From bestselling Landmarks author Robert Macfarlane and acclaimed artist and author Jackie Morris, a beautiful collection of poems and illustrations to help readers rediscover the magic of the natural world. In 2007, when a new edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary -- widely used in schools around the world -- was published, a sharp-eyed reader soon noticed that around forty common words concerning nature had been dropped. Apparently they were no longer being used enough by children to merit their place in the dictionary. The list of these "lost words" included acorn, adder, bluebell, dandelion, fern, heron, kingfisher, newt, otter, and willow. Among the words taking their place were attachment, blog, broadband, bullet-point, cut-and-paste, and voice-mail. The news of these substitutions -- the outdoor and natural being displaced by the indoor and virtual -- became seen by many as a powerful sign of the growing gulf between childhood and the natural world. Ten years later, Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris set out to make a "spell book" that will conjure back twenty of these lost words, and the beings they name, from acorn to wren. By the magic of word and paint, they sought to summon these words again into the voices, stories, and dreams of children and adults alike, and to celebrate the wonder and importance of everyday nature. The Lost Words is that book -- a work that has already cast its extraordinary spell on hundreds of thousands of people and begun a grass-roots movement to re-wild childhood across Britain, Europe, and North America.

"Object Lessons ... is a grand tour of the latest obsession of an indefatigable collector. For the last decade ... George Loudon has gathered some 200 extraordinary natural-history specimens, scientific models and botanical drawings from the Darwinian age. And the Boston photographer Rosamond Purcell has documented every last one of them in this thoughtfully compiled, scrapbook-style compendium." - The New York Times Style Magazine Assembling nearly 200 pieces from the collection of George Loudon, this volume encompasses a vast assortment of objects relating to nineteenth-century life sciences. Originally designed to capture the complex structures of nature, they range from books and illustrations to botanical specimens and anatomical models. Having lost most of their original pedagogical function over time, the objects are now open for contemporary reappraisal - acquiring new values that can inspire, seduce and even disorientate today's viewer. Offering a unique perspective on the intersection of art and science, the historic curiosities in this collection reveal their creators' remarkable capacity for artistic expression. Alongside new images by celebrated photographer Rosamond Purcell, explanatory texts on the objects by Loudon, an essay by Robert McCracken Peck, and a conversation between Loudon and art historian Lynne Cooke together offer insight into the objects' original context and potential for new perspectives.

Stylish retro travel posters bring to mind summer holidays, happiness and fun. Perennially popular as wall art, their strong designs and clean, flat colours are perfect for hobby artists to emulate. A complete guide to producing your own travel-poster art, this book includes guidance on composing a strong design, selecting colours to make sure your artwork pops, and adding lettering for a picture-perfect finished poster. Learn to create key poster elements such as clouds, skies, water and architecture, and discover how to add your own stylized lettering. There are six striking international projects to complete, or you can use your newfound skills to celebrate your own home town or treasured place. This book is packed with examples of Susie West's inspiring artwork and a short history of travel posters. Since 2015, Susie West has been working her way around the UK recreating the upbeat, retro charm of travel posters in the modern world. This book shares her techniques and secrets for producing fun, charming artwork. Suitable for beginners, this is a great way into art for those who want to develop their skills, or for experienced artists wanting to try something new.

Hokusai's series depicting Mount Fuji is widely considered to be the pinnacle of his career. This beautiful boxed accordion- fold edition comprises the full set of forty-six prints (the original thirty-six and ten more that were completed later) and features a luxurious silken binding along with a separate explanatory booklet. The book and booklet are packaged in an elegant slipcase. Devoted entirely to landscapes, Hokusai's series shows Mount Fuji from various viewpoints, framed in different ways. An indefatigable traveler who was passionate about nature, Hokusai explored every vantage point and season at the volcano. He presented it both as a solitary and majestic snow-capped peak and as a smaller object on a distant horizon. Hokusai also portrayed the mountain as an element in Japanese daily life and as an imposing force of nature that can be peaceful and beneficent, or ferocious and unforgiving. These impeccably reproduced prints invite readers to examine Hokusai's virtuosic use of color and composition, his talent for contrasting perspectives, and his interest in the dueling roles of man and nature. An exquisite objet d'art, this volume is the perfect vehicle for appreciating Hokusai's crowning achievement in all its lasting and subtle beauty.

Todd Forsgren (born 1981) creates intimate portraits of birds at the moment of their capture in mist nets as part of scientific surveys and ornithological research. This monograph serves as an effective and original critique of our impulse to name, classify and quantify wildlife.

From the mountains to the ocean shores, from the wetlands to the deserts, North America teems with flora and fauna in delicately balanced ecosystems found nowhere else on Earth. With this book in hand, you will understand the language of nature and see those wild places with new eyes. You'll learn to recognize the lobed leaf of an Oracle Oak, the webbed tracks of a River Otter, and the fine, cream-colored tentacles of a Frilled Anemone. This volume celebrates a tradition of knowledge established by the Nature Study Guild. For more than sixty years, the Guild's pocket guidebooks have helped hikers, campers, foragers, and explorers navigate the great outdoors. Now, the best of the guides' informative text and iconic illustrations are gathered in one handsome hardcover: the perfect reference for today's ramblers.

A compendium of step-by-step drawing exercises from the best-selling Draw 50 series that features easy-to-follow lessons for rendering animals including cats, dogs, horses, prehistoric creatures, and more. With exercises taken from the animal drawing instruction titles in Lee J. Ames's beloved Draw 50 series, Draw 200 Animals brings you the best of Draw 50 Animals, Draw 50 Cats, Draw 50 Dogs, Draw 50 Horses, and Draw 50 Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals in a must-have collection of easy-to-follow, step-by-step visual lessons on sketching and rendering all kinds of furry, feathered, and finned critters. These classic lessons show you how to draw everything from pets to wild animals, including birds, insects, elephants, tigers, and more, in styles ranging from realistic to cartoony.

Nothing makes a fantasy fan's imagination catch fire like the dragon, one of the most enduringly popular beasts of legend. Now, with DragonArt, readers can learn how to bring these mythical creatures to life, with: More than 30 lessons broken down into simple colour-coded steps, from basic shapes, to details including claws and wings, to spectacular finished dragons and beasts Full-coloured illustrations to captivate and inspire readers A playful, engaging text that includes "historical facts about dragons" Additional step-by-step demonstrations covering other fantasy creatures, such as wyverns, basilisks and gargoyles Extra hints, tips & tricks provided by DragonArt's dragon mascot, Dolosus With the tips and suggestions in DragonArt, fantasy lovers can let their imaginations soar.

Fill your home with original, professional art - and learn to paint at the same time. This innovative new series is a poster book, an art pad and a step-by-step painting book all rolled into one! Each of the five A3 posters are ready to pull out, frame and display. In addition, you can enjoy the calming pursuit of painting each of the pictures yourself using the pre-printed outlines - so no drawing required. The large, landscape format of the book allows each stage of painting to be clearly and comprehensively explained with an innovative annotation approach. Simply pull out the simple, stage-by-stage tutorial pages and pin them to your easel, then paint directly onto the watercolour outline for fantastic results. In this title, Country Scenes, learn to paint a range of inspiring landscapes: journey to a tranquil New Forest stream, a rolling Tuscan hillside and a snowy mountain river, and enjoy 5 masterclasses in landscape painting.

Nature and Illusion is the first extended treatment of the portrayal of nature in Byzantine art and literature. In this richly illustrated study, Henry Maguire shows how the Byzantines embraced terrestrial creation in the decoration of their churches during the fifth to seventh centuries but then adopted a much more cautious attitude toward the depiction of animals and plants in the middle ages, after the iconoclastic dispute of the eighth and ninth centuries. In the medieval period, the art of Byzantine churches became more anthropocentric and less accepting of natural images. The danger that the latter might be put to idolatrous use created a constant state of tension between worldliness, represented by nature, and otherworldliness, represented by the portrait icons of the saints. The book discusses the role of iconoclasm in affecting this fundamental change in Byzantine art, as both sides in the controversy accused the other of "worshipping the creature rather than the Creator." An important theme is the asymmetrical relationship between Byzantine art and literature with respect to the portrayal of nature. A series of vivid texts described seasons, landscapes, gardens, and animals, but these were more sparingly illustrated in medieval art. Maguire concludes by discussing the abstraction of nature in the form of marble floors and revetments and with a consideration of the role of architectural backgrounds in medieval Byzantine art. Throughout Nature and Illusion, medieval Byzantine art is compared with that of Western Europe, where different conceptions of religious imagery allowed a closer engagement with nature.

Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for Michael Forsberg Photography ". . . and the sky blackened with dark, gray bodies. In the blurry confusion, John lost Mary." So begins Have You Seen Mary?, Jeff Kurrus's fictional account of one sandhill crane's faithful search during spring migration for his lost mate. Set on Nebraska's Platte River, this tenderly woven story of love is also a stirring introduction to these majestic birds, replete with Michael Forsberg's radiant color photographs. This book will appeal to all ages, for it both entertains and educates readers about sandhill cranes.

This charming book revolves around the two journals Bates produced during his groundbreaking travels in the Amazon, and his classic work The Naturalist on the River Amazons. Alongside specially selected excerpts from his book are facsimile reproductions of the pages from his journals demonstrating his talents as an artist as well as a scientist. Bates, a trusted companion of Alfred Russel Wallace, travelled with him to the Amazon in 1848. There he became fascinated by close similarities in appearance between unrelated butterflies. He found that so-called tasty species - those that are sought after by predators - had evolved to look like toxic species to escape being attacked. This idea became known as Batesian mimicry. Bates spent a total of 11 years in the Amazon, exploring the vast network of largely unvisited major rivers and their tributaries, set in the world's largest area of tropical rain forest in South America. By the time he returned to England in 1859, still only 34 years old, Bates had collected, by his own estimate, some 712 species of mammals, reptiles, birds, fishes and molluscs, and about 14,000 species of insects, of which no less than 8,000 were previously unknown.

For centuries the natural life of the British Isles has captured the imagination of both artists and scientists. The Art of British Natural History explores the many different ways in which Britain's flora and fauna have been documented, from engravings and watercolours to ink and charcoal drawings.The Art of British Natural History is illustrated with over 100 specially selected artworks from the collections of the Natural History Museum's Library and Archives. Together these images span 300 years of British history and include the works of major figures such as William MacGillivray, Moses Harris, Edward Wilson and Ernest Mansell. Andrea Hart's accompanying essay reveals that these images are both beautiful to look at and have also played a crucial role in advancing scientific knowledge in Britain. She also traces how these images have influenced the history of printing, art, and popular culture.

"Nature and Its Symbols is the fifth volume in the series A Guide to Imagery, reference guides whose goal is to explain the symbols used in art. This volume includes chapters on plants, flowers, fruits, and animals of the earth, air, and water, as well as fantastical creatures such as centaurs, griffons, and dragons. The vivid illustrations, which include paintings and tapestries from some of the world's premier museums, are accompanied by texts that offer careful analyses of the artists' depictions of the natural world. Each entry discusses the symbolic significance of the particular plant, fruit, or animal portrayed, its mythic or literary origins, and the episodes or individuals associated with it. These salient points are also called out in summary form within each entry, making the information easily accessible. The reader discovers, for example, that the iris can represent Jesus or the purity of the Virgin Mary as well as the kings of France or the city of Florence. The monkey, which can be symbolic of the devil, heresy, or bad temper, is also associated with the three wise men who traveled to Bethlehem to pay homage to the infant Jesus. By bringing to life the natural world as portrayed in art, this book will surely be an indispensable resource for museum visitors, art lovers, and students.

How the nature illustrations of a Renaissance polymath reflect his turbulent age This pathbreaking and stunningly illustrated book recovers the intersections between natural history, politics, art, and philosophy in the late sixteenth-century Low Countries. Insect Artifice explores the moment when the seismic forces of the Dutch Revolt wreaked havoc on the region's creative and intellectual community, compelling its members to seek solace in intimate exchanges of art and knowledge. At its center is a neglected treasure of the late Renaissance: the Four Elements manuscripts of Joris Hoefnagel (1542-1600), a learned Netherlandish merchant, miniaturist, and itinerant draftsman who turned to the study of nature in this era of political and spiritual upheaval. Presented here for the first time are more than eighty pages in color facsimile of Hoefnagel's encyclopedic masterwork, which showcase both the splendor and eccentricity of its meticulously painted animals, insects, and botanical specimens. Marisa Anne Bass unfolds the circumstances that drove the creation of the Four Elements by delving into Hoefnagel's writings and larger oeuvre, the works of his friends, and the rich world of classical learning and empirical inquiry in which he participated. Bass reveals how Hoefnagel and his colleagues engaged with natural philosophy as a means to reflect on their experiences of war and exile, and found refuge from the threats of iconoclasm and inquisition in the manuscript medium itself. This is a book about how destruction and violence can lead to cultural renewal, and about the transformation of Netherlandish identity on the eve of the Dutch Golden Age.

**Winner of the American Horticultural Society Book Award** Japanese gardens are rooted in two traditions: an ancient one in which patches of graveled forest or pebbled beach were dedicated to nature spirits, and a tradition from China and Korea that included elements such as ponds, streams, waterfalls, rock compositions, and a variety of vegetation. This book traces the development and blending of these two traditions, while also providing insight into modern Japanese gardening trends. The Art of the Japanese Garden is a comprehensive collection of the most notable gardens in Japan--including graveled courtyards, early aristocratic villas, palace gardens, esoteric and paradise gardens, Zen gardens, warrior gardens, tea gardens, and stroll gardens. With an impressive amount of new content, including more than 30 images, this updated edition offers inspiring ideas for your own trip to Japan. If you're just dreaming of traveling to Japan, there is also a section on Japanese gardens in other countries--get a taste of Japanese culture and tradition closer to home. Japanese gardening has reached new heights of sophistication, and serves as garden design and landscaping inspiration all over the world. The Art of the Japanese Garden introduces readers to the history, culture, and design behind these large-scale works of art.

Explores the life and work of the little-known photographer Alexander Henderson, whose work laid the foundations of the Canadian romantic landscape Scottish-born Alexander Henderson (1831-1913) arrived in Montreal in 1855 at the age of twenty-four, eager to explore the Canadian wilderness. Photography, his observation tool, would also reveal a remarkable artistic sensibility. Little known among the general public, his work laid the foundations of the Canadian romantic landscape and its themes: the magic of winter, the endless lure of the country's lakes and waterways, the metaphysical awe inspired by the vastness of its land and its great river. But Henderson also offered a colonial vision of the young North American city and documented a number of Canada's major railway projects. This publication accompanies the first exhibition devoted to Alexander Henderson's entire oeuvre and focusses on photographs that highlight the tonalities, textures, and clarity characteristic of the prints of the period. Texts explore Henderson's biography, the sources and forms of romanticism evident in his landscapes, and the genesis of his work as a process of adaptation to the New World in a context of British imperialism. Distributed for Editions Hazan, Paris Exhibition Schedule: McCord Museum, Montreal (June 10, 2022-April 16, 2023)

In celebration of the world's favorite animal, we bring you over 400 photographs of or about dogs. With pictures from the 19th century to today, the collection includes works by Man Ray, Eric Fischl, Wolfgang Tillmans, Donna Ruskin, Fatima NeJame, Vincent Versace, and of course Elliott Erwitt and William Wegman. Together, their pictures, unique in style but united in canine affection, are testimony if ever there was one that dogs are not only best friends, but also pure photographic inspiration. Forget #dogsofinstagram, this is real canine art, showing how the camera has been key witness to dogs in all their diversity, character, and friendship, from pensive pooch portraits to four-pawed action shots. As intellectually as it is visually stimulating, the book includes captivating essays tracing the presence of dogs in the history of photography and their relationship with humans across the decades. About the series Bibliotheca Universalis - Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe!