The extraordinarily revealing interviews with Francis Bacon conducted over a period of 25 years by the distinguished art critic David Sylvester amount to a unique statement by Bacon on his art and on art in general. In the book, a classic of its kind, Bacon considers the problems of realism and sheds new light on aspects of his life. With a rare and brilliant use of language, Bacon talks about his aims as a painter and ways in which he works, responding always with vivacity and candour to Sylvester's searching questions. Bacon's obsessive effort to record and re-create the human form, his practice of making variation on old masters' painting and on photographs, his dependence on chance, and his views about the way in which his work has been interpreted are only some of the many subjects discussed and investigated in depth during these historic encounters.

John James Audubon is arguably America's most widely recognized and collected artist. His Birds of America has been reproduced often, beginning with the double elephant folio printed by Havill in England, followed by a much smaller "Octavo" edition printed in Philadelphia and sold by subscription. After Audubon's death, his family arranged with the New York printer Julius Bien to produce another elephant folio edition, this time by the new chromolithographic process. It too would be sold by subscription, but the venture, begun in 1858, was brought to an abrupt end by the Civil War. Only 150 plates were produced, and the number remaining today is slight; they are among the rarest and most sought after Audubon prints. Bound in cloth with a full cloth slipcase, this beautifully produced book is the first complete reproduction of Bien chromolithographs and will become the centerpiece of any bird lover's library.

Bridget Riley, one of the leading abstract painters of her generation, holds a unique position in contemporary art. She has developed and extended the range of her interests ever since her first success in the 1960s, creating a body of work which is both consistent and highly varied. This volume, now fully revised and updated, reveals the mind behind this remarkable aachievement, drawing together the most important texts and interviews of the last fifty years. Riley's writings show a passionate engagement with her subjects and a great insight paired with a freshness of approach and an exceptional clarity of expression. Quite apart from providing a key to understanding her own work, this book is a fascinating document reflecting the issues and problems facing an artist in the 21st century.

Discover, or return to, the world's greatest heroic fantasy artist, Frank Frazetta in this landmark art collection entitled, Fantastic Paintings of Frazetta. The New York Times said, "Frazetta helped define fantasy heroes like Conan, Tarzan and John Carter of Mars with signature images of strikingly fierce, hard-bodied heroes and bosomy, callipygian damsels" Frazetta took the sex and violence of the pulp fiction of his youth and added even more action, fantasy and potency, but rendered with a panache seldom seen outside of major works of Fine Art. Despite his fantastic subject matter, the quality of Frazetta's work has not only drawn comparisons to the most brilliant of illustrators, Maxfield Parrish, Frederic Remington, Norman Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth but, even to the most brilliant of fine artists including Rembrandt and Michelangelo and, major Frazetta works sell for millions of dollars, breaking numerous records. This innovator's work has not only inspired generations of artists, but also movies and directors including the Conan films, John Carter of Mars, the sensationally successful Lord of the Rings trilogy, Robert Rodriguez' films including From Dusk Till Dawn, Ralph Bakshi films, the epic, award-winning Game of Thrones series, Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, Disney's animated Tarzan films, Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now and George Lucas' Star Wars series. The Forbes magazine article Schwarzenegger's Sargent led with the line, "Which artist helped make Arnold governor? Frank Frazetta, the Rembrandt of barbarians." J. David Spurlock started crafting this book by reviving the original million-selling 1970s mass market art book, Fantastic Art of Frank Frazetta. But, he expanded and revised to include twice as many images and, presents them at a much larger coffee-table book size of 10.5 x 14.625"! The collection is brimming with both classic and previously unpublished works of the subjects Frazetta is best remembered for including barbarians, beasts, and buxom beauties. Game of Thrones creator George R. R. Martin said, "Though he bears only a passing resemblance to the Cimmerian as Robert E. Howard described him, Frazetta's covers of the Conan paperback collections became the definitive picture of the character... still is." Schwarzenegger said, "I have not been intimidated that often in my life. But when I looked at Frazetta's paintings, I tell you, it was intimidating." Game of Thrones, Conan and Aquaman film star Jason Momoa said, "I am a huge Frank Frazetta fan. Both of my parents are painters, so I'd known Frazetta's paintings, that's what I wanted to bring to life." See the revolutionary art that helped inspire Schwarzenegger, Momoa, the Lord of the Rings films and Game of Thrones: FRAZETTA!

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) played a seminal role in Post-Impressionist France. In his writings and work, he favored emotional responses to nature over intellectual uses of lines, color, and composition. In 1888 he and Emile Bernard developed a new style called Synthetism. Three groups of Gauguin's symbolist followers--Pont Aven, Les Nabis, and Rose + Croix pursued and extended the Synthetist vision. This sourcebook focuses on the most prominent adherents of the three schools directly affected by Gauguin's symbolism. This is the first comprehensive, single-volume guide and bibliography of artists in these three important French avant-garde movements. This work covers the entire careers of 16 artists by providing biographical sketches, chronologies, citations to primary and secondary literature and exhibitions.

Mist and fog engender fascination and mystery, enticing with their wispy veils and vapourous moods, and they are the stuff of dreams and visions. 'The mists of time' and 'in a fog' are common expressions that substantiate the long association of mist and fog with the passage of time, the vagaries of memory and feelings of uncertainty. Mist and fog obscure, conceal and when they dissipate, reveal. Vapourous atmosphere in art and life masks evil and can elicit presentiments of death. It also has been used in art to convey the splendours of the spiritual world and the terrors of the supernatural. The metaphorical meanings that have accrued to mist and fog, encouraged by their indeterminate and transitory nature, and the emotions to which they give rise, are variously evident in the work of major artists and their contemporaries. This book focusses on mist and fog from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries in the places they most proliferated. Examples of literature that employ mist and fog as metaphor and in allegory from antiquity to Joseph Conrad serve to amplify many of the paintings discussed.

Having travelled extensively throughout his life, Grant has drawn inspiration from landscapes from Antarctica to the tropics, While attracted to northerly territories (he has lived in Norway since 1996), the subject matter of Grant's bold images varies from marine volcanoes and rainforests to icebergs and glaciers. Dynamic and vital, elemental palettes conjure up abstracted fiery drama to figurative icy stillness. Seen collectively, the work reveals a creative energy that finds many forms of expression. This translates into an original visual language that questions and probes how we see the world around us. Much more than images, Grant's remarkable artistic contribution not only provides paintings that capture the world's beauty, but also extend our understanding of the environment, climate and the fundamental importance of nature. 

The artist should not only paint what he sees before him, claimed Caspar David Friedrich, but also what he sees in himself . He should have a dialogue with Nature . Friedrich s words encapsulate two central elements of the Romantic conception of landscape: close observation of the natural world and the importance of the imagination. Exploring aspects of Romantic landscape drawing in Britain and Germany from its origins in the 1760s to its final flowering in the 1840s, this exhibition catalogue considers 26 major drawings, watercolors and oil sketches from The Courtauld Gallery, London, and the Morgan Library and Museum, New York, by artists such as J.M.W. Turner, Samuel Palmer, Caspar David Friedrich and Karl Friedrich Lessing. It draws upon the complementary strengths of both collections: the Morgan s exceptional group of German drawings and The Courtauld s wide-ranging holdings of British works. A Dialogue with Nature offers the opportunity to consider points of commonality as well as divergence between two distinctive schools. The legacy of Claude Lorrain s idealizing vision is visible in Jakob Hackert s magisterial view of ruins at Tivoli, near Rome, as well as in a more intimate but purely imaginary rural scene by Thomas Gainsborough, while cloud and tree studies by John Constable and Johann Georg von Dillis demonstrate the importance of drawing from life and the observation of natural phenomena. The important visionary strand of Romanticism is brought to the fore in a group of works centered on Friedrich s evocative Moonlit Landscape and Samuel Palmer s Oak Tree and Beech, Lullingstone Park. Both are exemplary of their creators intensely spiritual vision of nature as well as their strikingly different techniques, Friedrich s painstakingly fine detail contrasting with the dynamic freedom of Palmer s penwork. The most expansive and painterly works include Turner s St Goarshausen and Katz Castle, the luminous simplicity of Francis Towne s watercolor view of a wooded valley in Wales, and Friedrich s subtle wash drawing of a coastal meadow on the remote Baltic island of Rugen. Three small-scale drawings reveal a more introspective and intimate facet of the Romantic approach to landscape: Theodor Rehbenitz s fantastical medievalising scene, Palmer s meditative Haunted Stream, and lastly, Turner s Cologne, made as an illustration for The Life and Works of Lord Byron (1833).

This unique book presents an integrated approach to the chemistry of art materials, exploring the many chemical processes involved. The Chemistry and Mechanism of Art Materials: Unsuspected Properties and Outcomes engages readers with historical vignettes detailing examples of unexpected outcomes due to materials used by known artists. The book discusses artists' materials focusing on relevant chemical mechanisms which underlie the synthesis and deterioration of inorganic pigments in paintings, the ageing of the binder in oil paintings, and sulfation of wall paintings as well as the toxicology of these pigments and solvents used by artists. Mechanisms illustrate the stepwise structural transformation of a variety of art materials. Based on the author's years of experience teaching college chemistry, the approach is descriptive and non-mathematical throughout. An introductory section includes a review of basic concepts and provides concise descriptions of analytical methods used in contemporary art conservation. Additional features include: Illustrations of chemical reactivity associated with art materials Includes a review of chemical bonding principles, redox and mechanism writing Covers analytical techniques used by art conservation scientists Accessible for readers with a limited science background Provides numerous references for readers seeking additional information

Pocket Art features 100 artistic prompts to unleash your creativity. In Pocket Art, Lorna Scobie, the bestselling author and illustrator of the 365 Days series, encourages you to be confident with your art, embrace mistakes and to have fun along the way. It is full of activities to help kickstart your creativity, and the activities have been divided into three categories - art for relaxing, art for looking and art for inspiration - so you can feel inspired no matter what mood you're in. Full of tips to help spark creative ideas, as well as inspiration and support, Pocket Art is the perfect pocket-sized art book to take with you wherever you go.

Ink is the first in an exciting new practical-art series on popular mediums, including acrylic, oil, pencil and gouache. The books will cover painting techniques, creative ideas and applications, and the fun of mixing with other mediums. Many of the techniques and ideas will be demonstrated through the work of some of the world's greatest artists and illustrators. The first book explores ink's use in painting, illustration and lettering. With its contemporary aesthetic and accessible content, the series will appeal to artists of all abilities.

In the first three decades of the 20th century Augustus John (1878-1961) was widely considered one of the greatest living British artists, famous almost as much for his extraordinary Bohemian lifestyle as for his outstanding portraits, etchings and drawings. John was born in Wales in 1878 and educated at the Slade School of Art in London in the 1890s, where the onus of teaching was on the daily life class and a close study of the Old Masters. He soon emerged as a wonderfully gifted draughtsman - indeed, the American painter John Singer Sargent would declare that John's youthful drawings were amongst the fi nest seen since the Renaissance. Dividing his life between England, Wales and France, and reaching his prime in the years immediately before the outbreak of the Great War, by 1910 John would be likened to a British Gauguin, a Welsh Post-Impressionist using bold colours and a willfully naive and primitive style to explore the complex combination of romanticism, escapism and alienation engendered by 20th-century life. The great American collector John Quinn considered John and his sister Gwen key European artists, and his work would be included in the infl uential Armory Show in New York in 1913. After the War he would become Britain's leading society portraitist, earning a fortune in commissions - though it was his more personal paintings of friends, lovers, family and fellow artists and writers such as W.B. Yeats, T.E. Lawrence, Dylan Thomas, Ottoline Morrell and his muse/ mistress Dorelia McNeill that best revealed his great talents. Published to coincide with exhibitions at Poole Museum in Dorset in the summer of 2018 and at Salisbury Museum in Wiltshire in the summer of 2019, Augustus John: Drawn from Life re-examines the life and work of this signifi cant but increasingly overlooked British artist. Focusing on around sixty works drawn from private and public collections, including the Tate, the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of Wales, the book will off er new insights into John's life and development as an artist from the late 1890s to the outbreak of the Second World War.

Painting was one of the major achievements of the Classical world. This book examines the development of mural and panel painting in the Classical world from the earliest Minoan and Cycladic frescoes of the Aegean Bronze Age to late Roman painting, from approximately 1800 B.C. to A.D. 400. It provides a comprehensive study of major monuments, including exciting new material that has been discovered in recent years and has transformed the field. It also offers a critical overview of scholarly debates and controversies on aspects of style, iconography, technique, and cultural context. This volume provides an up-to-date and much-needed overview of the monuments that are now known and of the ideas that have been generated about them.

Learn to draw any animal and turn it into a sweet, delightful creature that always inspires a smile. You Can Draw Cute Animals features easy techniques for turning up the charm on 30 animals that run, fly, swim, slither, and waddle. Discover how to create sparkling eyes, blushing cheeks, joyful smiles, and button noses, transforming even the most ferocious beasts into delightful, appealing characters. This comprehensive guide to understanding the secrets of cute begins with basic drawing techniques and exercises and a rundown of what factors make things adorable. Yasmina Mattson of Yasmina Creates (Instagram: @yasminacreates) has devised a unique, easy, three-step drawing method that includes observation, simplification and exaggeration using simple shapes, and refining and adding details. Those techniques are incorporated in creating a diverse array of animals, including a panda, monkey, kangaroo, tiger, cat, goat, hedgehog, owl, crow, fox, deer, snail, butterfly, seal, duck, flamingo, and more. Even complete beginners will feel confident in their skills to draw any animal in a cute style. Explore ways to add vivid color with watercolor, pencils, and markers, to add even more personality and style. Play and experiment for a creatively satisfying experience. You Can Draw Cute Animals also features: An exploration of basic supplies and techniques Ideas and examples for fun variations Tips for adding accessories and backgrounds to create complete scenes Techniques for drawing animals in a variety of expressive poses Start creating your own menagerie of delightful creatures today!

This highly acclaimed volume examines the one firm bridge between the art of the humanists and the painters of the early Italian Renaissance: what Petrarch and other humanists wrote about painting. Baxandall surveys the main themes of their art criticism and describes how their language conditioned their insights into painting.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) lived the darkest and most dangerous life of any of the great painters. This commanding biography explores Caravaggio's staggering artistic achievements, his volatile personal trajectory, and his tragic and mysterious death at age thirty-eight. Featuring more than eighty full-color reproductions of the artist's best paintings, Caravaggio is a masterful profile of the mercurial painter.

Analysis of a group of images of kingship and queenship from Anglo-Saxon England explores the implications of their focus on books, authorship and learning. Between the reign of Alfred in the late ninth century and the arrival of the Normans in 1066, a unique set of images of kingship and queenship was developed in Anglo-Saxon England, images of leadership that centred on books, authorship and learning rather than thrones, sword and sceptres. Focusing on the cultural and historical contexts in which these images were produced, this book explores the reasons for their development, and their meaning and functionwithin both England and early medieval Europe. It explains how and why they differ from their Byzantine and Continental counterparts, and what they reveal about Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards history and gender, as well as the qualities that were thought to constitute a good ruler. It is argued that this series of portraits, never before studied as a corpus, creates a visual genealogy equivalent to the textual genealogies and regnal lists that are so mucha feature of late Anglo-Saxon culture. As such they are an important part of the way in which the kings and queens of early medieval England created both their history and their kingdom. CATHERINE E. KARKOV is Professorof Art History at the University of Leeds.

This book undertakes a critical reappraisal of Minimalism through an examination of three key painters: Robert Mangold, David Novros, and Jo Baer. By establishing their substantive engagements with Minimalist discourse, as well as their often overlooked artistic exchanges with their sculptor peers, it demonstrates that painting crucially informed the movement's development, serving not only as an object of critique but also as a crucible for its most central tenets. It also poses broader disciplinary implications as it historicizes and challenges Minimalism's "death of painting" critiques that have been so influential to theories of modernism and postmodernism in the visual arts.

Claude Monet spent most of his life painting his own spontaneous impressions of nature and the world that was closest to him. His works provoked the description 'Impressionist', the name given to the style of art that he created together with Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley.

Based on hitherto overlooked archival material, this book reveals Nell Walden's significant impact on the Sturm organisation through a feminist reading of supportive labour that highlights the centrality of collaborative work within the modern art world. This book introduces Walden as an ardent collector of modern and indigenous art and critically contextualises her own art production in relation to expressionist concepts of art and to gendered ideas on abstraction and decoration. Visual analyses highlight how she collaborated with professional and experimental women photographers during the Weimar era and how the circulation of these photographs served as a means to intervene in the public sphere of culture in interwar Germany. Finally, the book provides an analysis of Walden's continuing work for Der Sturm after her voluntary exile from Germany to Switzerland in 1933 and highlights the importance of women's supportive labour for the canonisation and institutionalisation of modern art in museums and archives. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, visual studies, and gender studies.

Despite numbering at just 35, his works have prompted a New York Times best seller; a film starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth; record visitor numbers at art institutions from Amsterdam to Washington, DC; and special crowd-control measures at the Mauritshuis, The Hague, where thousands flock to catch a glimpse of the enigmatic and enchanting Girl with a Pearl Earring, also known as the "Dutch Mona Lisa". In his lifetime, however, the fame of Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) barely extended beyond his native Delft and a small circle of patrons. After his death, his name was largely forgotten, except by a few Dutch art collectors and dealers. Outside of Holland, his works were even misattributed to other artists. It was not until the mid-19th century that Vermeer came to the attention of the international art world, which suddenly looked upon his narrative minutiae, meticulous textural detail, and majestic planes of light, spotted a genius, and never looked back. This 40th anniversary edition showcases the complete catalog of Vermeer's work, presenting the calm yet compelling scenes so treasured in galleries across Europe and the United States into one monograph of utmost reproduction quality. Crisp details and essays tracing Vermeer's career illuminate his remarkable ability not only to bear witness to the trends and trimmings of the Dutch Golden Age but also to encapsulate an entire story in just one transient gesture, expression, or look. About the series TASCHEN is 40! Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible publishing, helping bookworms around the world curate their own library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia at an unbeatable price. Today we celebrate 40 years of incredible books by staying true to our company credo. The 40 series presents new editions of some of the stars of our program-now more compact, friendly in price, and still realized with the same commitment to impeccable production.

One of the most visible, popular, and significant artists of his generation, William Hogarth (1697-1764) is best known for his acerbic, strongly moralising works, which were mass-produced and widely disseminated as prints during his lifetime. This volume is a fascinating look into the notorious English satirical artist's life, presenting Anecdotes of William Hogarth, Written by Himself-a collection of autobiographical vignettes supplemented with short texts and essays written by his contemporaries, first published in 1785.

Originally published in 1950, this book shows that the religious and ethical values that St. Francis was striving after are as essential today as they were in his time. The book presents St. Francis as a complex personality and corrects the rather mawkish interpretation of certain legends. It deals with the environment and development of the saint's personality and chapters from his biographies by Thomas of Celano or St. Bonaventure and many black and white plates illustrating them which are reproductions of paintings by Italian masters from the XIIIth to the late XVth century.