In this new monograph, the latest in Phaidon's Art and Ideas series, Wayne Franits examines the work of Vermeer within the framework of his times, one of the most intellectually creative periods in this history of art. Written in a lively and accessible style, and incorporating the latest scholarship on the artist, Franits provides fresh insights into many of Vermeer's most famous works, uncovering the creative process behind them and their wealth of meanings.

Known for her intricate and distinct artistic language, Asawa produced numerous sculptures, drawings, and prints that are built on simple, repeated gestures that accumulate into complex compositions. Her works on paper and "continuous" looped-wire sculptures suggest a field of fluctuating positive and negative forms, a means of reshaping how we perceive the world. Personal motifs reappear throughout in the most comprehensive look at the artist's oeuvre to date--ceramic casts of faces of her family, friends, and neighbors; the carved front door Asawa and her family made for their home; and drawings of her children, grandchildren, and husband sleeping--all providing an expansive look into the artist's life. A document of the breathtaking and surprising exhibition Ruth Asawa: All Is Possible, organized by Helen Molesworth, this book records and expands upon the show, offering new insight from writers and curators with a selection of sixty-four works from Asawa's spectacular oeuvre. With an introduction by Molesworth, this book features focused texts from Makeda Best, Taylor Davis, Ruth Erickson, Briony Fer, Jennifer L. Roberts, and John Yau.

Examining the geometry of pattern, repetition and colour within her surroundings, British artist Tess Jaray has explored painterly perspective since the 1960s. This comprehensive and richly illustrated volume was produced in celebration of a 2014 exhibition of paintings and prints by Jaray. Although her work is resolutely abstract, Jaray's two-dimensional work and public art - both of which celebrate the vitality inherent within archetypal rhythms and patterns - have been informed by her interest in the spaces of Italian Renaissance art and architecture, along with more contemporary influences. Jaray focuses on producing the illusion of space, using perspective to create a field of spatial paradox that equates to distance and closeness in the mind. In many of her works the area of pattern - whether polygons, waves or rectangles - is contained by a strong, grounding background colour, thereby controlling the movement of the forms. From Italian architecture and Islamic mosaics to Kazimir Malevich and Lucio Fontana, this volume situates the artist within the tradition of abstract painting and the history of art. Featuring texts by fellow artists, alongside illustrations of a large group of Jaray's paintings, this first monograph explores her contemporary influence.

Provides invaluable insight into the life and works of leading Photorealist painter, Richard Estes

The life and times of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1526/30-1569) were marked by stark cultural conflict. He witnessed religious wars, the Duke of Alba's brutal rule as governor of the Netherlands, and the palpable effects of the Inquisition. To this day, the Flemish artist remains shrouded in mystery. We know neither where nor exactly when he was born. But while early scholarship emphasized the vernacular character of his painting and graphic work, modern research has attached greater importance to its humanistic content. Starting out as a print designer for publisher Hieronymus Cock, Bruegel produced numerous print series that were distributed throughout Europe. These depicted vices and virtues alongside jolly peasant festivals and sweeping landscape panoramas. He then increasingly turned to painting, working for the cultural elite of Antwerp and Brussels. Rather than idealizing reality, he bravely confronted the issues of his day, addressing the horrors of religious warfare and taking a critical stand against the institution of the Church. To this end, Bruegel developed his own pictorial language of dissidence, lacing innocuous everyday scenes with subliminal statements in order to escape repercussions. This book is derived from our XXL monograph, which saw TASCHEN undertake a comprehensive photographic survey of the artist's oeuvre. The result boasts exceptional details and reproductions, unveiling Bruegel's larger-than-life universe with unprecedented clarity. This volume, in celebration of our 40th anniversary, presents all 40 paintings, accompanied by enlarged details and accessible, immersive texts. 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.

The Concise Dictionary of Women Artists includes some 200 complete entries on individuals from the award-winning main dictionary. The best-known artists from the Middle Ages to the present are featured, as well as less well-known artists.

Lucas Cranach the Elder created around 500 works during his lifetime. With his portraits of Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchton and as court painter to Frederick the Wise, he became one of the most sought-after painters of the Reformation. At the same time, Cranach was the first to translate the Italian Renaissance tradition of the life-size nude into art north of the Alps; his lascivious, barely veiled depiction of Venus, the goddess of love, bears witness to this. On the occasion of the large Cranach exhibition at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Austrian writer Teresa Praauer explores the work of this busy prince of painters from A to Z. She focuses not only on Cranach's art, but also on the society that surrounded him, the subjects he painted, and the events that shaped his development.

This book focuses on Aby Warburg (1866-1929), one of the legendary figures of twentieth century cultural history. His collection, which is now housed in the Warburg Institute of the University of London bears witness to his idiosyncratic approach to a psychology of symbolism, and explores the Nachleben of classical antiquity in its manifold cultural legacy. This collection of essays offers the first translation of one of Warburg's key essays, the Gombrich lecture, described by Carlo Ginzburg as 'the richest and most penetrating interpretation of Warburg' and original essays on Warburg's astrology, his Mnemosyne project and his favourite topic of festivals. Richard Woodfield is Research Professor in the Faculty of Art and Design at the Nottingham Trent University, England. He has edited E.H Gombrich's Reflections on the History of Art (1987), Gombrich on Art and Psychology (1996), The Essential Gombrich (1996), and a volume on Riegl in the Critical Voices in Art, Theory and Culture series. He is also the General Editor of a new series of books for G+B Arts International, Aesthetics and the Arts. Edited by Richard Woodfield, Research Professor in the Faculty of Art and Design at Nottingham Trent University, UK.

Alois Riegl (1858-1905) was one of the founding fathers of modern formalist criticism. As a member of the Vienna School of Art Historians, he shared their range of interests in the decorative arts, art in transition, conservation and monuments. In addition to offering a structuralist account of the history of art Riegl also created a formalist approach to the history of ornament, one unmatched until Gombrich's publication of "The Sense of Order". These critical essays examine various facets of Riegl's work. They open with a translation of Hans Sedlmayr's famous, and notorious, "Die Quintessenze der Lehren Riegls". Included is Julius von Schlosser's assessment of Riegl's contribution to the Vienna School of Art Historians as well as essays by a team of international scholars. The book offers a re-engagement with the ideas of one of the most important and neglected art historians of the 20th century.

Alois Riegl (1858-1905) was one of the founding fathers of modern formalist criticism. As a member of the Vienna School of Art Historians, he shared their range of interests in the decorative arts, art in transition, conservation and monuments. In addition to offering a structuralist account of the history of art Riegl also created a formalist approach to the history of ornament, one unmatched until Gombrich's publication of "The Sense of Order". These critical essays examine various facets of Riegl's work. They open with a translation of Hans Sedlmayr's famous, and notorious, "Die Quintessenze der Lehren Riegls". Included is Julius von Schlosser's assessment of Riegl's contribution to the Vienna School of Art Historians as well as essays by a team of international scholars. The book offers a re-engagement with the ideas of one of the most important and neglected art historians of the 20th century.

A one-of-a-kind book of pop-ups based on the works of the Japanese artist Hokusai

Hokusai (1760–1849) was an extraordinarily prolific Japanese master artist and printmaker of the ukiyo-e (‘pictures of the floating world’) genre. More than 150 years after his death, his legacy remains as important as any Western painter’s. His work inspired a roll-call of great artists including Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, Gauguin, Manet, Degas and Klimt as well as craftsmen and architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright.

This book features six meticulously crafted pop-ups of some of his most famous works: 'The Great Wave'; 'Chrysanthemums and Horsefly'; 'The Poem of Ariwara no Narihira or Autumn Leaves'; 'Kirituri Waterfall'; 'Phoenix'; and 'A Sudden Gust of Wind'.

This book is a celebration of the extraordinary variety of Calum Colvin's work from the past four decades. Tom Normand comprehensively explores the artist's collection, selecting core subjects and ideas, examining diverse tropes and genres, and reviewing topics and issues. Each chapter is supported by visual examples of Colvin's work to create a rich narrative that recognises the ways in which thoughts, motifs and ideas surface in Colvin's photography and form a mosaic of associations and perceptions.

Brief Lives (1669-1697) is a collection of short biographical sketches on famous British figures by author, antiquarian, and archaeologist John Aubrey. The work is significant for its unique style, a blend of facts-names, dates, family, important works-and personal anecdotes for which Aubrey combined his skills for research and conversation to compile. Unpublished during his lifetime, the text was pieced together from extensive handwritten manuscripts by numerous editors and scholars, and over the centuries has become a beloved cultural artifact of early-modern Britain. A fascinating figure and gifted researcher in his own right, John Aubrey sought to capture the significance of his era and the people whose contributions to art, politics, science, and philosophy were not only changing Britain, but the world, forever. As a historical record, his Brief Lives provides valuable information on such figures as poet John Milton, playwright William Shakespeare, philosopher Thomas Hobbes, and chemist Robert Boyle. But as a work of art, the text humanizes them, reminding its readers that these were people whose desires, imperfections, and day-to-day lives were not unlike our own. We turn to his works to discover that Sir Walter Raleigh was a "poor" scholar "immerst...in fabrication of his owne fortunes," or to read that Shakespeare, the son of a butcher who worked for his father as a youth, was known to "make a speech" while slaughtering a calf. At times straightforwardly factual, at others filled with gossip, Brief Lives is a document of its time that attempts to record a living history of knowledge and influence. Whether it succeeds is beside the point-that it speaks to us centuries on is the heart of the matter, the reason it must be read. A well-known man in his lifetime, Aubrey moved between cultural and political circles with ease, compiling the sources that would later become Brief Lives. Although a tireless writer and scholar, he published little during his life. His work, including Brief Lives, is thus the product of centuries of diligent research and editing from numerous scholars who understood, as the reader of this volume surely will, that Aubrey's work deserved to reach the public. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of John Aubrey's Brief Lives is a classic of British literature and biography reimagined for modern readers.

Have you ever wondered what an artist is thinking when they create a work of art? What music whispers through the trees in the background...? Behind the Black is the true story of an artist and her struggle to look deep into the lost chronicles of the human spirit to search for what drives us most. From finding her way out of a darkly destructive alcohol addiction to the search for a soul mate, Colleen holds nothing back-baring her soul and utter truth to the core, conveying an artist's view of creativity and its very source, down to the elements that make up the world we live in. On the road to becoming a professional artist, Colleen almost lost her studio and home after an ill-fated business deal with a couple of big bad wolves. Yet she survived to tell the tale, traveling the world on a block of ice, slaying dragons and kissing frogs. Behind the Black is filled with intriguing true-life characters as a lifetime of experiences magically transform into works of art, all explained in intimate detail. "We are the artists of our own worlds, but everyone has a paintbrush, and the canvas is left to unfold and transform...," writes the author. Behind the Black leads you to see through the darkness in a land where you'll confront your own dragons and find miracles. Pay no attention to big bad wolves, and listen closely to little burnt marshmallow-looking minions, for it is always what lies within that matters most.

This book focuses on Aby Warburg (1866-1929), one of the legendary figures of twentieth century cultural history. His collection, which is now housed in the Warburg Institute of the University of London bears witness to his idiosyncratic approach to a psychology of symbolism, and explores the Nachleben of classical antiquity in its manifold cultural legacy. This collection of essays offers the first translation of one of Warburg's key essays, the Gombrich lecture, described by Carlo Ginzburg as 'the richest and most penetrating interpretation of Warburg' and original essays on Warburg's astrology, his Mnemosyne project and his favourite topic of festivals. Richard Woodfield is Research Professor in the Faculty of Art and Design at the Nottingham Trent University, England. He has edited E.H Gombrich's Reflections on the History of Art (1987), Gombrich on Art and Psychology (1996), The Essential Gombrich (1996), and a volume on Riegl in the Critical Voices in Art, Theory and Culture series. He is also the General Editor of a new series of books for G+B Arts International, Aesthetics and the Arts. Edited by Richard Woodfield, Research Professor in the Faculty of Art and Design at Nottingham Trent University, UK.

During his travels in Japan with Henry Adams in the latter part of the nineteenth century, the doyen of American impressionist painters, La Farge, wrote with amazing sensitivity his observations about the whole of Japanese society at the time. John La Farge was born in New York in 1835 to a wealthy and artistic family of French descent. He studied art in Paris and then with William Hunt at Newport, Rhode Island. However, he had a unique and complex mind capable of immense subtlety. He studied Japanese wash painting and mastered Mandarin Chinese. He also invented the process later known as Tiffany Glass.

Contents:
Contents Preface Looking Forward, Looking Back: 1985-1999 1.The Critical Debate and Its Origins 2.History: Representation and Misrepresentation - The Case of Abstract Expressionism: Revisionism in the 1970s and early 1980s 3.Revisionism Revisited Anna Chave, T J Clark, Eva Cockroft, David Craven, Michael Fried, Anne Gibson, Clement Greenberg, Serge Guilbaut, Michael Kimmelman, Max Kozloff, Rosalind Krauss, Michael Leja, Jane de Hart Mathews, Fred Orton, Griselda Pollock, Dierdre Robson, David and Cecile Shapiro.

Benvenuto Cellini started getting onto trouble at a young age. By age sixteen, he had already been exiled from his hometown for six months due to a public assault of another citizen. As a man with endless talents-sculpting, drafting, writing, music, Cellini enjoyed dabbling in many different art forms, a career that enabled him to travel to various major cities. After apprenticing for a goldsmith, Cellini moved to Rome at age nineteen. There, Pope Clement praised his work. However, Cellini's relationship with Clement was the last time he stood in good graces with a Pope. After insulting Pope Clement's successor, Pope Farnese, Cellini left Rome to pursue work in France, fearing that he would be arrested if he stayed. However, his travels did not protect him from the wrath of Pope Farnese. After being accused of the theft of precious Vatican items, Cellini was imprisoned. Deciding to take matters into his own hands, Cellini organizes a prison escape. Though his feud with Pope Farnese greatly complicated his life, Cellini relishes making enemies, and finds humor in every situation he is in. With stories of sexual conquests, murder, escapes, near-death experiences, and artistic endeavors, Benvenuto Cellini reveals all the salacious details of his exhilarating life. Though he exposes many ugly personality traits that he possesses, Cellini himself does not believe that he has faults, and only admits to being wrong once in his life. Despite this, Cellini possesses an influential amount of charisma, which is as evident in his written work as it was in his life. Autobiography by Benvenuto Cellini provides a privileged look into the social life of the Italian Renaissance, and preserves the memory of the incredible artistic work of Cellini, most of which has been lost to time. Because of the fascinating and atypical life Cellini led, paired with his charisma and humor, Autobiography has remained to feel exciting and relevant to a modern audience, both for entertainment and educational purposes. Now with an eye-catching cover design and printed in a readable font, Benvenuto Cellini's Autobiography is accessible for a contemporary audience, preserving the wit and grandeur of work, while renovating it to appeal to a modern audience.