Dioramas are devices on the frontier of different disciplines: art, anthropology, and the natural sciences, to name a few. Their use developed during the nineteenth century, following reforms aimed at reinforcing the educational dimension of museums. While dioramas with human figures are now the subject of healthy criticism and are gradually being dismantled, a thorough study of the work of artists and scientists who made them helps shed light on their genesis. Among other displays, this book examines anthropological dioramas of two North American museums in the early twentieth century: the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the New York State Museum. Sites of creation and mediation of knowledge, combining painting, sculpture, photography, and material culture, dioramas tell a story that is always political.

The Sande Society of the Mende people of Sierra Leone is a secret female regulatory society that both guards and transmits the ideals of feminine beauty so fundamental to the aesthetic criteria in Mende culture. In this eloquent and moving book, Sylvia Ardyn Boone describes the Society, its rituals and organization, and the mask worn by its members. Her book is an evocative account of Mende life and philosophy as well as a unique contribution to the study of African art, one based on African conceptions about the person and the human body. "This is a beautiful and beautifully written book. ... Boone writes in ways that reveal her evident devotion to Mende culture."-John Picton, African Affairs "A major contribution to our ethnographic understanding of Mende culture, and to understanding the way concepts of women's bodies encode cultural messages about gender relations."-E. Frances White, Women's Review of Books "A respectful approach to [the mysteries of the Sande], by an art historian who has tiptoed where anthropologists feared to tread. Radiance from the Waters deserves to be read. ... It provides something more interesting than esoteric knowledge: an extended meditation on notions of beauty and decorum and the way in which these can be translated simultaneously into art and ... advancement for women."-John Ryle, London Review of Books "The first text to illuminate the power of the feminine aesthetic in West African art."-Ms.

The figure of a woman reclining, in repose, displayed, abandoned, fallen, asleep, or dreaming, returns in the work of women filmmakers and photographers in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Filmmakers Agnes Varda and Catherine Breillat, and American photographer working in Paris, Nan Goldin, return to the paintings of Titian, Velazquez, Goya, Courbet, and others, re-imagining, and re-purposing, their images of female beauty, display, (auto)eroticism, and intimacy. This book, a sensuous evocation of these feminist works, claims a female-identified pleasure in looking. The artists explored align images of repose and sensuality with other images of horizontality and proneness, of strong emotional content, images of erotic involvement, of vulnerability, of bodily contortion, of listlessness, grief, and depression. The reclining nude is for all three artists a starting point for a reflection on the relation of film, projections, and still photography, to painting, and a sustained re-imagining of the meanings conjured through serial returns to a particular pose. This book claims that the image of the reclining nude is compelling, for female-identified artists - and for all allied in feeling and picturing femininity - in the sensitive, ethically adventurous, politically complex feminist issues it engages. The reclining nude is an image of passivity, of submission, of hedonism. It allows thought about passivity as pleasure, about depression and grief figured posturally, about indolence as a form of resistance and anarchy. Through this image, female-identified artists have claimed freedom to offer new focus on these extremes of emotion. They are re-imagining horizontality.

This is the latest volume in the acclaimed series that depicts medicine as depicted in art throughout history. This sumptuously illustrated volume offers a visual history of the depiction of illness and healing in Western culture, ranging from Egyptian wall carvings to medieval manuscripts and from paintings and sculpture by the great masters of the Renaissance to 20th century artists such as Matisse & Magritte. Thematic chapters cover the examination of patients and their maladies, healing and medical treatments, and the sufferings and hopes of patients awaiting cure and recovery. Psychological anguish, represented by Masaccio's The Expulsion of Adam and Eve, and Munch's The Scream, are also treated along with more obvious physical manifestations.

The practice of Chelsea School of Art and Goldsmiths College graduate Greg Rook (b.1971, London) explores the rich visual history, curious cultural politics and often complex ideologies of those who seek to start a new life or wish to lead alternative lifestyles. From pioneers travelling to new continents to those wanting to stay put and live self-sufficiently, Rook invites us to join him on his own aesthetic and critical journey through a world of colonies, communities, communes and cults. By means of figurative painting that pushes the boundaries between realism and lyricism, Rook captures something profoundly revealing in terms of the hopes, dreams and successes as well as the disappointments, disillusionment and disasters that radical departures from home life and mainstream society can entail. For some, utopias can turn to dystopias, the Romantic imaginary can turn to tragedy, the sublime can turn to misery. For those fleeing oppression, however, it can be completely the opposite - newfound freedom, affluence and happiness. Rook's oeuvre, which incorporates cowboys and communists, agrarians and anarchists, believers and book-burners, depicts how the relationship between people and land is regularly fraught with issues, especially when migration and a clash of mindsets or ways of life is involved. What are brave new worlds for some are threatened old worlds for others... This hardback publication, the first monograph to be devoted to the work of Greg Rook, has been co-published by Vento& Associati and Anomie to coincide with a substantial mid-career survey exhibition of the artist's work being staged by Vento & Associati at the Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan in spring 2019. Featuring approximately fifty illustrations of paintings and works on paper made by Rook since 2006, along with an introduction by London and Milan-based critic and curator Michele Robecchi and a significant newly commissioned essay by Matt Price, a leading voice in the field of contemporary British painting, the publication offers an engaging and pertinent commentary on Rook's long-standing painterly investigation into how people choose to live their lives. Vento& Associati is a Milan-based company operating in global contexts that specializes in strategic cultural communication within fields such as public affairs, corporate and social responsibility, and cultural fundraising. Vento & Associati manages a programme of exhibitions at the Fabbrica del Vapore as part of the Spazi al Talento initiative of the City of Milan.

The Dutch sculptor Eja Siepman van den Berg (*1943) developed her distinctive visual program in the early 1970s. Her representations of the human body in bronze and stone bear witness to her interest in a harmonious figuration and the principles of abstraction. Siepman van den Berg strives for a clarity of form that omits the merely decorative and superfluous. This also explains her broad interest in early Greek kouroi and in twentieth-century sculptors such as Constantin Brancusi and Donald Judd. This richly illustrated publication with the allure of a catalogue raisonne opens up the extensive body of work of one of the Netherlands' major sculptors.

You asked, we listened. Hot on the heels of our best-selling flat-display bookstand, we've worked with our bookbinder to develop the next must-have. These stands display your book upright, closed, or open to leaf through, allowing you to proudly showcase your favorite tome without damaging or straining its spine. Made of solid, glass-like acrylic, these are available in three sizes custom-made to carry our entire catalogue. Whether it's a big-and-bold Collector's Edition or one of our Basic Art volumes, an XXL-sized monograph or a compact Bibliotheca Universalis: all TASCHEN books deserve the royal treatment. Size L: Can accommodate up to our XL series Also available: Size M: Fit for Bibliotheca Universalis, Basic Art series, and all regular titles Size XL: For all of our XXL-sized giants, including Collector's Editions (even enclosed in their clamshell box!)

A romantic view of 19th-century Canada -- a domestic complement to the work of Bartlett, Constable, and Kane.Anthony Flower (1792-1875) lived and worked in New Brunswick for most of his life. A farmer with a lifelong passion for art, he painted until his death at the age of eighty-three. His work opens a window on a time and place now gone. His paintings depict the life that he saw around him in rural New Brunswick and the events and scenes described in newspapers of the day.Anthony Flower's art was among the first in New Brunswick to depict rural New Brunswick. Through his paintings, we learn about day-to-day life, religion, how people dressed, what their interests were, and what was important to them, all important pieces to our understanding of everyday life in nineteenth-century Canada.Une vue romantique du Canada du XIXe siAcle. Un complA (c)ment domestique au travail de Bartlett, Constable et Kane.Anthony Flower (1792-1875) a vA (c)cu et travaillA (c) au Nouveau-Brunswick pendant la majeure partie de sa vie. Agriculteur passionnA (c) par l'art, il peint jusqu'A sa mort A l'Acge de quatre-vingt-trois ans. Son travail ouvre une fenAtre sur un temps et un lieu disparu. Ses peintures dA (c)peignent la vie qu'il a vue autour de lui dans les rA (c)gions rurales du Nouveau-Brunswick et les A (c)vA (c)nements et scAnes dA (c)crits dans les journaux de l'A (c)poque.L'art d'Anthony Flower a A (c)tA (c) parmi les premiers A reprA (c)senter le Nouveau-Brunswick rural. A travers ses peintures, nous apprenons la vie quotidienne, la religion, la faAon dont les gens s'habillent, quels sont leurs intA (c)rAts et ce qui est important pour eux, autant d'A (c)lA (c)ments importants pour notre comprA (c)hension de la vie quotidienne au Canada au XIXe siAcle.

A revelatory and wide-ranging exploration of Renoir's extraordinary depictions of the nude and their important artistic legacy Best known as part of the influential vanguard of Impressionist artists that experimented with new painting techniques in the late 19th century, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) was deeply inspired by classical traditions and returned again and again to the canonical subject of the nude. Tracing the entire arc of Renoir's career, this volume examines the different approaches the artist employed in his various depictions of the subject-from his works that respond to Gustave Courbet, Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, and Paul Cezanne, to his late, and still controversial, depictions of bathers that inspired the next generation of artists. Eminent scholars not only look at the different ways that Renoir used the nude as a means of personal expression but also analyze Renoir's art in terms of a modern feminist critique of the male gaze. Offering the first-ever comprehensive investigation of Renoir's nudes, this beautifully illustrated study includes approximately 50 works, including paintings, pastels, drawings, and sculptures. The book also features an interview with the contemporary figurative painter Lisa Yuskavage that considers Renoir's continuing influence and the historical significance of the female nude in art.

Drawing the Human Head describes in detail of how emotions and feelings are reflected in people s faces and of how to depict them. It is a systematic structured textbook for learning the skills necessary to draw the human head, a useful manual for anyone who is eager to learn to draw or to gain further illustration skills. It was written for students attending art classes in schools, art academies and universities and its texts and images have been designed to be understood by both younger and older adults. The book can also be used as a self-study tool. "

Presents a collection of seventeen essays that explores the dramatic changes in Western conceptions of the body, encompassing the cultural shifts that occurred across Empire, religion and science, from antiquity to the eighteenth century.

Hope Is a Silhouette is a body of intimate and introspective poetry with accompanying illustrations, both written and painted by Lana McDonagh. Observations on love, inner demons, lies, routine-the everyday facets and feelings of human experience that forever fascinate. This collection of sensitive poetry and captivating illustrations marks the exciting debut of a talented poet. Original artwork illustrates each poem. "Precise yet bursting with submerged emotion, Hope Is a Silhouette allows you into a deeply personal inner migration of beauty and bruised hope". - NICKY WIRE, Manic Street Preachers "The marriage of art and poetry has rarely been so gloriously exhibited in one unique debut volume. That the protagonist of both is one and the same person is both remarkable and utterly perfect, as it should be. Poems that tell of those magical and unforgettable moments of deep love and sensuality, of the joys and complexities of becoming a mother, the confusion despair and frustration of the uncaring world and the damage we sometimes seem unable to avoid inflicting on each other, are all addressed so succinctly and so elegantly that it is hard to fathom that this is Lana's first published work. Apart, each illustration, each poem, hits a nerve and tells a truth. Together they make for a deeply compelling experience. A major new talent." - SIMON RAYMONDE, Cocteau Twins & Bella Union Founder

This wide-ranging study traces the forces that drove the production and interpretation of visual images of Shakespeare's plays. Covering a rich chronological terrain, from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the midpoint of the nineteenth, Stuart Sillars offers a multidisciplinary, nuanced approach to reading Shakespeare in relation to image, history, text, book history, print culture and performance. The volume begins by relating the production imagery of Shakespeare's plays to other visual forms and their social frames, before discussing the design and operation of illustrated editions and the 'performance readings' they offer, and analysing the practical and theoretical foundations of easel paintings. Close readings of The Comedy of Errors, King Lear, the Roman plays, The Merchant of Venice and Othello provide detailed insight into how the plays have been represented visually, and are accompanied by numerous illustrations and a beautiful colour plate section.

This engaging publication examines the prodigious body of work of American sculptor Manuel Neri (b. 1930) through the unique perspective of one of Neri's former students. A near-contemporary of other notable California-based artists Richard Diebenkorn and Wayne Thiebaud, Neri is best known for his large-scale figurative sculptures that combine classical figuration with the dynamic mark-making of Abstract Expressionism. The book traces the compelling yet often contradictory thematic arcs of Neri's powerful work and his greater impact on the field of sculpture. At the heart of the publication are Jock Reynolds's personal reflections on Neri and his legacy as a teacher, adding insight and intimacy to the scholarly understanding of the artist. Photographs of Neri in his studio, archival images, and installation photos of the related exhibition at the Yale University Art Gallery round out the book. With its blend of art history and personal reflection, this unique book offers valuable insight into an important, understudied California artist. Distributed for the Yale University Art Gallery Exhibition Schedule: Yale University Art Gallery (03/02/18-07/08/18)