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Books > Arts & Architecture > Art forms, treatments & subjects > Art treatments & subjects > Iconography, subjects depicted in art > Nature in art, still life, landscapes & seascapes > General
Perspective determines how we, as viewers, perceive painting. We
can convince ourselves that a painting of a bowl of fruit or a man
in a room appears to be real by the ways these objects are
rendered. Likewise, the trick of perspective can prevent us from
being absorbed in a scene. Connecting contemporary critical theory
with close readings of seventeenth-century Dutch visual culture,
"The Rhetoric of Perspective" puts forth the claim that painting is
a form of thinking and that perspective functions as the language
of the image.
Aided by a stunning full-color gallery, Hanneke Grootenboer
proposes a new theory of perspective based on the phenomenological
aspects of non-narrative still-life, trompe l'oeil, and anamorphic
imagery. Drawing on playful and mesmerizing baroque images,
Grootenboer characterizes what she calls their "sophisticated
deceit," asserting that painting is more about visual
representation than about its supposed objects. Grootenboer
demonstrates how these paintings--ones that are often marginalized
by art historical discourse--skillfully articulate the complexities
of the visual and, consequently, gain new relevance in the context
of recent interest in visual theory.
Offering an original theory of perspective's impact on pictorial
representation, the act of looking, and the understanding of truth
in painting, Grootenboer shows how these paintings both question
the status of representation and explore the limits and credibility
of perception.
Caterpillage is a study of seventeenth-century Dutch still life
painting. It develops an interpretive approach based on the
author's previous studies of portraiture, and its goal is to offer
its readers a new way to think and talk about the genre of still
life. The book begins with a critique of iconographic discourse and
particularly of iconography's treatment of vanitas symbolism. It
goes on to argue that this treatment tends to divert attention from
still life's darker meanings and from the true character of its
traffic with death. Interpretations of still life that focus on the
vanity of human experience and the mutability of life minimize the
impact made by the representation of such voracious pillagers of
plant life as insects, snails, and caterpillars. The message sent
by still life's preoccupation with these small-scale predators is
not merely vanitas. It is rapacitas. Caterpillage also explores the
impact of this message on the meaning of the genre's French name.
We use the conventional term nature morte ("dead nature") without
giving any thought to how misleading it is. Because so many
portrayals of still life involve cut flowers, which, although still
in bloom, are dying, it would be more accurate to name the genre
nature mourant. The subjects of still life are plants that are
still living, plants that are dying but not yet dead.
Highlighting an enduring interest in natural history from the 16th
century to the present, this gorgeous book explores depictions of
the natural world, from centuries-old manuscripts to contemporary
artists' books. It examines the scientific pursuits in the 18th and
19th centuries that resulted in the collecting and cataloguing of
the natural world. It also investigates the aesthetically oriented
activities of self-taught naturalists in the 19th century, who
gathered flowers, ferns, seaweed, feathers, and other naturalia
into albums. Examples of 20th- and 21st-century artists' books,
including those of Eileen Hogan, Mandy Bonnell, and Tracey Bush,
broaden the vision of the natural world to incorporate its
interaction with consumer culture and with modern technologies.
Featuring dazzling illustrations, the book itself is designed to
evoke a fieldwork notebook, and features a collection pocket and
ribbon markers. Published in association with the Yale Center for
British Art Exhibition Schedule: Yale Center for British Art
(05/15/14-08/10/14)
Raphael Ritz (1829-1894) is one of the most important artists to
have emerged from the Swiss canton of Valais. In the 1850s, Ritz,
who later became famous as the "Raphael of the Alps," studied at
the renowned Academy of Art in Dusseldorf, Germany, and perfected
his technique in the genre of mountain painting, which focuses on
the relationship between landscape and man. Ritz, who felt a strong
connection to his roots, created landscape idylls in faraway
Dusseldorf for an audience that appreciated regional peculiarities.
At times with a touch of irony, he put his works at the service of
a modern effort to illustrate the timeless character of everyday
life. This new monograph looks at the work of the Valais-born
artist beyond national borders and frames it in both the Swiss and
international artistic contexts of the time. Ritz's correspondence
with his father, Lorenz Justin Ritz, who was a painter as well, is
also comprehensively examined for the first time: it constitutes an
important testimony to his artistic self-discovery. Selected
photographs by Swiss contemporary artists from the museum's
collection show the Valais of today and establish a connection
between Ritz's ethnographic view of his own origins and the
present. Text in French and German.
There is a vast collection of Indian natural history drawings in
the Library of the Natural History Museum, London. Spanning a
period of more than two hundred years, from the eighteenth to the
twentieth centuries, they depict the rich variety of animals, birds
and insects to be found in India and the magnificent flora of the
different regions. The Art of India presents many of these
beautiful images, from fine botanical and zoological illustrations
through to depictions of colourful artefacts and trinkets purchased
in local markets. The artworks originate from a variety of sources
that include individual artists and collectors, as well as
organised studies of Indian natural history in the pursuit of
science, commerce and politics. They were produced by European and
Indian artists who worked to advance the understanding of Indian
natural history by recording, describing, classifying and naming
the flora and fauna of the country.
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Iceland
(Paperback)
Petra Ender, Bernhard Mogge, Christian Nowak
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R523
R479
Discovery Miles 4 790
Save R44 (8%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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Iceland's spectacular landscape is characterized by volcanism and
abundance of water. Volcanoes, geysers, thermal springs, and lava
fields are typical for the Nordic island state. This illustrated
book shows over 350 images of glaciers, rugged peaks, weathered
coastline, and Icelandic fjords.
Amazing results can be achieved surprisingly quickly using the
step-by-step techniques in this introduction to drawing animals in
various poses--including head shots and full body illustrations.
Aspiring artists will easily learn to draw with this simple guide,
while more experienced artists will develop specific skills for
drawing animals. The example animals start as basic geometric
shapes and lines that become completed drawings within four or five
steps. Featured are guided instructions to draw cats, dogs, horses,
lions, tigers, bears, a wide selection of birds, and many more
creatures great and small. Despite the simplicity of the
construction methods, these images are realistic representations of
the animals portrayed. Once mastered, the traditional approach used
in this book can be used for any subject.
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Ground/work
(Hardcover)
Molly Epstein, Abigail Ross Goodman
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R1,054
Discovery Miles 10 540
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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A lush visual document of the Clark Art Institute's first-ever
outdoor exhibition, featuring the work of six significant
contemporary artists working in sculpture today A reverence for
nature and a desire to further enliven the surrounding trails,
pastures, and woods inspired Ground/work-the Clark Art Institute's
first outdoor exhibition-which this book records and situates
within the broader context of contemporary sculpture. The six major
site-responsive commissions created by Kelly Akashi, Nairy
Baghramian, Jennie C. Jones, Eva LeWitt, Analia Saban, and Haegue
Yang are documented throughout the seasons, alongside texts that
reflect upon and illuminate the individual and collective responses
of artists. Process shots and working documents are placed
alongside grand single shots of artworks and their landscape
contexts. Critical texts represent a wide range of significant
voices in the field of contemporary art. Distributed for the Clark
Art Institute Exhibition Schedule: Clark Art Institute,
Williamstown, MA (October 6, 2020-October 17, 2021)
Thomas Bewick wrote A History of British Birds at the end of the
eighteenth century, just as Britain fell in love with nature. This
was one of the wildlife books that marked the moment, the first
'field-guide' for ordinary people, illustrated by woodcuts of
astonishing accuracy and beauty. But it was far more than that, for
in the vivid vignettes scattered through the book Bewick drew the
life of the country people of the North East - a world already
vanishing under the threat of enclosures. In Nature's Engraver: The
life of Thomas Bewick, Jenny Uglow tells the story of the farmer's
son from Tyneside who revolutionised wood-engraving and influenced
book illustration for a century to come. It is a story of violent
change, radical politics, lost ways of life and the beauty of the
wild - a journey to the beginning of our lasting obsession with the
natural world. Nature's Engraver won the National Arts Writers
Award in 2007. Jenny Uglow is the author of, among others, A
Gambling Man: Charles II and the Restoration, which was shortlisted
for the 2010 Samuel Johnson Prize, Lunar Men and In These Times.
'The most perfect historian imaginable' Peter Ackroyd
On December 15, 1868, Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius
(1794-1868), Professor of Botany at the University of Munich and
director of the Royal Botanic Garden, was carried to his grave in a
coffin covered with fresh palm leaves. These were a reference to
his groundbreaking Historia naturalis palmarum: opus tripartitum
(Natural History of Palms: a work in three volumes), published
between 1823 and 1853. At the time, this encyclopedic treasury
contained the sum of human knowledge on the topic, and included 240
exquisite chromolithographic illustrations, including landscape
views of palm habitats and botanical dissections. This epic folio
was based on von Martius's expedition to Brazil and Peru with
zoologist Johann Baptist von Spix, sponsored by King Maximilian I
of Bavaria, to investigate natural history and native tribes. From
1817 to 1820 the pair traveled over 2,250 km (1,400 miles)
throughout the Amazon basin, the most species-rich palm region in
the world, collecting and sketching specimens. On their return both
men were awarded knighthoods and lifetime pensions. In his epic
work, von Martius outlined the modern classification of palm,
produced the first maps of palm biogeography, described all the
palms of Brazil, and collated the sum of all known genera of the
palm family. Apart from his own collection of specimens and notes,
von Martius also wrote about the findings of others. Von Martius's
folio is unusual in its inclusion of cross-sectioned diagrams,
conveying the architecture of these mighty trees, which central
Europeans would have found hard to imagine accurately. Equally
remarkable are the color landscapes showing various palms-often
standing alone-which have a simple and elegant beauty. This famous
work is an unrivaled landmark in botanic illustration and taxonomy.
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