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Books > Arts & Architecture > History of art / art & design styles
Etel Adnan (1925-2021) was a Lebanese-American poet, essayist and
visual artist. This is the first book to present a full account of
Adnan's fascinating life and work, using the drama of her
biography, the complexity of her identity, and the cosmopolitan
nature of her experience to illuminate the many layers and
dimensions of her paintings and their progress over several crucial
decades. Adnan came relatively late to painting - her first images
were created in the late-1950s in response to the Californian
landscape. Her vocabulary of lines, shapes and colours changed
little over time, and yet there are huge variations in mood,
texture, composition and material. Similarly, there is a balance
between understanding her paintings as pure abstractions, emulating
the shape of thought, and seeing them for the actual landscapes of
the many places Adnan loved, embraced and responded to. Tackling
the complexities of her subject with skill and insight, Kaelen
Wilson-Goldie unpacks Adnan's multi-layered career to capture the
full scope of her artistic endeavours and impressive achievements.
The book concerns female dress in Roman life and literature. The
main focus is on female Roman dress as it may have been worn in
daily life in Rome and in a social environment influenced by Roman
culture in the time from the beginnings of the Republic until the
end of the 2nd century AD. There is, however, a certain surplus as
to its contents because many Latin texts also talk about mythical
Greek dress and the largely fictional early Roman dress.
Altogether, large parts of the history of Roman dress are only
known to us through what scholars thought about it in Classical and
Late Antiquity. For this reason, this book is not only about real
female Roman dress, but also about the ancient pseudo-discourse on
early female Roman dress, which has been taken too seriously by
modern scholarship. This pseudo-discourse has been mixed together
with real facts to produce an ahistorical fabric. It therefore
appeared necessary to break with this old tradition and to take a
completely new path. The detailed analysis of many texts on female
Roman dress is the basis of this new handbook meant for
philologists, historians, and archaeologists alike.
This important publication accompanies a major exhibition at The
Courtauld Gallery, London, of paintings by Edvard Munch, one of the
world's greatest modern artists. The exhibition and catalogue
showcase 18 major works from the collection of KODE Art Museums in
Bergen. The works span the most significant part of Munch's
artistic development and have never before been shown as a group
outside of Scandinavia. KODE houses one of the most important
collections of paintings by Edvard Munch (1863-1944) in the world.
The collection was assembled at the beginning of the 20th century
by the Norwegian industrialist, mill owner and philanthropist
Rasmus Meyer (1858-1916), who was one of the first significant
early collectors of Munch's work. Meyer knew Munch personally and
was astute in acquiring major canvases by the artist that chart his
artistic development. Edvard Munch: Masterpieces from Bergen
explores this group of remarkable works in detail and considers the
important role of Rasmus Meyer as a collector. The exhibition and
publication include seminal paintings from Munch's early 'realist'
phase of the 1880s, such as Morning (1884), which was made when the
artist was just twenty years old, and Summer Night (1889), a
pivotal work that shows the artist's move towards the expressive
and psychologically charged work for which he became famous. These
paintings launched Munch's career and set the stage for his
renowned, highly expressive paintings of the 1890s when his
compositions became powerful projections of his emotions and
imaginative states. Such works are a major feature of the
exhibition that includes remarkable canvases from Munch's famous
'Frieze of Life' series, such as Evening on Karl Johan (1892),
Melancholy (1894-96) and At the Death Bed (1895). Through his
'Frieze of Life' works, Munch intended to address profound themes
of human existence, from love to death. The artist used his own
experiences as source material to make visceral depictions of the
human psyche, which he hoped would help others understand their own
life. Munch's powerful use of colour and form to convey his
subjects marked him out as one of the most radical painters at the
turn of the 20th century. This fully illustrated publication
includes a catalogue of the works, with contributions by leading
experts in their fi eld from KODE and The Courtauld.
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