The art of the past can seem very far away, obscured both by time and by knotty academic theory. Foregrounding the experience of the contemporary viewer, Look Again shows how this need not be the case. Ossian Ward's simple, ten-step programme acts as an aid to looking, breaking down the often obscure strategies of the Old Masters into intuitive categories - from Art as Honesty to Art as Vision. Look Again's novel approach is influenced by John Berger's Ways of Seeing, but is here updated for the art world of the 21st century. Key to this book is an emphasis on ways of experiencing Old Masters - more than just looking. Just as contemporary art should be judged by how it moves us, cajoles us and envelops us, so too can the great paintings of the world be seen as immersive, captivating, even participatory experiences. Ward does not deny the specific complexities and barriers associated with looking at art from other eras. Instead he offers readers a new formula to help illuminate this kind of art. His method not only provides the viewer with the tools to interpret a work of art, but also assumes that we hold some of this knowledge within ourselves already. In other words, everyone can share the enriching experience of Old Master paintings.

On the 150th anniversary of the painter Henri Matisse (1869-1954), the Musee Matisse in Cateau-Cambresis, which was founded by the artist in his hometown in 1952, pays tribute to the lesser-known man of the North, who became one of the greatest masters of the 20th century. You thought you knew everything about Matisse's work? This exhibition reveals the mystery of the first 20 years of his career and the awakening of a genius moving from shadow to light. It honours his early works from the revelation of painting, and his academic training until the end of his academic studies in Paris, where he taught until 1911. This decisive and defining period of his identity helps us to understand how he grew into a painter on his Hauts-de-France lands. It dissects the creative process of the man copying the ancients, drawing inspiration from the greatest masters of the past and his contemporaries, to shake the codes with 'luxury, calm and voluptuousness' and impose himself on the rank of those he has contemplated. Text in English and French.

In this magnificent, lavishly illustrated book, renowned art historian B. N. Goswamy opens readers' eyes to the wonders of Indian painting, and shows them new ways of seeing art. An illuminating introductory essay, `A Layered World', explains the themes and emotions that inspired famous painters, the values and influences that shaped their work, and the unique ways in which they depicted Time and Space. It describes, too, the different regional styles, the relationship between patrons and painters, the tools and techniques the painters used and the milieu in which they created their works. The second part of this book, `Close Encounters with 101 Works', presents paintings carefully selected by Professor Goswamy, spanning nearly a thousand years and ranging from Jain manuscripts and Rajasthani, Mughal, Pahari and Deccani miniatures, to Company School paintings. His description and analysis of these works unlock the treasures that lie within them and show us how to `read' each painting as he pours out its finest features, explains its visual vocabulary and symbolism, and recounts the story, legend or event that inspired it. Combining deep scholarship with great storytelling, this is a book of enduring value that will both educate and delight the reader.

No group of artists or period of art history has inspired as much fascination and admiration as the Impressionist school. This book tells the story of the revolutionary Impressionist painters and the dramatic times that shaped their vision. It examines the artistic trends from the early part of the 19th century to the shocking debut of Manet's Luncheon on the Grass, and examines the most important individuals in the history of Impressionism, including Pissarro, Manet, Degas, Monet, Renoir and Sisley. The expert analysis is augmented by over 350 illustrations, including the immediately recognizable images as well as rare paintings seldom seen in print.

The first half of this book is a detailed exploration of Turner's life and background. It begins with his early years in London, where he exhibited paintings in the window of his father's barber shop. Through his travels in Europe, copying and studying the old masters, Turner was largely self-taught until he enrolled at the Royal Academy. In 1796 one of his first oil paintings was hung there, and his success culminated in the opening of his own gallery. The second half of the book is a collection of his original works. These superb reproductions are accompanied by analysis of each painting and its significance regarding Turner's life, the period in which it was executed, his technique and his body of work as a whole. This reference book is essential for anyone who wants to learn more about one of the finest landscape painters in English history.

Of all the great paintings in the world, Picasso's Guernica has had a more direct impact on our consciousness than perhaps any other. In this absorbing and revealing book, Gijs van Hensbergen tells the story of this masterpiece. Starting with its origin in the destruction of the Basque town of Gernika in the Spanish Civil War, the painting is then used as a weapon in the propaganda battle against Fascism. Later it becomes the nucleus of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the detonator for the Big Bang of Abstract Expressionism in the late 1940s. This tale of passion and politics shows the transformation of this work of art into an icon of many meanings, up to its long contested but eventually triumphant return to Spain in 1981.

The collected works of Julius Csotonyi, one of the world's most high profile and talented contemporary paleoartists. Csotonyi has considerable academic expertise that contributes to his stunning dynamic art.
Csotonyi represents the natural world photorealistically and has been influenced by natural history illustrators such as Peter Zallinger, Doug Henderson and Greg Paul. He uses bold patterns and colors to paint the prehistoric world both with traditional media as well as modern digital techniques.

Leng Bingchuan: Master of Chinese Black and White Painting is the most comprehensive collection of ink paintings he has created so far, containing his 256 works from 1980 to 2000. Through these works, we can see the author's self-conscious pursuit of the theme, his straightforward, pure, strong and distinct characteristics, reflecting the spirit and charm of oriental art. With its unique cover design, Leng Bingchuan: Master of Chinese printmaking and Engraving also implies the design concept of minimalism.

A window provides access to two of life's essentials, light and air, but it is more than just a means to an end. Windows also have symbolic, expressive and architectural qualities that have for centuries inspired some of the world's greatest artists. In this engaging new study, Christopher Masters celebrates the multiple roles of the window in art through five key themes, from the window as a status symbol to its use as a provider of physical and spiritual illumination; from its employment as a literal window on the world outside the confines of a room to its function as a mirror, reflecting the emotions of the artist or the individuals depicted; and finally to the immense architectural variety of windows that animate interior and exterior scenes throughout Western painting. With superb reproductions of 90 works by major artists from Giotto to Banksy, and spirited analysis of the paintings' meanings, this is a remarkable exploration of an important but hitherto neglected subject in art history.

Richard Wollheim is one of the dominant figures in the philosophy of art, whose work has shown not only how paintings create their effects but why they remain important to us. His influential writings have focused on two core, interrelated questions: how do paintings depict? And how do they express feelings? In this collection of essays a distinguished group of thinkers in the fields of art history and philosophical aesthetics offers a critical assessment of Wollheim's theory of art. Among the themes under discussion are Wollheim's explanation of pictorial representation in terms of seeing-in, his views of artistic expression as a type of complex projection, and his notion of the internal spectator. In the final essay Wollheim himself responds to the contributors. This book will be eagerly sought out by all serious students of the theory of art, whether in departments of philosophy or art history.

“The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled” — so opens John Berger’s revolutionary million-copy bestseller on how to look at art.

John Berger’s Ways of Seeing is one of the most stimulating and the most influential books on art in any language. First published in 1972, it was based on the BBC television series about which the Sunday Times critic commented: “This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures.” By now he has.

Richard Cosway was one of the most significant multifaceted artistic personalities active in Regency Britain. He was arguably the pre-eminent pupil of William Shipley as well as a versatile oil portraitist and a sophisticated draftsman of subject compositions. He was undoubtedly the most important, influential, and fashionable portrait miniaturist active during the last two decades of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth; his delicate style and flattering portrayals have come to epitomize Regency society. Cosway's flamboyant personality, eccentric mysticism, and brilliant marriage to Maria Hadfield during the 1780s brought him celebrity and notoriety.

Inspired by the recent identification of a third autograph version of Gainsborough's masterpiece The Cottage Door, this book examines the significance of the multiple versions of designs that the artist produced during the 1780s. It demonstrates that without the pressure of exhibiting his work annually at the Academy and without a string of sitters waiting for their finished portraits, Gainsborough's work became more personal, more thoughtful. This study of the last phase of the artist's work is a totally fresh interpretation of not only The Cottage Door but other key works such as Mrs Sheridan and Diana and Acteon. Gainsborough's creative energies changed around 1780. He became restless and wanted to promote his landscape painting more effectively. He started to paint coastal scenes using an innovative painting technique to depict the water and he embarked on a series of`fancy' pictures that he would position him as a descendant of an Old Master tradition. He was never happy with the constraints of the Royal Academy and he was at odds with the dictatorial opinions promoted by its president, Sir Joshua Reynolds. Removing himself from the Academy enabled him finally to do what he wanted. He began to turn to portrait compositions that he had developed and refined over a number of years. With subtle alterations they could be made suitable for a variety of sitters. The subtlety of his skilled observation was less easy to accommodate in standard-sized full-length canvases and in these portraits he sometimes resorted to rhetoric gesture that fought against the closely observed likenesses in his best portraits. The margin between`fancy' pictures and portraits became blurred and the categorization of some of these paintings changed while they were on the easel. Always finding composition difficult, rather than begin something new he often revisited earlier designs that had pleased him. He would paint them again and make slight changes of tone and emphasis that would radically change the concept and intention of the design. The subject matter in some of his late paintings veers towards the autobiographical and shows a certain rift between him and his family.

This volume, the second in the series to catalogue the Gallery's collection of decorative arts, mainly draws from the renowned collection of the Widener and Steele families. It focuses primarily on Chinese ceramics from the Qing period, including earthenware, stoneware, and polychrome porcelain. In addition, rugs and carpets from the collection of Peter A.B. Widener are catalogued and published here for the first time.

This text provides a fascinating study of Michael Morgan's aspirations, his influences and the challenges he has faced on his extraordinary journey.

This absorbing introduction to the story of Rembrandt's rampant fame and influence in Britain is filled with beautiful images. The story of 'Rembrandt mania' began in 18th-century Britain with passionate, and often eccentric, collectors acquiring artworks by any and every means. As the craze for Rembrandt ebbed and flowed, each new wave of enthusiasm brought him ever-greater fame and influence, and collectors became increasingly ingenious. This master's impact not only on collectors and the public but also on British artists over the last four centuries is explored, with lavish paintings, drawings and prints from artists such as Henry Raeburn, Joshua Reynolds and James Abbott McNeill Whistler shown alongside some of Rembrandt's most famous masterpieces.

'A hymn to life, love, family, and spirit' DAVID MITCHELL, author of Cloud Atlas The vividly told, gloriously illustrated memoir of an artist born with disabilities who searches for freedom and connection in a society afraid of strange bodies. ***WINNER OF THE BARBELLION PRIZE*** In 1958, amongst the children born with spina bifida is Riva Lehrer. She endures endless medical procedures and is told she will never have a job, a romantic relationship or an independent life. But everything changes when as an adult Riva is invited to join a group of artists, writers, and performers who are building Disability Culture. Their work is daring, edgy, funny, and dark, and it rejects tropes that define disabled people as pathetic, frightening or worthless, instead insisting that disability is an opportunity for creativity and resistance. Riva begins to paint their portraits - and her art begins to transform the myths she's been told her whole life about her body, her sexuality, and other measures of normal. 'A brilliant book, full of strangeness, beauty, and wonder' Audrey Niffenegger 'Wonderful. An ode to art and the beauty of disability' Cerrie Burnell 'Stunning' Alison Bechdel ***SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD***

Take your first steps with pastels and learn how to produce modern, lively and colourful artwork with this exciting medium. Artist and teacher Rebecca de Mendonca offers the beginner a complete course in using pastels. Step-by-step exercises and longer projects help you to build essential skills and allow you to produce a range of pictures, including landscapes, still life, portraits and animals. Vital drawing skills are explained and demonstrated, along with an easy-to-follow guide to colour theory. A huge wealth of finished paintings provide ideas and inspiration for your own future pastel work.

Dave White introduces the simple but effective techniques that he uses to paint stunning, dramatic seascapes with beautiful and realistic skies. He demonstrates spattering, blending backgrounds, painting horizons, finger painting clouds and foam. There is expert advice on the anatomy of waves and how they rise and collapse, creating ripples, surf, foam and spray. Clear instructions show how to paint effective reflections and beaches to improve your seascapes. The sky section shows effective techniques for painting all types of cloud, with some innovative methods such as tipping up the surface to let dilute paint run, to create cirrus clouds. Dave's method of creating depth in sea, beach and sky using lines projected from the vanishing point will radically improve readers' seascapes. There is a section of moods and sunsets full of beautiful, dramatic examples. Finally three step by step projects show how to paint a beach panorama with a rolling wave, a spectacular sunset over a calm sea and waves crashing on rocks.

Positioning Alice Neel as a champion of civil rights, this book explores how her paintings convey her humanist politics and capture the humanity, strength, and vulnerability of her subjects   “One of the most ambitious and thorough collections of Neel’s work to date.�—Allison Schaller, Vanity Fair   “For me, people come first,� Alice Neel (1900–1984) declared in 1950. “I have tried to assert the dignity and eternal importance of the human being.� This ambitious publication surveys Neel’s nearly 70-year career through the lens of her radical humanism. Remarkable portraits of victims of the Great Depression, fellow residents of Spanish Harlem, leaders of political organizations, queer artists, visibly pregnant women, and members of New York’s global diaspora reveal that Neel viewed humanism as both a political and philosophical ideal. In addition to these paintings of famous and unknown sitters, the more than 100 works highlighted include Neel’s emotionally charged cityscapes and still lifes as well as the artist’s erotic pastels and watercolors. Essays tackle Neel’s portrayal of LGBTQ subjects; her unique aesthetic language, which merged abstraction and figuration; and her commitment to progressive politics, civil rights, feminism, and racial diversity. The authors also explore Neel’s highly personal preoccupations with death, illness, and motherhood while reasserting her place in the broader cultural history of the 20th century. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press Exhibition Schedule: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (March 22–August 1, 2021)   Guggenheim, Bilbao (September 17, 2021–January 30, 2022)   de Young Museum, San Francisco (March 12–July 10, 2022)

This up-to-date, well-illustrated, and thoughtful introduction to the life and works of one of the giants of Western Painting also surveys the golden age of Venetian Painting from Giovanni Bellini to Veronese and its place in the history of Western art. Bruce Cole, Distinguished Professor of Fine Arts at Indiana University and author of numerous books on Italian Renaissance art, begins with the life and work of Giovanni Bellini, the principal founder of Venetian Renaissance painting. He continues with the paintings of Giorgione and the young Titian whose work embodied the new Venetian style. Cole discusses and explains all of Titian's major works--portraits, religious paintings, and nudes--from various points of view and shows how Venetian painting of this period differed from painting in Florence and elsewhere in Italy and became a distinct and fully-developed style of its own.

A comprehensive reference book on the life and works of Edgar Degas, acknowledged as one of the greatest masters of all time. It offers a fascinating account of the artist's life, education, artistic influences and legacy, set in context of the turbulent social and political times in which he lived. Featuring an extensive gallery of his work, set in chronological order of completion and accompanied by an analysis of the style and content of each work.