A brief movement after death by Caleb Cain Marcus explores the release of energy from the body into the universe when we die. The images were taken along the coasts of New York and California and contain sky and ocean-immense bodies of space that we can lose ourselves in; becoming part of their vastness. The inspiration for the book came to the photographer from a personal experience. With the birth of his daughter, his death suddenly felt very near. His childhood questions about what happens when we die resurfaced and Marcus began to think about how to visually represent what occurs after death. The work represents the starting point of his new practice that juxtaposes digital and hand-applied mediums to create a hybrid surface, color and edge that challenges the medium of a photograph and the way in which it is seen, understood and felt. With the motion of a pendulum the grease pencil is swung by a string to make tightly grouped marks that reference the finite quantity of time in a lifespan and that move across the paper as if in a formation of light leaving the earth.

Make nature inspired masterpieces with this friendly all-in-one guide to gouache. From ferns and flowers to seascapes and songbirds, create charming paintings alongside popular designer and illustrator Clare Therese Gray. This book is packed with stunning illustrations accompanied by detailed instructions so that readers can enjoy each step of the way in creating their own painted masterpieces. You will learn to capture the world around you with Clare's signature, whimsical style, ideal for gifts, invitations, greeting cards and more. Paint woodland mushrooms, beautiful botanicals or calming pastel landscapes; each project is broken into simple steps so you can enjoy the process and let go of perfection. Similar to watercolor yet easier to control, gouache is a fun and approachable medium for artists of any skill level. You'll find 25 unique tutorials for creating enchanting relaxing artwork. Pieces are organized from beginner-like a jam jar of wildflowers-to advanced-like a twilight owl scene-so you can grow in confidence and expertise as you paint through each chapter. The book includes a thorough introductory section covering everything you need to get started: choosing and mixing colors, handling paint, selecting brushes and mastering basic techniques. Let your creativity soar from riverbed to treetop and beyond with this gorgeous guide to gouache.

Adults and children alike find Julia Rothman's best-selling illustrated guide to the natural world, Nature Anatomy, irresistible, with colorful drawings that awaken curiosity - and invite imitation. With this companion volume, Rothman leads fans deeper into nature observation with her specially designed record pages for tracking daily nature sightings throughout the seasons. Her step-by-step technique tutorials for drawing a flower, a dragonfly, a robin, and much more, along with blank sketchbook pages, will inspire nature lovers and art enthusiasts of all ages to take up their own coloured pencils or favourite pens and create their own unique Nature Anatomy Notebook.

From the Schuylkill to the Hudson delves into the important and under-explored tradition of landscape painting in Philadelphia from the early American Republic (1775) to the Centennial International Exposition (1876), and how that corpus shaped the better-known Hudson River School. Examining for the first time Philadelphia's role in the development of American landscape painting, the book considers the landscape genre across multiple mediums, including paintings, watercolors, prints, miniatures and ceramics. Focusing on the shifting symbolism of local waterways and rivers, the publication explores how these sites became emblematic of the young nation's values and narratives. Featuring works drawn from the collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, including paintings by luminaries such as Thomas Cole, Thomas Doughty and William Russell Birch, this volume narrates landscape's trajectory from a contextual tool in American portraiture to a subject in its own right.

Connecting Renaissance humanism to the variety of "critical posthumanisms" in twenty-first-century literary and cultural theory, Renaissance Posthumanism reconsiders traditional languages of humanism and the human, not by nostalgically enshrining or triumphantly superseding humanisms past but rather by revisiting and interrogating them. What if today's "critical posthumanisms," even as they distance themselves from the iconic representations of the Renaissance, are in fact moving ever closer to ideas in works from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century? What if "the human" is at once embedded and embodied in, evolving with, and de-centered amid a weird tangle of animals, environments, and vital materiality? Seeking those patterns of thought and practice, contributors to this collection focus on moments wherein Renaissance humanism looks retrospectively like an uncanny "contemporary"-and ally-of twenty-first-century critical posthumanism.

A retrospective of Phil Bergerson's career. The first section's, extensive essay addresses his student days, early teaching and organizing years and his various photographic projects (1967-1989). The second part deals with Bergerson's pursuit of the human condition found within the American Social landscape. It begins with an historically contextualizing essay, followed by a sequence created from selections from Bergerson's first two books on America. This is followed by Bergerson's most recent photographs accompanied by a critical essay.

Individuals from all walks of life have devoted their time, energy, and money to restoring the state's lost wetlands. Clare Howard and David Zalaznik take readers into the marshes, bogs, waterways, and swamps brought back to life by these wetland pioneers. Howard's storytelling introduces grassroots conservators dedicated to learning through trial and error, persistence, and listening to the lessons taught by wetlands. They undertake hard work inspired by ever-increasing floods and nutrient runoff, and they reconnect the Earth's natural rhythms. Zalaznik's stunning black and white photos illuminate changes in the land and the people themselves. Seeds sprout after lying dormant for one hundred years. Water winds through ancient channels. Animals and native plants return. As the forgiving spirit of a wetland emerges, it nurtures a renewed landscape that alters our view of the environment and the planet. An inspiring document of passion and advocacy, In the Spirit of Wetlands reveals the transformative power of restoration.

Ambiguity Revisited is concerned with the manner in which pictures communicate with the spectator. Its focus lies in those fluid, indeterminate spaces where our reading of images, in art and photography, exercises and draws upon our imagination, memory, and experience. Sir William Empsons seminal (1930) text: Seven Types of Ambiguity is used as a springboard to discussion, towards a fresh way of exploring ambiguity beyond English literature, and in a broader framework to that contained in John Bergers (1989) Another Way of Telling. The use of ambiguity in art and photography, as in literature, is both a conscious and an unconscious act; and ambiguity influences the way in which we respond to work, from Leonardo da Vincis portraits to the photographer William Egglestons engaging and idiosyncratic reflections on Americas Deep South. This ambiguity is a force for good, or at least one to be reckoned with, due to its participatory nature in actively engaging with, or masking itself from, the viewer. Ambiguity is infrequently discussed but is highly relevant as an expressive device. It holds a position at the core of communication within the visual arts. As society becomes influenced increasingly by communications delivered in a visual form, so we, the consumers, require tools, more than ever, to engage with the work.

A perfect marriage of wildlife photography and inspirational quotes In Animal Emotions, photographer Judith Hamilton is again capturing the soul of wildlife and delicately displaying it for readers to see. Her exceptional photography coupled with insightful quotes, emphasizing the emotions on display, will engage the hearts of animal lovers of all age groups. With quotes from an array of sources, ranging from Albert Einstein to Mae West, Animal Emotions is not only smart and compassionate, but also witty and uplifting. Inspired by Charles Darwin's The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, this book also includes fun facts to provide readers deeper insights into the lives of the animals. Animal Emotions is a beautiful reminder of the glory of the animal kingdom at a time when it has never been more threatened

In recent years, there has been intense debate about the reality behind the depiction of maritime cityscapes, especially harbours. Visualizing Harbours in the Classical World argues that the available textual and iconographic evidence supports the argument that these representations have a symbolic, rather than literal, meaning and message, and moreover that the traditional view, that all these media represent the reality of the contemporary cityscapes, is often unrealistic. Bridging the gap between archaeological sciences and the humanities, it ably integrates iconographic materials, epigraphic sources, history and archaeology, along with visual culture. Focusing on three main ancient ports - Alexandria, Rome and Leptis Magna - Federico Ugolini considers a range of issues around harbour iconography, from the triumphal imagery of monumental harbours and the symbolism of harbour images, their identification across the Mediterranean, and their symbolic, ideological and propagandistic messages, to the ways in which aspects of Imperial authority and control over the seas were expressed in the iconography of the Julio-Claudian, Trajan and Severii periods, how they reflected the repute, growth and power of the mercantile class during the Imperial era, and how the use of imagery reflected euergetism and paideia, which would inform the Roman audience about who had power over the sea.

Landscapes of Extraction explores the art of mining, the transformative industry of the American West, competing in sublimity and striking color with the natural scenic landscape on its own terms. These landscapes of enterprise altered the natural environment on a spectacular scale, with open pit mines, coal tipples, and oil rigs. How artists portrayed the mining industry in the American West is explored in the book with four scholarly essays. Artworks were inspired by the multiple landscapes created by large-scale mining, specifically the mines themselves, the towns that grew up around them, and the miners and their families who lived and worked there. The industry shaped communities and landscapes throughout the West: Arizona, California, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah. Landscapes of Extraction explores a powerful regional narrative that is a fundamental element of national identity played out on a vast geographical scale.

As downhill skiing became popular in 20th-century Europe, resorts in the Austrian, German, French, and Swiss Alps commissioned paintings of their ski runs to turn into maps. The best of these paintings are now featured in this book showing the artists' ability to combine technical virtuosity, geographic information, and creative flair. The undoubted master of panoramic map painting is H. C. Berann, and many examples of his works are shown in this beautiful volume, along with a select handful of artists from throughout Europe. Detailing scenes of the Alpine range from Slovenia to France, each of these images was created by hand from aerial photography, mostly shot by the artists on helicopter rides through the mountains. The paintings themselves cleverly combine multiple perspectives so that all trails, terrain, and mountain features are visible. In these exquisite reproductions, the paintings have been stripped of all references to the ski trails, allowing viewers to focus entirely on the beauty of the colours, composition, and detail. A joy to study and savour, these dramatic and vivid paintings recall a time when the human hand was the best means of translating the Alps' towering beauty to the general public.

The End of Landscape in Nineteenth-Century America examines the dissolution of landscape painting in the late nineteenth-century United States. Maggie M. Cao explores the pictorial practices that challenged, mourned, or revised the conventions of landscape painting, a major cultural project for nineteenth-century Americans. Through rich analysis of artworks at the genre's unsettling limits-landscapes that self-destruct, masquerade as currency, or even take flight-Cao shows that experiments in landscape played a crucial role in the American encounter with modernity. Landscape is the genre through which American art most urgently sought to come to terms with the modern world.

The man behind the paintings: the extraordinary life of J. M. W Turner, one of Britain's most admired, misunderstood and celebrated artists J. M. W. Turner is Britain's most famous landscape painter. Yet beyond his artistic achievements, little is known of the man himself and the events of his life: the tragic committal of his mother to a lunatic asylum, the personal sacrifices he made to effect his stratospheric rise, and the bizarre double life he chose to lead in the last years of his life. A near mythical figure in his own lifetime, Franny Moyle tells the story of the man who was considered visionary at best and ludicrous at worst. A resolute adventurer, he found new ways of revealing Britain to the British, astounding his audience with his invention and intelligence. Set against the backdrop of the finest homes in Britain, the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, this is an astonishing portrait of one of the most important figures in Western art and a vivid evocation of Britain and Europe in flux.

A gorgeously illustrated volume devoted to the natural history drawings and watercolors of Leonardo da Vinci and other outstanding artists of the Age of Discovery From the fifteenth century onwards, as European explorers sailed forth on grand voyages of discovery, their encounters with exotic plants and animals fanned intense scientific interest. Scholars began to examine nature with fresh eyes, and pioneering artists transformed the way nature was seen and understood. In Amazing Rare Things, renowned naturalist and documentary-maker David Attenborough joins with expert colleagues to explore how artists portrayed the natural world during this era of burgeoning scientific interest. The book focuses on an exquisite selection of natural history drawings and watercolors by Leonardo da Vinci, Alexander Marshal, Maria Sibylla Merian, and Mark Catesby, and from the collection of Cassiano dal Pozzo-works all held in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. Attenborough and his coauthors offer lucid commentary on topics ranging from the 30,000-year history of human drawings of the natural world, to Leonardo's fascination with natural processes, to Catesby's groundbreaking studies that introduced Europeans to the plants and animals of North America. With 160 full color illustrations, this beautiful book will appeal to readers with interests that extend from art and science to history and nature.