The jewel-like watercolours of renowned Irish botanical artist Wendy Walsh portray a personal selection of about 100 plants that grow wild in Ireland or are cultivated in Irish gardens. Presented in 33 thematic sections,Walsh's subjects range from well-loved and distinctive native plants to exotic species introduced from the New World and Asia, unusual plants that grow in some of the most extreme environments in Ireland, and striking hybrids created by plant breeders. Lively and accessible horticultural descriptions by distinguished botanist E. Charles Nelson accompany the paintings, celebrating the story of each plant along with its natural beauty. The great gardens, famous plantsmen, fascinating journeys and natural phenomena that have shaped the flora of Ireland spring to life in Dr Nelson's engaging text. This elegant and unconventional guide will kindle the imagination of any plant lover or admirer of the Irish landscape.

In 1797 Friedrich Schlegel wrote that "philosophy of art usually lacks one of two things: either the philosophy, or the art." This collection of essays contains both the philosophy and the art. It brings together an international team of leading philosophers to address diverse philosophical issues raised by recent works of art. Each essay engages with a specific artwork and explores the connection between the image and the philosophical content. Thirteen contemporary philosophers demonstrate how philosophy can aid interpretation of the work of ten contemporary artists, including: Jesse Prinz on John Currin Barry C. Smith and Edward Winters on Dexter Dalwood Lydia Goehr and Sam Rose on Tom de Freston Raymond Geuss on Adrian Ghenie and Chantal Joffe Hallvard Lillehammer on Paul Noble M. M. McCabe and Alexis Papazoglou on Ged Quinn Noel Carroll on Paula Rego Simon Blackburn and Jerrold Levinson on George Shaw Sondra Bacharach on Yue Minjun. The discussion ranges over ethical, political, psychological and religious concepts, such as irony, disgust, apathy, inequality, physiognomy and wonder, to historical experiences of war, Marx-inspired political movements and Thatcherism, and standard problems in the philosophy of art, such as expression, style, depiction and ontology of art, as well as major topics in art history, such as vanitas painting, photography, pornography, and Dadaism. Many of the contributors are distinguished in areas of philosophy other than aesthetics and are writing about art for the first time. All show how productive the engagement can be between philosophy, more generally, and art.

As the lead singer of the Grammy Award-winning rock band Quetzal and a scholar of Chicana/o and Latina/o studies, Martha Gonzalez is uniquely positioned to articulate the ways in which creative expression can serve the dual roles of political commentary and community building. Drawing on postcolonial, Chicana, black feminist, and performance theories, Chican@ Artivistas explores the visual, musical, and performance art produced in East Los Angeles since the inception of NAFTA and the subsequent anti-immigration rhetoric of the 1990s. Showcasing the social impact made by key artist-activists on their communities and on the mainstream art world and music industry, Gonzalez charts the evolution of a now-canonical body of work that took its inspiration from the Zapatista movement, particularly its masked indigenous participants, and that responded to efforts to impose systems of labor exploitation and social subjugation. Incorporating Gonzalez's memories of the Mexican nationalist music of her childhood and her band's journey to Chiapas, the book captures the mobilizing music, poetry, dance, and art that emerged in pre-gentrification corners of downtown Los Angeles and that went on to inspire flourishing networks of bold, innovative artivistas.

The notion of a person--or even an object--having a "double" has been explored in the visual arts for ages, and in myriad ways: portraying the body and its soul, a woman gazing at her reflection in a pool, or a man overwhelmed by his own shadow. In this edited collection focusing on nineteenth- and twentieth-century western art, scholars analyze doppelgangers, alter egos, mirror images, double portraits and other pairings, human and otherwise, appearing in a large variety of artistic media. Artists whose works are discussed at length include Richard Dadd, Salvador Dali, Egon Schiele, Frida Kahlo, the creators of Superman, and Nicola Costantino, among many others.

Artistic expression in the Middle East is experiencing something of a renaissance. Domestic patronage is flourishing, and an impressive array of new museums and art fairs across the region is helping to stimulate international interest in an increasingly influential movement. "Art of the Middle East" is an accessible overview of modern and contemporary art of the Middle East and Arab world from 1945 to the present, with an emphasis on artists active today. This new revised and expanded edition features the work of 12 additional artists, as well as a consideration of the impact of the revolutions of the so-called Arab Spring, which erupted across the region in 2011. The featured works are divided into seven themed sections - including literature, portraiture and the body, and politics, conflict and war - while extended captions provide an engaging commentary on each artwork and the artist behind its creation. Lavishly illustrated throughout, this landmark publication is an authoritative guide to a challenging and exciting body of work.

In the turbulent atmosphere of early twentieth-century Tsarist Russia, avant-garde artists took advantage of a newly pluralistic culture in order to challenge orthodoxies of form as well as social prohibitions. Very few did this as effectively, or to as broad an audience, as Mikhail Larionov. This groundbreaking study examines the complete range of his work (painting, book illustration, performance, and curatorial work), and demonstrates that Larionov was taking part in a broader cultural conversation that arose out of fundamental challenges to autocratic rule. Sarah Warren brings the culture of late Imperial Russia out of obscurity, highlighting Larionov's specific interventions into conversations about nationality and empire, democracy and autocracy, and people and intelligentsia that colonized all areas of cultural production. Rather than analyzing Larionov's works within the same interpretive frameworks as those of his contemporaries in France or Germany-such as Matisse or Kirchner-Warren explores the Russian's negotiations with both nationalism and modernism. Further, this study shows that Larionov's group exhibitions, public debates, and face-painting performances were more than a derivative repetition of the techniques of the Italian Futurists. Rather, these activities were the culmination of his attempt to create a radical primitivism, one that exploited the widespread Russian desire for an authentic collective identity, while resisting imperial efforts to appropriate this revivalism to its own ends.

How science changed the way artists understand reality Exploring the Invisible shows how modern art expresses the first secular, scientific worldview in human history. Now fully revised and expanded, this richly illustrated book describes two hundred years of scientific discoveries that inspired French Impressionist painters and Art Nouveau architects, as well as Surrealists in Europe, Latin America, and Japan. Lynn Gamwell describes how the microscope and telescope expanded the artist's vision into realms unseen by the naked eye. In the nineteenth century, a strange and exciting world came into focus, one of microorganisms in a drop of water and spiral nebulas in the night sky. The world is also filled with forces that are truly unobservable, known only indirectly by their effects-radio waves, X-rays, and sound-waves. Gamwell shows how artists developed the pivotal style of modernism-abstract, non-objective art-to symbolize these unseen worlds. Starting in Germany with Romanticism and ending with international contemporary art, she traces the development of the visual arts as an expression of the scientific worldview in which humankind is part of a natural web of dynamic forces without predetermined purpose or meaning. Gamwell reveals how artists give nature meaning by portraying it as mysterious, dangerous, or beautiful. With a foreword by Neil deGrasse Tyson and a wealth of stunning images, this expanded edition of Exploring the Invisible draws on the latest scholarship to provide a global perspective on the scientists and artists who explore life on Earth, human consciousness, and the space-time universe.

Through intricate patterns, rich color, and startling juxtapositions. Douglas Johnson entices the viewer into a world in which dream, myth, and ritual have a power transcending everyday reality. He is a true original, whose magically evocative works defy classification. The artist's inspiration draws its richness from the ancient cultures of North America, Mexico, Peru, Egypt, and Asia. His gem-like miniatures, often depicting pre-Columbian ruins, scenes of early Indian life, and exquisite birds and flowers, have gained wide critical acclaim over the past 30 years, and are represented in numerous private, corporate, and museum collections. Robert Ewing's biography of Johnson discusses the experiences and influences that shaped him as an artist. Viewing 80 full-color reproductions of his paintings, readers will understand why collectors and critics continue to be astonished and captivated by Douglas Johnson's mysterious images.

All cultures make, and break, images. Striking Images, Iconoclasms Past and Present explores how and why people have made and modified images and other cultural material from pre-history into the 21st century. With its impressive chronological sweep and disciplinary breadth, this is the first book about iconoclasm (the breaking of images) and the transformation of broader sets of signs that includes contributions from archaeologists, curators, and museum conservators as well as historians of art, literature and religious studies. The chapters examine themes critical to the study of iconoclasm: violence, punishment, memory, intentionality, ruins and relics and their survival. The conclusion shows how cross-disciplinary debate amongst the contributors informed Tate Britain's 'Art under Attack' exhibition (2013) and addresses the challenges iconoclasm presents to the modern museum. By juxtaposing objects and places usually considered in isolation, Striking Images raises provocative questions about our understandings of cross-cultural differences and the value of representational objects from the broken swords of pre-historical bog graves to the Bamiyan Buddhas and contemporary art. Are any such objects ever 'finished', or are they simply subject to constant transformation? In dialogue with each other, the essays consider this question and expand the field of iconoclasm - and cultural - studies.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the Russian conceptual artist Ilya Kabakov was a galvanizing figure in Moscow's underground art community, ultimately gaining international prominence as the “leader” of a band of artists known as the Moscow Conceptual Circle. Throughout this time, he created texts that he would distribute among his friends, and by the late 1990s his written production amounted to hundreds of pages. Devoted to themes that range from the “cosmism” of pre-Revolutionary Russian modernism to the philosophical implications of Moscow’s garbage, Kabakov’s handmade booklets were typed out on paper, then stapled or sewn together using rough butcher paper for their covers. Among these writings are faux Socialist Realist verses, theoretical explorations, art historical analyses, accompaniments to installation projects, and transcripts of dialogues between the artist and literary theorists, critics, journalists, and other artists. This volume offers for the first time in English the most significant texts written by Kabakov. The writings have been expressly selected for this English-language volume and there exists no equivalent work in any language.

Robin Walz's updated "Modernism," now part of the "Seminar Studies" series, has been updated to include significant primary source material and features to make it more accessible for students returning to, or studying the topic for the first time.

The twentieth century was a period of seismic change on a global scale, witnessing two world wars, the rise and fall of communism, the establishment of a global economy, the beginnings of global warming and a complete reversal in the status of women in large parts of the world.

The modernist movements of the early twentieth century launched a cultural revolution without which the multi-media-driven world in which we live today would not have been possible. Today modernism is enshrined in art galleries and university courses. Its techniques of abstraction and montage, and its creative impulse to innovate and shock, are the stock-in-trade of commercial advertising, feature films, television and computer-generated graphics.

In this concise cultural history, Robin Walz vividly recaptures what was revolutionary about modernism. He shows how an aesthetic concept, arising from a diversity of cultural movements, from Cubism and Bauhaus to Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, and operating in different ways across the fields of art, literature, music, design and architecture, came to turn intellectual and cultural life and assumptions upside down, first in Europe and then around the world.

From the nineteenth century origins of modernism to its postmodern legacies, this book will give the reader access to the big picture of modernism as a dynamic historical process and an unfinished project which still speaks to our times.

Rene Magritte (1898-1967) was one of the most intriguing painters associated with Surrealism, but he did not fully find his voice until after breaking ties with the movement. This book, the first to look exclusively at Magritte's late career, examines his most important bodies of work from the 1940s through the 1960s, and shows how they marked a fundamental shift in painting from Modernism to our own time. Featuring more than sixty artworks, Rene Magritte: The Fifth Season explores how Magritte balanced irony and conviction, philosophy and fantasy, to illuminate the gaps between what we see and what we know. Subjects explored in this volume include the artist's Renoir period; the periode vache, with its Fauvist- and Expressionist-style paintings that are little known to American audiences; the `hypertrophy of objects' paintings, a series that plays with the scale of familiar objects; and the enigmatic Dominion of Light suite, paintings that suggest the simultaneous experience of day and night. Together, the works reveal Magritte as an artist acutely attuned to the paradoxes at work within reality, and an enduring champion of the role of mystery in life and art.

Richly illustrated with images of her art and views of the two homes she designed and furnished in New Mexico, the book also includes never before published photographs of O'Keeffe's clothes. The author has attributed some of the most exquisite of these garments to O'Keeffe, a skilled seamstress who understood fabric and design, and who has become an icon in today's fashion world as much for her personal style as for her art. As one of her friends stated, O'Keeffe "never allowed her life to be one thing and her painting another." This fresh and carefully researched study brings O'Keeffe's style to life, illuminating how this beloved American artist purposefully proclaimed her modernity in the way she dressed and posed for photographers, from Alfred Stieglitz to Bruce Weber. This beautiful book accompanies the first museum exhibition to bring together photographs, clothes, and art to explore O'Keeffe's unified modernist aesthetic.Published in association with the Brooklyn Museum

A major study of Ukrainian art from 1900 to the mid-1930s - with loans from major museums in Ukraine, elsewhere in Europe, the United States (including MoMA) and Israel. How does artistic life flourish during revolution and conflict? Ukraine in the early 1900s endured unimaginable political upheaval, yet this became a period of true renaissance in Ukrainian art, literature, theatre and cinema. In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine, 1900-1930s presents the ground-breaking art produced in Ukraine in the early 20th century, focusing on the three key cultural centres of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa. Against a complicated socio-political backdrop of collapsing empires, World War I, the revolutions of 1917 with the ensuing Ukrainian War of Independence, and the eventual creation of Soviet Ukraine, several strands of distinctly Ukrainian art emerged. While emigres such as Sonia Delaunay and Alexander Archipenko found fame outside their homeland, the followers of Mykhailo Boichuk focused on Byzantine revivalism, and the artists of the Kultur Lige sought to promote the development of contemporary Yiddish culture. The first avant-garde exhibitions in Ukraine featured the radical art of Davyd Burliuk and Alexandra Exter, and the dynamic canvases of the Kyiv-based Cubo-Futurist Oleksandr Bohomazov. In Kharkiv, Vasyl Yermilov championed the industrial art of Constructivism, while Vadym Meller, Anatol Petrytskyi, Oleksandr Khvostenko-Khvostov and Borys Kosarev revolutionized theatre design. The attempt to build a national identity in Ukraine resulted in a polyphony of styles and artistic developments across a full range of media - from oil paintings, sketches and sculpture to collages, cinema posters and theatre designs. Twelve internationally renowned scholars, including curators from the National Art Museum of Ukraine, bring to life this astonishing period of creativity in Ukraine and all the movements it encompassed.

Taking as its starting point four contemporary visual artists whose work utilizes the conventions of museum display and collecting practices, "Memory Fragments" examines how these artists have reconfigured dominant representations of Australian history and identity, including viewpoints often marginalized by gender and race. Echoing Walter Benjamin's reflections on history and time, this interdisciplinary volume will be of interest to scholars working in the arts as well as modern and postmodern cultural studies.

The world's most popular sport, soccer, has long been celebrated as "the beautiful game" for its artistry and aesthetic appeal. Picturing the Beautiful Game: A History of Soccer in Visual Culture and Art is the first collection to examine the rich visual culture of soccer, including the fine arts, design, and mass media. Covering a range of topics related to the game's imagery, this volume investigates the ways soccer has been promoted, commemorated, and contested in visual terms. Throughout various mediums and formats-including illustrated newspapers, modern posters, and contemporary artworks-soccer has come to represent issues relating to identity, politics, and globalization. As the contributors to this collection suggest, these representations of the game reflect society and soccer's place in our collective imagination. Perspectives from a range of fields including art history, sociology, sport history, and media studies enrich the volume, affording a multifaceted visual history of the beautiful game.

The Short Story of Modern Art explains the how, why and when of modern art - who introduced certain things, what they were, where they were produced, and why they matter. Simply constructed, the book explores 50 key works - from the realist painting of Courbet to a contemporary installation by Yayoi Kusama - and then links them to the most important movements, themes and techniques. Accessible, concise and richly illustrated, the book reveals the connections between different periods, artists and styles, giving readers a thorough understanding and broad enjoyment of modern art.

Subtle and wide-ranging in its account, this study explores the impact of Australian art in Britain in the two decades following the end of World War II and preceding the 'Swinging Sixties'. In a transitional period of decolonization in Britain, Australian painting was briefly seized upon as a dynamic and reinvigorating force in contemporary art, and a group of Australian artists settled in London where they held centre stage with group and solo exhibitions in the capital's most prestigious galleries. The book traces the key influences of Sir Kenneth Clark, Bernard Smith and Bryan Robertson in their various (and varying) roles as patrons, ideologues, and entrepreneurs for Australian art, as well as the self-definition and interaction of the artists themselves. Simon Pierse interweaves multiple issues of the period into a cohesive historical narrative, including the mechanics of the British art world, the limited and frustrating cultural scene of 1950s Australia, and the conservative influence of Australian government bodies. Publishing for the first time archival material, letters, and photographs previously unavailable to scholars either in Britain or Australia, this book demonstrates how the work of expatriate Australian artists living in London constructed a distinct vision of Australian identity for a foreign market.

A 2008 cover of The New Yorker featured a much-discussed Black Power parody of Michelle and Barack Obama. The image put a spotlight on how easy it is to flatten the Black Power movement as we imagine new types of blackness. Margo Natalie Crawford argues that we have misread the Black Arts Movement's call for blackness. We have failed to see the movement's anticipation of the "new black" and "post-black." Black Post-Blackness compares the black avant-garde of the 1960s and 1970s Black Arts Movement with the most innovative spins of twenty-first century black aesthetics. Crawford zooms in on the 1970s second wave of the Black Arts Movement and shows the connections between this final wave of the Black Arts movement and the early years of twenty-first century black aesthetics. She uncovers the circle of black post-blackness that pivots on the power of anticipation, abstraction, mixed media, the global South, satire, public interiority, and the fantastic.

An exhibition of images from the book will be shown at the National Portrait Gallery in summer 2008. This stunningly illustrated volume offers a visual survey of 33 of the most original and provocative artists of our time. Here, we see them in their working environment - in moments of concentration, inspiration, and relaxation. McCAbe's photographs offer a revealing insight into the lives and work of the artists, while McNay skillfully extracts details about their craft, workplace, and personality - alongside his own candid observations on each subject.

A beautifully illustrated exhibition catalogue accompanying the first ever exhibition dedicated to Julie Manet This title offers an exhaustive description of the life, work, and art collection of Julie Manet (1878-1966)-the only daughter of Berthe Morisot and the niece of E douard Manet. The book will cover several aspects of the artist's life and work, from early beginnings to her role as a collector with her husband Ernest Rouart, offering a new and richly detailed account of her role in the the arts. Drawing on previously unpublished sources, this book constitutes a definitive account of the life of Julie Manet and her entourage that brings the whole world of the arts and culture in late 19th-century and early 20th-century Paris back to life. Distributed for Editions Hazan, Paris Exhibition Schedule: Musee Marmottan Monet, Paris (October 19, 2021-March 20, 2022)

A definitive resource, full of fresh insights and new revelations, on one of the most influential interwar artists This richly illustrated book offers a definitive new assessment of the oeuvre of Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948), a central figure of the interwar European avant-garde. Active as an artist, designer, publisher, performer, critic, poet, and playwright, Schwitters is best known for intimately scaled, materially rich collages and assemblages made from found objects-often refuse-that the artist described as having lost all contact with their role and history in the world at large. But as Graham Bader explores, such simple separation of art from life is precisely what Schwitters's "poisoned abstraction" calls into question. Considering works reaching from Schwitters's earliest collage-based pieces of 1918-19, through his 1920s advertising designs, to his seminal environmental installation the Merzbau, Bader carefully unpacks the meaning behind such projects and sheds new light on the tumultuous historical conditions in which they were made. In the process, he reveals a new Schwitters-aesthetically committed and politically astute-for our time. This authoritative account reframes our understanding of Schwitters's multifaceted artistic practice and explores the complex entwinement of art, politics, and history in the modern period.

Victor Arnautoff reigned as San Francisco's leading mural painter during the New Deal era. Yet that was only part of an astonishing life journey from Tsarist officer to leftist painter. Robert W. Cherny's masterful biography of Arnautoff braids the artist's work with his increasingly leftist politics and the tenor of his times. Delving into sources on Russian emigres and San Francisco's arts communities, Cherny traces Arnautoff's life from refugee art student and assistant to Diego Rivera to prominence in the New Deal's art projects and a faculty position at Stanford University. As Arnautoff's politics moved left, he often incorporated working people and people of color into his treatment of the American past and present. In the 1950s, however, his participation in leftist organizations and a highly critical cartoon of Richard Nixon landed him before the House Un-American Activities Committee and led to calls for his dismissal from Stanford. Arnautoff eventually departed America, a refugee of another kind, now fleeing personal loss and the disintegration of the left-labor culture that had nurtured him, before resuming his artistic career in the Soviet Union that he had fought in his youth to destroy.