Decades' worth of images have been distilled down to 512 pages of photographs in this ultimate retrospective collection of Nobuyoshi Araki's work, selected by the artist himself. First published as a Limited Edition and now back in a new format to celebrate TASCHEN's 40th anniversary, the curation delves deep into Araki's best-known imagery: Tokyo street scenes; faces and foods; colorful, sensual flowers; female genitalia; and the Japanese art of kinbaku, or bondage. As girls lay bound but defiant and glistening petals assume suggestive shapes, Araki plays constantly with patterns of subjugation and emancipation, death and desire and with the slippage between serene image and shock. Describing his bondage photographs as "a collaboration between the subject and the photographer", Araki seeks to come closer to his female subjects through photography, emphasizing the role of spoken conversation between himself and the model. In his native Japan, he has attained cult status for many women who feel liberated by his readiness to photograph the expression of their desire. About the series TASCHEN is 40! Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible publishing, helping bookworms around the world curate their own library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia at an unbeatable price. Today we celebrate 40 years of incredible books by staying true to our company credo. The 40 series presents new editions of some of the stars of our program-now more compact, friendly in price, and still realized with the same commitment to impeccable production.

The ancient Greeks perceived the human body as an object of sensory delight and its depiction as the expression of an intelligent mind. This sumptuous photographic book explores ancient Greek sculptures of the body from every angle. With an introduction outlining the use of the body in Greek art from the prehistoric simplicity of Cycladic figurines to the realism of the Hellenistic age, seven thematic sections then feature stunning photographs of close ups taken from the British Museum's outstanding collection of marble, bronze and terracotta sculpture. The gods and heroes of Greek religion and mythology are conceived in the image of mankind, as supermen and superwomen, while other supernatural beings such as centaurs and satyrs combine human with animal parts as symbols of their otherworldliness. Human shape is also given to the inanimate phenomena of nature, such as wind and moon, as well as intangible human experiences such as sleep and death. A salient feature of Greek art is human nudity, which was celebrated rather than considered shameful. The great majority of female nudes that have come down to us are representations of Aphrodite, goddess of erotic love. In the Hellenistic age, Alexander's conquest and Hellenisation of the people formerly included in the Persian empire created a new and cosmopolitan world. Greek artists were made more aware than ever before of the ethnic diversity of humanity and delighted in representing and classifying humankind in all its variety young and old, fat and thin, beautiful and ugly, freeborn and slave, pauper and wealthy, able and disabled, moral and immoral. The Hellenistic period, more than any previous, was also truly an age of portraiture, reflected love in compelling and unusual images.

Both an exploration of the ways in which we fashion our public identity and a manual of modern sociability, this lively and readable book explores the techniques we use to present ourselves to the world: body language, tone of voice, manners, demeanor, "personality" and personal style. Drawing on historical commentators from Castiglione to Machiavelli, and from Marcel Mauss to Roland Barthes, Joanne Finkelstein also looks to popular visual culture, including Hollywood film and makeover TV, to show how it provides blueprints for the successful construction of "persona." Finkelstein's interest here is not in the veracity of the self - recently dissected by critical theory - but rather in the ways in which we style this "self," in the enduring appeal of the "new you" and in our fascination with deception, fraudulent personalities and impostors. She also discusses the role of fashion and of status symbols and how advertising sells these to us in our never ending quest for social mobility.

Vivienne Maricevic's desire to reveal, challenge, and transform the imbalance between the frequent representation of the naked female form and the rarity of male nudity is led to more than three decades spent devoted to the unadorned male form. While capturing scores of male subjects, she discovered that the majority had never been photographed by a female; the men all welcomed the role-reversal and the opportunity to confront the disparity it suggested. Included in this compendium are more than 150 images from three of Maricevic's most distinct periods: 1975-2005's "Naked Men," all taken in the subjects' homes; 1994-2002's "Me & Men," with Maricevic cleverly engaging her subjects by inserting a piece of herself into the frame; and 2001-2005's "Strip-to-Strip," an homage to Eadweard Muybridge's iconic "Horse in Motion." Her bold, creative synergy solidified a career built on intimate photographs of men au naturel. They are, at times, playful, erotic, or controversial - but always beautiful.

"Gartel has so superbly captured...the essence of erotic desire. In an age of sex being turned into merely a forbidden behavior and a troublesome medical condition, Gartel has rallied and preserved sexual teasing, seduction, and allure into its rightful pleasurable position by his commendable artistic photographic journaling. In my thirty years as a Sexologist, it is nice to see sex education, preservation, and permission for sexual expression and fun so alive in his work." -Dr. Gil Eriksen, Director of Research at the Institute for Reality Studies Renowned digital media artist Laurence M. Gartel records the world of Fetish in his own inimitable style. As an artist he brings his own creative input and adds his twist to the storyline, becoming a participant through the creative process of working with the imagery. This book is loaded with Gartel's provocative art, including 103 set pieces plus many of the posters and other graphic art for which Gartel has received such acclaim. This work will entertain and confront, as all great art will do. And in the end the reader will be left to ponder the creative mind that brought these images into being. An aesthetic and erotic adventure awaits.

This title was first published in 2000: In their stunning simplicity, George Romney's portraits of eighteenth-century gentry and their children are among the most widely recognised creations of his age. A rival to Reynolds and Gainsborough, Romney was born in 1734 on the edge of the Lake District, the landscape of which never ceased to influence his eye for composition and colour. He moved in 1762 to London where there was an insatiable market for portraits of the landed gentry to fill the elegant picture galleries of their country houses. Romney's sitters included William Beckford and Emma Hart, later Lady Hamilton. An influential figure, one of the founding fathers of neo-classicism and a harbinger of romanticism, Romney yearned to develop his talents as a history painter. Countless drawings bear witness to ambitious projects on elemental themes which were rarely executed on canvas. Richly illustrated, this is the first biography of Romney to explore the full diversity of his oeuvre.

Erotic encounters have been celebrated by artists from the beginning of time. This irresistible volume presents 120 of the most engagingly erotic paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings from diverse eras and cultures, coupled with revealing commentaries about their sexual and aesthetic content. Organised unlike any other collection of erotic images, The Art of Arousal traces the course of a sensual relationship. It begins by examining the elements of eroticism, and then progresses from flirtation and seduction through kisses and other foreplay before ultimately arriving at consummation and blissful exhaustion. The irrepressible Dr. Ruth explores every element of sexuality in these provocative works of art, including the pleasures of looking, creative fantasising, and the effects on male and female pleasure of the various positions depicted. All the works in this book have been chosen to meet two essential criteria: everyone portrayed must be having a good time, and each image must satisfy the high aesthetic standards of Dr. Ruth and an art historian friend, who writes with witty scholarship about the artistic and biographical aspects of these remarkable images. Now available in a revised edition that includes stimulating new works by contemporary creators, The Art of Arousal is the perfect gift for your lover who loves art.

Representations of Renaissance monarchy analyses the portraits and personal imagery of Francis I, one of the most frequently portrayed rulers of sixteenth-century Europe. The distinctive likeness of the Valois king was widely disseminated and perceived by his French subjects, and Tudor and Habsburg rivals abroad. Complementing studies on the representation of Henry VIII, this book makes a dynamic contribution to scholarship on the enterprise of royal image-making in early-modern Europe. The discussion not only highlights the inventiveness of the visual arts in Renaissance France but also alludes to the enduring politics of physical appearance and seductive power of the face and body in modern visual culture. Coinciding with the five hundredth anniversary of Francis I's accession, this book will appeal to scholars and students of medieval and Renaissance art, the history of portraiture or anyone interested in images of monarchy and the history of France. -- .

Drawing and Painting People - A Fresh Approach is about confident and defiant art. Written by a practising artist and tutor, it contains inspiring examples, thought-provoking insights and practical advice about how to become more expressive and adventurous with your work. It is a book for people who are serious about painting and want to develop work that is personal and exceptional in quality. An unpretentious, non-academic approach to painting and drawing Avoiding 'painting by numbers' Strategies for independent working, building confidence and taking risks Examples from notable artists The body as an inspiring muse

From Renaissance fresco painters to contemporary graphic novel artists, the ability to draw clothed figures from one's imagination has always been crucial to artists - and exceptionally difficult to attain. With over 220 illustrations, The Art of Drawing Folds: An Illustrator's Guide to Drawing the Clothed Figure reveals the logic and patterns in folds, enabling the reader to more easily predict the behavior of cloth when creating folds in their own drawings and paintings. Addressing folds in clothing systematically, the author provides a clear, concise approach to the analysis, classification and visualization of convincingly naturalistic folds. Starting with the nature of fabric and its geometry, this book methodically explores the reasons for fold behavior based on the construction of clothing and the shapes and actions of the human figure. An essential guide and reference for animators, illustrators, storyboard artists, comic-book artists, 3D modelers, sculptors, fashion designers and students, The Art of Drawing Folds simplifies one of the most complex and important aspects of drawing the clothed figure.

Focusing on images of or produced by well-to-do nineteenth-century European women, this volume explores genteel femininity as resistant to easy codification vis-A -vis the public. Attending to various iterations of the public as space, sphere and discourse, sixteen essays challenge the false binary construct that has held the public as the sole preserve of prosperous men. By contrast, the essays collected in Women, Femininity and Public Space in European Visual Culture, 1789-1914 demonstrate that definitions of both femininity and the public were mutually defining and constantly shifting. In examining the relationship between affluent women, femininity and the public, the essays gathered here consider works by an array of artists that includes canonical ones such as Mary Cassatt and FranAois Gerard as well as understudied women artists including Louise Abbema and Broncia Koller. The essays also consider works in a range of media from fashion prints and paintings to private journals and architectural designs, facilitating an analysis of femininity in public across the cultural production of the period. Various European centers, including Madrid, Florence, Paris, Brittany, Berlin and London, emerge as crucial sites of production for genteel femininity, providing a long-overdue rethinking of modern femininity in the public sphere.

With just under a thousand portraits of Queen Elizabeth II, the National Portrait Gallery boasts some of the most treasured and famous official portraits of the Queen captured at key historic moments, as well as day-to-day images of the monarch at home and with family, following her journey from childhood, to princess and Queen, mother and grandmother. This publication highlights the most important portraits of Elizabeth II from the Gallery's Collection. Paintings and photographs from the birth of Elizabeth II to the present will take readers on a visual journey through the life of Britain's foremost icon. The book will reflect on the Queen's life, presenting family photographs alongside important formal portraits to explore how, as her reign became record-breaking, she became an iconic figure in modern British culture and history. The publication features works by key artists depicting the Queen from 1926 to the present day, including Baron, Cecil Beaton, Dorothy Wilding, Patrick Lichfield, Andy Warhol, Annie Leibovitz and David Bailey. This book features an introductory essay by Alexandra Shulman, exploring how the collected portraits depict the Queen throughout her life and reign, and a timeline of key historical events and moments from Elizabeth II's life.

This book reveals how art and sex promoted the desire for the genetically perfect body. Its eight chapters demonstrate that before eugenics was stigmatized by the Holocaust and Western histories were sanitized of its prevalence, a vast array of Western politicians, physicians, eugenic societies, family leagues, health associations, laboratories and museums advocated, through verbal and visual cultures, the breeding of 'the master race'. Each chapter illustrates the uncanny resemblances between models of sexual management and the perfect eugenic body in America, Britain, France, Communist Russia and Nazi Germany both before and after the Second World War. Traced back to the eighteenth-century anatomy lesson, the perfect eugenic body is revealed as athletic, hygienic, 'pure-blooded' and sexually potent. This paradigm is shown to have persisted as much during the Bolshevik sexual revolution, as in democratic nations and fascist regimes. Consistently posed naked, these images were unashamedly exhibitionist and voyeuristic. Despite stringent legislation against obscenity, not only were these images commended for soliciting the spectator's gaze but also for motivating the spectator to act out their desire. An examination of the counter-archives of Maori and African Americans also exposes how biologically racist eugenics could be equally challenged by art. Ultimately this book establishes that art inculcated procreative sex with the Corpus Delecti - the delectable body, healthy, wholesome and sanctioned by eugenicists for improving the Western race.

In 2011, adhering to his mentor Henri Cartier-Bresson's mantra to 'photograph the truth', animation filmmaker Ishu Patel embarks on a photographic journey in southeast Asia. Abandoning moving images to secure a series of still images that capture a uniquely human gesture or powerful thought-provoking story, he prowls both urban and rural areas armed only with a Leica M9 with 35 and 50mm fast lenses. The result is a collection of elusive still images - photographs, mainly in black and white, that tell a story, seize a moment in life or are a witness to joy, struggle or human dignity. Never political or judgmental, the collection comprises Patel's homage to the unsung lives of ordinary Asians, many of whom are increasingly overlooked in today's fast- changing world. Patel also contributes thoughtful essays on the various countries and peoples he has so powerfully photographed.

Losing Your Head: Abjection, Aesthetic Conflict, and Psychoanalytic Criticism looks at the subject of beheading in art as a trope of the destruction of the mind. This book discusses both psychoanalytic theory and art criticism. It addresses critics, readers, and spectators interested in the keys of interpretation that psychoanalysis can offer, and analysts who are curious to know if artists can help them refine the tools they use every day. It asks whether artists have something to say about the concepts of reverie and negative reverie or about change as aesthetic transformation, and about aesthetic experience as a paradigm of what is most true and most profound in analysis. Why write about beheading? Many art galleries feature paintings of heroines performing this cruel act: Delilah, Salome, Judith, Yael, and others. At the antithesis to this, there is another theme to be found in painting that consistently garners attention: namely, the so-called "Sacred Conversation," in which the Madonna holds a small child in her lap and their gazes cross. The first scene depicts how a mind is destroyed, the second how it is born. Losing Your Head analyzes well-known artwork from classical literature, cinema, and contemporary art to enhance psychoanalytic understanding.

When we think Tom of Finland we first picture muscular, macho young men in military gear. Tom's vision of masculine perfection was formed during his service as an officer during World War II. Though he served in the Finnish air force, it was the German troops, stationed in Finland to help the country repel invading Russian forces, which served as inspiration. After all, only the Germans had uniforms created by Hugo Boss, tightly tailored, replete with designer touches, and complimented by high, shiny black leather boots. Tom, at 19, was smitten, an obsession that deepened following his first sexual experiences with German officers in the blackout streets of Helsinki. Tom began putting his military fantasies on paper in 1945 to memorialize his thrilling nighttime encounters when the war ended. At first the Hugo Boss uniforms dominated, but as the years and then decades passed he included American naval uniforms as well, and then his own hybridized designs of black leather, jodhpurs, boots, and peaked caps, with military insignia replaced by Tom's Men patches. As Tom attracted an army of loyal fans, he created, with pencil, pen and gouache, an army of free, proud, masculine fantasy men committed to pleasure and male camaraderie. The Little Book of Tom: Military Men explores Tom's fascination with militaria through a mixture of multi-panel comics and single-panel drawings and paintings, all in a compact and affordable 192 pages. Historic film stills and posters, personal photos of Tom, sketches, and Tom's own reference images explore the cultural context and private inspirations behind the ultimate Tom of Finland hero.

Portraits of Queen Marie Leszczinska (1703-1768) were highly visible in eighteenth-century France. Appearing in royal chateaux and, after 1737, in the Parisian Salons, the queen's image was central to the visual construction of the monarchy. Her earliest portraits negotiated aspects of her ethnic difference, French gender norms, and royal rank to craft an image of an appropriate consort to the king. Later portraits by Maurice-Quentin de La Tour, Carle Van Loo, and Jean-Marc Nattier contributed to changing notions of queenship over the course of her 43 year tenure. Whether as royal wife, devout consort, or devoted mother, Marie Leszczinska's image mattered. While she has often been seen as a weak consort, this study argues that queenly images were powerful and even necessary for Louis XV's projection of authority. This is the first study dedicated to analyzing the queen's portraits. It engages feminist theory while setting the queen's image in the context of portraiture in France, courtly factional conflict, and the history of the French monarchy. While this investigation is historically specific, it raises the larger problem of the power of women's images versus the empowerment of women, a challenge that continues to plague the representation of political women today.

Open this book as an absolute beginner, and come away as a proud portrait artist

Mark and Mary Willenbrink's"Absolute Beginner" books have helped thousands of novices tap into their inner artists. In this book, Mark and Mary help the beginning artist take on portraits, showing that absolutely anyone can draw faces. Their encouraging, easy-to-follow instruction style makes learning fun--you'll be amazed by how quickly you achieve impressive results.

You may be a beginner now, but not for long "Drawing Portraits for the Absolute Beginner" covers everything from warming up with sketches, and capturing facial expressions, to framing your finished work. Page by page, you'll build the skills and confidence you need to draw lifelike portraits of your friends and family.

What's Inside:

• A simple two-stage approach to drawing portraits: sketch a likeness, then build up values to bring it to life
• Step-by-step instruction for drawing eyes, noses, mouths, hairstyles, hands, glasses and other tricky elements
• 13 complete demonstrations featuring a range of ages and ethnicities
• Tips for evoking more personality in your portraits by using props, costumes and accessories