and taste in early modern France. Alvin L. Clark Jr. marshals his decades-long engagement with these works, pairing a discerning eye with perceptive readings that deepen our understanding of the drawings and their makers. Distributed for the Harvard Art Museums

In 1857 the French poet Charles Baudelaire, who was fascinated by lesbianism, created a scandal with Les Fleurs du Mal [The Flowers of Evil]. This collection was originally entitled "The Lesbians" and described women as "femmes damnees," with "disordered souls" suffering in a hypocritical world. Then twenty years later, lesbians in Paris dared to flaunt themselves in that extraordinarily creative period at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries which became known as the Belle Epoque. Lesbian Decadence, now available in English for the first time, provides a new analysis and synthesis of the depiction of lesbianism as a social phenomenon and a symptom of social malaise as well as a fantasy in that most vibrant place and period in history. In this newly translated work, praised by leading critics as "authoritative," "stunning," and "a marvel of elegance and erudition," Nicole G. Albert analyzes and synthesizes an engagingly rich sweep of historical representations of the lesbian mystique in art and literature. Albert contrasts these visions to moralists' abrupt condemnations of "the lesbian vice," as well as the newly emerging psychiatric establishment's medical fury and their obsession on cataloging and classifying symptoms of "inversion" or "perversion" in order to cure these "unbalanced creatures of love." Lesbian Decadence combines literary, artistic, and historical analysis of sources from the mainstream to the rare, from scholarly studies to popular culture. The English translation provides a core reference/text for those interested in the Decadent movement, in literary history, in French history and social history. It is well suited for courses in gender studies, women's studies, LGBT history, and lesbianism in literature, history, and art.

Fleshing out surfaces is the first English-language book on skin and flesh tones in art. It considers flesh and skin in art theory, image making and medical discourse in seventeenth to nineteenth-century France. Describing a gradual shift between the early modern and the modern period, it argues that what artists made when imitating human nakedness was not always the same. Initially understood in terms of the body's substance, of flesh tones and body colour, it became increasingly a matter of skin, skin colour and surfaces. Each chapter is dedicated to a different notion of skin and its colour, from flesh tones via a membrane imbued with nervous energy to hermetic borderline. Looking in particular at works by Fragonard, David, Girodet, Benoist and Ingres, the focus is on portraits, as facial skin is a special arena for testing painterly skills and a site where the body and the image become equally expressive. -- .

Behind rolling hills, overlooking the fjord and the islands of Southern Funen in Denmark, you will find Faaborg Museum. With its boldly coloured walls and decorative tile floors made from local clay, the building has quite literally sprung from Funen soil in a symbiosis of local nature and culture. Inside, visitors will find art by the 'Funen Painters', created during the period 1880 to 1928 where Faaborg was home to one of Denmark's pre-eminent artists' colonies. With their paintings of rural Funen, farmworkers and domestic scenes, the artists Peter Hansen, Fritz and Anna Syberg, Jens Birkholm and Johannes Larsen introduced new subject matter and new methods of painting in Danish art. Faaborg Museum and the Artists' Colony presents the history of Faaborg Museum, its architecture, collection and artists to international audiences for the first time. Lavishly illustrated, the book features architectural photographs and plans as well as pictures of the museum's art.

The Symbolist art movement of the late nineteenth century forms an important bridge between Impressionism and Modernism. But because Symbolism, more than the two movements it links, emphasizes ideas over objects and events, it has suffered from vague and conflicting definitions. In "Symbolist Art in Context", Michelle Facos offers a clearly written, comprehensive, and accessible description of this challenging subject. Reaching back into Romanticism for Symbolism's origins, Facos argues that Symbolism enabled artists (including Munch and Gauguin) to confront an increasingly uncertain and complex world - one to which pessimists responded with themes of decadence and degeneration and optimists with idealism and reform.

Empire to Nation offers a new consideration of the image of the sea in British visual culture during a critical period for both the rise of the visual arts in Britain and the expansion of the nation's imperial power. It argues that maritime imagery was central to cultivating a sense of nationhood in relation to rapidly expanding geographical knowledge and burgeoning imperial ambition. At the same time, the growth of the maritime empire presented new opportunities for artistic enterprise. Taking as its starting point the year 1768, which marks the foundation of the Royal Academy and the launch of Captain Cook's first circumnavigation, it asserts that this was not just an interesting coincidence but symptomatic of the relationship between art and empire. This relationship was officially sanctioned in the establishment of the Naval Gallery at Greenwich Hospital and the installation there of J. M. W. Turner's great Battle of Trafalgar in 1829, the year that closes this study. Between these two poles, the book traces a changing historical discourse that informed visual representation of maritime subjects Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

From humble beginnings in Nuenen and Antwerp to his last month in Auvers-sur-Oise, this captivating book on Vincent Van Gogh's life and works is the perfect introduction for all students and art lovers interested in late nineteenth-century and Post-Impressionist art. Featuring fifty of his finest works, each painting and drawing is described and analyzed in beautiful detail, within the context of the period, so that the reader can really understand what the artist was hoping to achieve with each work. Drawing from the many letters that Van Gogh wrote to his brother, friends and others, curator John Cauman provides an enthralling and accessible narrative about the artist and his work, introducing the milieu, key characters and themes and legacy that continues to this day. Among the fifty paintings featured, this book includes The Potato Eaters (1885), Pere Tanguy (1887), Self-Portrait in Front of the Easel (1888), Sunflowers (1888), Cafe Terrace at Night (1888), Bedroom in Arles (1888), Van Gogh's Chair (1888), Portrait of Joseph Roulin (1889), Irises (1889), The Starry Night (1889) and Wheatfield with Crows (1890).

The Swiss-born artist Albert von Keller (1844-1920) was a founding member of the Munich Secession, one of Europe's most influential artists' associations. Highly regarded as an artist in both Europe and America at the turn of the last century, Keller was a flamboyant figure known for his fascination with the occult.

Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker places Keller's modern treatment of enigmatic subjects within the cultural mileau of "fin de siecle" Germany, particularly the investigation of the occult undertaken by scientists, artists andintellectuals. She also documents for the first time the critical reception to Keller's work in America, tracing the artist's participation in exhibitions in Boston, Chicago, Indianapolis, New york, and Saint Louis and his presence in important private collections of German art in America. Swiss art historian Gian Casper Bott examines each painting by Keller in depth and places the artist's works in the art-historical context of the era. The book includes magnificent color reproductions of Keller's paintings from the collection of the Kunsthaus Zurich. It includes key works by Keller from the late 1870s to the beginning of the First World War, a period that coincided with the scandal of his elopement with the beautiful banker's daughter Irene von Eichthal, the tragic death of his only child, and the death of his wife only months later in a state of profound grief.

This book examines a range of visual images of military recruitment to explore changing notions of glory, or of gloire, during the French Revolution. It raises questions about how this event re-orientated notions of 'citizenship' and of service to 'la Patrie'. The opening lines of the Marseillaise are grandly declamatory: Allons enfants de la Patrie/le jour de gloire est arrive! or, in English: Arise, children of the Homeland/The day of glory has arrived! What do these words mean in their later eighteenth-century French context? What was gloire and how was it changed by the revolutionary process? This military song, later adopted as the national anthem, represents a deceptively unifying moment of collective engagement in the making of the modern French nation. Valerie Mainz questions this through a close study of visual imagery dealing with the issue of military recruitment. From neoclassical painting to popular prints, such images typically dealt with the shift from civilian to soldier, focusing on how men, and not women, were called to serve the Homeland.

From Aesthete to Ziffern, Baby-Language to Verbosity, Badgers to Railway Stations: this gloriously serendipitous dictionary presents the life, times and strong opinions of John Ruskin (1819-1900) - art critic, patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, social thinker and philanthropist. Michael Glover's delightful A-Z distills the essence of Ruskin, revealing a lighter side to the man known for his 39 volumes of ponderous prose. When off his guard, Ruskin could write pithily and amusingly, but he was also a fascinating amalgam of self-contradictions. Combining judiciously selected extracts from Ruskin's writings with the author's wittily insightful interpretations, this book is essential reading for all those curious to know what Ruskin did with a cyanometer, why he hated iron railings and the Renaissance, and how Proust's admiration of the man was tinged with distrust.

The Glasgow Boys revolutionized Scottish painting from 1880 until around 1895, although their influence lasted until just before World War 1. Painters such as Sir John Lavery, Sir James Guthrie, George Henry, Edward Atkinson Hornel, Joseph Crawhall, Edward Arthur Walton, and William Kennedy formed the main group of painters, although there were 18 in total. They were a loose group, with various friendships and painting groups among them. Influenced by the Impressionists and post-Impressionists, they were also inspired by Japanese and Dutch art. Their style went against Victorian sentimentality and they brought the look of some forms of Impressionism and post-Impressionism to Scotland, with fresh views of the Scottish countryside and typical scenes from Scottish life. They painted outdoors, and captured a way of life that changed Scottish painting. Many settled after their early rebellious phase into quieter styles, or moved away as the art scene evolved into the Scottish Colourists' phase. As Glasgow became the fourth largest city in Europe, with a massive explosion in its population, money from wealthy industrialists, publishers and merchants became available to support the art commissioned from The Glasgow Boys. New walls needed art, as Glasgow celebrated its prosperity in a new phase of building - the city centre saw a new Art School, and City Chambers, and industrialists built homes in the country. The author's understanding of the art world and the importance of financial support and also painting techniques makes this book a unique contribution to books written on The Glasgow Boys. The Glasgow Boys are the subject of an exhibition at Kelvingrove Art Gallery in spring/summer 2010, and then at the Royal Academy, London until January 2011.

This book examines the involvement of African American artists in the New Deal art programs of the 1930s. Emphasizing broader issues informed by the uniqueness of Black experience rather than individual artists’ works, Mary Ann Calo makes the case that the revolutionary vision of these federal art projects is best understood in the context of access to opportunity, mediated by the reality of racial segregation. Focusing primarily on the Federal Art Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), Calo documents African American artists’ participation in community art centers in Harlem, in St. Louis, and throughout the South. She examines the internal workings of the Harlem Artists’ Guild, the Guild’s activities during the 1930s, and its alliances with other groups, such as the Artists’ Union and the National Negro Congress. Calo also explores African American artists’ representation in the exhibitions sponsored by WPA administrators and the critical reception of their work. In doing so, she elucidates the evolving meanings of the terms race, culture, and community in the interwar era. The book concludes with an essay by Jacqueline Francis on Black artists in the early 1940s, after the end of the FAP program. Presenting essential new archival information and important insights into the experiences of Black New Deal artists, this study expands the factual record and positions the cumulative evidence within the landscape of critical race studies. It will be welcomed by art historians and American studies scholars specializing in early twentieth-century race relations.

In its far-ranging and comprehensive scope, Crafting: Transforming Materials & the Maker is at once both a manual and a manifesto for crafters and craft enthusiasts the world over. A must-have for any craft and educational library, it is a volume that draws together an unparalleled range of craftspeople, practitioners and educationalists from a mix of backgrounds so eclectic that the overall feel of this volume is one of refreshing new perspectives on age-old issues. It is underpinned throughout by critical thinking on a range of social, economic, cultural and ecological debates, and is committed on the seriousness with which we must engage hands-on and outdoor learning as part of a curriculum that values the individual and celebrates the human position within the planet. This is a book that causes us to rethink what constitutes wisdom and knowledge in an age that has detached us from that which defines us as both thinkers and makers. The context of craft, an overview of craft history and the development of a tradition, along with the spiritual underpinning and deep origins of craft production, are all given a thorough review before chapters that embark on an exploration of fabrics, leather, baskets, green wood, pottery, and metal - and glass-working. This timely contribution to the world of contemporary craft revival is a book that is to be applauded for the manner in which it will engage a wide and diverse audience. From master craftsperson to novice beginner, from enthusiast to critic, Crafting: Transforming Materials & the Maker will be an inevitable source of inspiration and an invocation for social change. I certainly envisage it won't be long before my own copy is well-thumbed as a consequence of repeated visits to its passionately written chapters. Alexander Landland, author of Craft: How Traditional Crafts Are About More Than Just Making Faber & Faber 2017

Blake engaged with the legacy of Milton all his life. These watercolours, made around 1816-20 to illustrate the most perfect of Milton's shorter poems, are some of the finest of all his works. All 12 watercolours are reproduced here actual size.

This book is about encounters between art and industry in nineteenth-century Britain. It looks beyond the oppositions established by later interpretations of the work of John Ruskin, William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement to reveal surprising examples of collaboration - between artists, craftspeople, designers, inventors, curators, engineers and educators - during a crucial period in the formation of the cultural and commercial identity of Britain and its colonies. Across thirteen chapters by fourteen contributors, Art versus industry? explores such diverse subjects as the production of lace, the mechanical translation of sculpture, the display of stained glass, the use of the kaleidoscope in painting and pattern design, the emergence of domestic electric lighting and the development of art and design education and international exhibitions in India. -- .

This groundbreaking reconstruction of Goya's so-called 'Witches and Old Women' album will offer rich insights into the artist's concerns and preoccupations and will immeasurably deepen our understanding of the artist. With its themes of witchcraft, madness and nightmares, the predominant imagery of the album offers a particularly important perspective on the development of Goya's interest in old age and its relationship to the fantastic and diabolical.

William Morris-the great 19th century craftsman, architect, designer, poet and writer-remains a monumental figure whose influence resonates powerfully today. As an intellectual (and author of the seminal utopian News From Nowhere), his concern with artistic and human values led him to cross what he called the 'river of fire' and become a committed socialist-committed not to some theoretical formula but to the day by day struggle of working women and men in Britain and to the evolution of his ideas about art, about work and about how life should be lived. Many of his ideas accorded none too well with the reforming tendencies dominant in the Labour movement, nor with those of 'orthodox' Marxism, which has looked elsewhere for inspiration. Both sides have been inclined to venerate Morris rather than to pay attention to what he said. Originally written less than a decade before his groundbreaking The Making of the English Working Class, E.P. Thompson brought to this biography his now trademark historical mastery, passion, wit, and essential sympathy. It remains unsurpassed as the definitive work on this remarkable figure, by the major British historian of the 20th century.