Joan Eardley (1921-1963) is one of Scotland's most admired artists. During a career that lasted barely fifteen years, she concentrated on two very distinct themes: children in the Townhead area of central Glasgow, and the fishing village of Catterline, just south of Aberdeen, with its leaden skies and wild sea. The contrast between this urban and rural subject matter is self-evident, but the two are not, at heart, so very different. Townhead and Catterline were home to tight-knit communities, living under extreme pressure: Townhead suffered from overcrowding and poverty, and Catterline from depopulation brought about by the declining fishing industry. Eardley was inspired by the humanity she found in both places. These two intertwining strands are the focus of this book, which looks in detail at Eardley's working processes. Her method can be traced from rough sketches and photographs through to pastel drawings and large oil paintings. Identifying many of Eardley's subjects and drawing on unpublished letters, archival records and interviews, the authors provide a new and remarkably detailed account of Eardley's life and art.

This new introduction to El Greco (1541-1614) follows the artist from his native island to Venice, Rome, Madrid, and then Toledo, the ecclesiastical capital of Spain. El Greco's ability to assimilate different artistic techniques and approaches to religion and philosophy enabled him to develop one of the most original styles of painting in the history of Europe. Despite his highly successful career he was unappreciated for centuries after his death, and this book examines how his genius was rediscovered in the nineteenth century.

KURT JACKSON

A new book about the British landscape painter Kurt Jackson (b. 1961).

This new hardback edition includes many new illustrations. including photographs taken for this new edition. The text has been completely updated.

EXTRACT FROM CHAPTER 4:

One of Kurt Jackson s appealing concepts is that the ocean is one of the last true wildernesses left on the planet. It s an idea that I found very interesting when he explained it to me when we first met in St Just. I took it that he meant a spiritual as well as an ecological or natural wilderness. Jackson s art can thus be seen as an art that is the border region between humanity and nature, between culture and nature, as well as literally tackling that area the coast which is neither land nor sea.

Note that Kurt Jackson is always facing outwards from the land, and looking towards the ocean, not painting with his back to the sea, and looking towards the land (and notice that the many boats and ships and helicopters and such in this area are left out of the paintings, too).

So Jackson s Porth series, about Priest Cove, and all of his sea paintings, are very important in his art in articulating this idea of the ocean as the last wilderness. Have you ever wondered what s out there? is a question that Kurt Jackson asks (it s the title of one of his major paintings, too the centrepiece of the Porth series).

Jackson has repeated the question over a number of related works: the title of two 2004 pieces is The Last Wilderness In Western Europe? This was painted on Jura (in Scotland), and both pictures are consciously emptied of human marks just empty moorland and a delicate blue sky. An earlier picture, part of the Cape series, was entitled Do You Ever Wonder What s Out There? (1999) an unusual composition in the Jackson oeuvre which puts the horizon very high, and focusses on the dark blue ocean flecked with white spray.

Kurt Jackson isn t that interested in many of the connotations of the ocean the moon, time, goddesses, rebirth (though moons do appear in his art from time to time). He s not really interested in religious or pagan or magical symbols in that way. And he s not that interested in shipping, fishing, and all things maritime, like J.M.W. Turner was.

But when Jackson asks a question like have you ever wondered what s out there?, and considers the sea as one of the last wildernesses, that alters the interpretation of his sea paintings. It doesn t apply to all of them, though: in plenty of paintings (and not only the smaller or more modest ones), Jackson is not thinking in terms of big themes. But when he titles a painting Have You Ever Wondered What s Out There? (and writes the title in big letters across the painting), it s clearly intended to resonate in the viewer at a deeper level.

Providing a detailed annotated bibliography and research guide to the Stieglitz Circle and four of its leading members--Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, and Max Weber--this new sourcebook offers a chapter on each of the four artists. Complete with biographical essay and guides to writings, statements, correspondence, books, articles, reviews, reference sources, and archival sources, each artist's chapter gives the researcher an exhaustive catalogue of relevant material.

The only such annotated sourcebook currently available on the Stieglitz Circle, R. Scott Harnsberger's work offers lists of annotated reproductions of each artist's works, keyed to over 600 source volumes not mentioned elsewhere in the volume, including catalogues of museums, galleries, private collections, thematic exhibitions, and auction firms.

How to Read Paintings is a valuable visual guide to Western European painting. Through a gallery of artworks accompanied by informative commentary, it enables readers to swiftly develop their understanding of the grammar and vocabulary of painting, and to discover how to look at diverse paintings in detail, closely reading their meanings and methods. In the first part of the book, the Grammar of Paintings, the author reveals how to read paintings by considering five key areas: shape and support, medium and materials, composition, style and technique, and signs and symbols, as well as the role of the artist. In the second part, we explore fifty paintings through extracted details, accompanied by insightful commentary, training the reader and viewer to understand context and discover meaning within art. As a collection, the pictures featured in How to Read Paintings have a strong relationship with one another, and underpin the story of painting. This book will be a valuable tool whether you are viewing the real thing on a gallery wall, or simply reading around the subject to learn more about Western art.

This volume commemorates the 100th anniversary of Vincent van Gogh's death. Major van Gogh scholars present essays that reexamine the painter's place in the art world of his time, the phenomenal growth in his reputation, and his influence on later art movements and individual artists. At the time of his death and for some years after, there was a question as to whether van Gogh's approach would gain recognition. Today, he is seen as one of the most popular and recognized of the world's artists, and his impact on 20th-century art is unquestioned. How and why this occurred is a major theme throughout this essay collection.

Among the topics examined are iconography; van Gogh's poetry as well as the literature that influenced him and that he, in turn, influenced; psychological and religious aspects of van Gogh's painting and self-imaging; and how van Gogh has been interpreted. A section on his legacy in art concludes this major reassessment of van Gogh's place in art history. An important collection for art scholars and researchers as well as public library patrons.

In 1951, Joan Eardley visited the coastal fishing village of Catterline in north-east Scotland for the first time. Her visit sparked a fascination that would last the rest of her life. She made the village her home and found inspiration in the dramatic light and rapidly changing weather. The gentle landscapes and wild rolling seascapes she painted of Catterline in wind, snow, rain and sun are among her best-loved works. Unpublished archival material and interviews with many of those who knew her shed new light on Eardley's life in Catterline. A vivid portrait is painted both of Eardley and of the village, showing the vital part Catterline played in her development as an artist. The story of her experiences on the wild Scottish coast is evocatively told and beautifully illustrated with some of her most remarkable drawings and paintings.

This reference provides biographical, historical, and critical information on Neo-Impressionist painting and its most significant painters. Neo-Impressionism, also called Divisionism and Pointillism, was one of the most innovative and startling late 19th-century French avant-garde styles. Over 2,000 books, articles, manuscripts, and audiovisual materials as well as chronologies, biographical sketches, and exhibition lists are cited. Also provided are both primary and secondary bibliographies for each artist. Secondary bibliographies capture details about each artist's life and career, relationships with other artists, work in various media, iconography, critical reception and interpretation, archival sources and more.

Art scholars will appreciate the comprehensive bibliographic research contained in this one volume. Entries on Neo-Impressionism in general, on exhibitions, and the primary and secondary bibliographies of artists follow an introduction about Neo-Impressionism and a Neo-Impressionism chronology that spans the years 1881 to 1905. An index of art works and an index of personal names complete the volume.

EARLY NETHERLANDISH PAINTING

A fully illustrated survey of Early Netherlandish painting, featuring all of the major artists, and many lesser-known painters.

Early Netherlandish painting, also known as Flemish painting, is characterized by figurative realism, its incredible sense of domestic interiors and details, luminous light, its realist faces, and its fusions of a micro- and macro- cosmic vision.

We concentrate here on painters such as Rogier van der Weyden (1400-1464), Jan van Eyck (c. 1390-1441, commonly described as the founder of modern oil painting), Gerard David (c. 1460-1523), Hugo van der Goes (1440-1482), Hans Memling (1433-1494), Joos van Cleve (c. 1485-1540), Jan Gossaert, also called Mabuse (c. 1475/8-1532), Geertgen tot Sint Jans (fl. late 15th 1485/ 95), Quentin Massys (c. 1465-1530), Joachim Patinir (c. 1485-1524), Dieric Bouts (c. 1415-1475), Petrus Christus (fl. 1442-1473) and Bernard van Orley (c. 1488-1541).

One of the most celebrated aspects of Early Netherlandish or Flemish painting is its heartfelt, intense religious emotion. It is this aspect that interests us in this book. The new aesthetic vision of Early Netherlandish art was later applied to still life paintings, satires, landscapes, and portraits, but it is the religious works with which we are concentrating on here. Michelangelos famous statement about Early Netherlandish art pinpoints the depth of devout feeling found in so much of Northern European art:

Flemish painting will, generally speaking, please the devout better than any painting in Italy, which will never cause him to shed a tear, whereas that of Flanders will cause him to shed many...

The new vision of Northern European painting which flourished in the 15th century was a combination of a new aesthetic approach to reality, and an intensifying of religious fervour. The new vision aimed at sculptural accuracy, a naturalistic use of lighting, and three-dimensionality. Mixed with the new use of oil paint, the new vision gave the art of Philip the Goods reign a special flavour and style well suited to the circumscription of devout religious truths. The new painting inherited its jewel-like brilliancy partly because many painters were trained as goldsmiths. This skilled handling of metalwork and miniature illustration shows in Early Netherlandish art.

All Early Netherlandish paintings were made on wood panels, and painted from light to dark in thin glazes. It is partly this subtle glazing which gives Early Netherlandish painting its glorious luminescence. The Early Netherlandish artists exploited the effects of different hues and thicknesses of glazes of oil paint, controlling how the glazes reflected light.

This first comprehensive research guide and annotated bibliography of Paul Gauguin includes information on more than 1500 books and articles on the artist as well as a comprehensive chronology and list of exhibitions. The secondary bibliography is arranged by topics and includes citations on the artist's life and career, his relationships with contemporary artists in France, including Vincent van Gogh, his life and work in Panama, Martinique, Tahiti, and the Marquesas Islands, his oeuvre in general and in various media, self-portraits, iconography, and more. The French artist Paul Gauguin continues to be a larger-than-life figure whose mystique exerts its spell on popular, critical, and scholarly minds. Consequently, the available literature on the artist is copious and marked by diversity of opinion on every aspect of his life and work. From the first book-length biography of Gauguin written by Louis Brouillon in 1906, interest in Gauguin has continued unabated and, since 1959, critical interest in the artist's drawings, prints, sculptures, and art works in other media has dramatically increased. Russell T. Clement has compiled the first comprehensive research guide and annotated bibliography on Gauguin. This volume encompasses primary materials by Gauguin including those published during the artist's lifetime and those published posthumously; contemporary accounts and criticism of Gauguin's life and work published through 1906; descriptions of the artist's oeuvre; a lengthy secondary bibliography; and a section that catalogs exhibitions of Gauguin's work between 1884 and 1989. While concentrating on printed materials, this guide also includes selected manuscripts--in all, more than 1500 books and articles are cited. For entries where titles give incomplete or unclear information about works and their content, the author provides brief annotations. Following a biographical sketch and chronology, the primary bibliography lists articles, essays, letters, manuscripts, and sketch books of Gauguin and then accounts and critiques of Gauguin's life and work published through 1906. The main part of the bibliography and research guide, the secondary bibliography, lists monographs, catalogues, dissertations, theses, periodical literature, films, sound recordings and musical scores, and selected newspaper articles. Substantial book reviews and exhibition reviews are also included. Arranged by topic, the secondary bibliography also includes citations on Gauguin's relationships with contemporary artists in France, his work in Panama and Martinique, his work and life in Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands, and his oeuvre in general. Not just a list of sources but a complete research guide, this volume deserves a place in every research library collection.

The use of visual art is relatively common in scientific literature, and academic publications sometimes reproduce famous paintings to attract potential readers. When used in this manner, artwork is just a marginal adornment. In The Painted Mind, however, each chapter is inspired by an artistic masterpiece. Throughout the book, Dr. Troisi highlights the artistic significance of each painting and introduces the reader to their creators' biographical stories. The Painted Mind has a scientific focus on the evolutionary analysis of human mind and behavior. Its discussion of emotions and behaviors integrates a variety of perspectives that can ultimately be reduced to the evolutionary distinction between proximate mechanisms and adaptive functions. Although Dr. Troisi is primarily a clinical psychiatrist, his eclectic scientific background-ranging from primate ethology to neuroscience, from behavioral biology to molecular genetics, and from Darwinian psychiatry to evolutionary psychology-gives his writing a unique perspective. In addition to integrating data and findings from each of these disciplines, the book's presentation of evolutionary theories of the human mind is also intermixed with lively discussion of individual cases. Some are clinical cases from Dr. Troisi's own psychiatric practice; others reference the psychological profiles of historical figures and fictional characters.