Epic Land is a celebration in pictures and words of the arresting beauty of the landscapes of Namibia and of the centrality of land in the culture, history, politics and daily lives of its people. The book seeks to uncover the rare essence that marks the landscape of Namibia apart from all others.

Few countries in the world are richer than Namibia in its canvas of natural beauty. The landscape is one of rich and often harsh contrast with many changing moods. A journey through its landscape is infinitely rewarding. Within this book this progression is depicted. The dramatic scenery of remote deserts, mountains, mystical trees and stormy shores are the equal of any.

Through her captivating photographs and absorbing text, Amy Schoeman shares with the reader the strange beauties of her life’s passion. The superb photographs capture the life of the desert, its forms and colours, and the moods of its ever-changing landscapes.

A panoramic exploration of peoples, objects and beliefs over 40,000 years from the celebrated author of A History of the World in 100 Objects and Germany, following the new BBC Radio 4 documentary and British Museum exhibition. One of the central facts of human existence is that every society shares a set of beliefs and assumptions - a faith, an ideology, a religion - that goes far beyond the life of the individual. These beliefs are an essential part of a shared identity. They have a unique power to define - and to divide - us, and are a driving force in the politics of much of the world today. Throughout history they have most often been, in the widest sense, religious. Yet this book is not a history of religion, nor an argument in favour of faith. It is about the stories which give shape to our lives, and the different ways in which societies imagine their place in the world. Looking across history and around the globe, it interrogates objects, places and human activities to try to understand what shared beliefs can mean in the public life of a community or a nation, how they shape the relationship between the individual and the state, and how they help give us our sense of who we are. For in deciding how we live with our gods, we also decide how to live with each other. 'The new blockbuster by the museums maestro Neil MacGregor ... The man who chronicles world history through objects is back ... examining a new set of objects to explore the theme of faith in society' Sunday Times

As negentienjarige ryloper in Spanje beland Frank Westerman toevallig in die dorpie Banyoles, waar ’n opgestopte “Kalahari-Boesman”, slegs bekend as El Negro, uitgestal word. Sy indrukke bly hom by – en wanneer hy dekades later weer van El Negro lees, die keer in ’n Franse koerant, is dit die begin van ’n ondersoeksreis wat belangrike vrae oor rasopvattings en die Westerse beskawing na vore bring. Wie was hierdie naamlose man? Wat se sy opgestopte “museumteenwoordigheid” oor Europese denke oor slawerny, rassisme en kolonialisme – en bied hy slegs ’n spieel op ’n vergange tyd, of ook op die hede?

Artist Chris Pendleton is clearly a passionate lover of animals, having drawn and painted birds and wildlife for as long as he can remember. In this charming mini calendar, you'll find many a beloved garden visitor - from a Blue Tit to a Goldfinch or Great Spotted Woodpecker - represented in striking linocut form. Informative text accompanies each work in this art calendar and the datepad features previous and next month's views.

Throughout history, artists and scientists have been driven by curiosity and the desire to experiment. Both have wanted to make sense of the world around them, to change it, sometimes working closely together, certainly taking inspiration from each other's disciplines. But they imagine and act on the world from different perspectives, with different goals. The relationship between the two has traditionally been perceived as one of love and hate, fascination and revulsion, symbiotic but antagonistic. Art is crucial to helping us understand our science legacy. And science is well served by applying an artistic lens. But exactly how has the ingenuity of science and technology been incorporated into artistic expression? And how has creative practice, in turn, stimulated innovation and technological change? The Art of Innovation is a history of the modern world through the lens of art and science, showing how artists and scientists are not two cultures but two poles of the same culture. Through fascinating stories exploring exciting relationships between famous artworks and significant scientific and technological objects - from Constable's Clouds and the chemist who measured changes in air pressure, to the introduction of photography and the representation of natural history in print - it offers a new perspective on how we interpret, study and explore the extraordinary world around us.

Water-soluble and oil-based coloured pencils are becoming increasingly popular for botanical painting asthey are easier to use than traditional watercolour and are more forgiving, yet they produce the same stunning effects. They are especially suitable for the accuracy needed to paint in the botanical style of illustration. In this book Ann Swan gives helpful advice on all aspects of working with coloured pencils, including the techniques you will have to master - underpainting, layering and burnishing. She also demonstrates how to mix and build up colour, and how to add those finishing touches that will complete your painting successfully. Several full step-by-step demonstrations are included to show how these techniques are put into practice. The book concludes with a gallery of coloured pencil works by the author, students of botanical painting and other professional botanical painters, providing a wonderful source of reference and inspiration.

This veritable marine treasure trove of a book is richly illustrated by the author, with fifty of the most beautiful, easily encountered, and sometimes astonishing marine organisms found on British coasts, from seemingly exotic seahorses and starfish, to peculiar sea-potatoes and sea lemons. Together, these characterful critters paint a colourful picture of life between the tides: starfish that, upon losing an arm, can grow a new one; baby sharks hatching from their fancifully named `mermaid' purses'; ethereal moon jellyfish pulsating in the current and, on some seabeds, even coral. Beachcombing, overturning a boulder or simply parting the strands of seaweed in a rock pool offer a glimpse into a thriving underwater world of curious creatures. Inspired by the Oxford University of Natural History's exceptionally rich zoology collections, which contain millions of specimens amassed from centuries of expeditions, this book tells the story of life on the seashore.

Drawn from Paradise is David Attenborough's journey through the cultural history of the birds of paradise, one of the most exquisite and extravagant, colourful and intriguing families of birds. From the moment they were introduced to the European mind in the early sixteenth century, their unique beauty was recognised and commemorated in the first name that they were given - birds so beautiful must be birds from paradise. In this unique exploration of a truly awe-inspiring family of birds which to this day is still shrouded in mystery, David Attenborough and Errol Fuller trace the natural history of these enigmatic birds through their depiction in western works of art throughout the centuries, featuring beautiful illustrations by such luminary artists as Jacques Barraband, William Hart, John Gould, Rubens and Breughel, to name but a few. Experienced ornithologists and general nature and art enthusiasts alike will delight in this journey of discovery of the world's most beautiful and mysterious birds.

An informative and beautifully illustrated celebration of our favourite farmyard animals. Readers of The Country Set and Flying the Nest should dust down their wellingtons once again and come and meet The Farmyard Set. This handsome and lavishly illustrated gift book features 50 of farming's best-loved creatures, brought to life by award-winning artist Hannah Dale. Among them are old favourites, such as the Jersey cow and the Gloucester Old Spot, the Indian Runner duck and the Shetland pony, known for their charm and striking appearance. Descriptions and helpful facts illuminate these evocative paintings.

From London and Brighton, to Norwich and Wales, this calendar features artworks from the Tate's collection that explore the British landscape. Artists include John Constable, Paul Nash, Eric Ravilious and J.M.W. Turner. Informative text accompanies each work and the datepad features previous and next month's views. Created by Flame Tree Studio - The Art of Fine Gifts.

Located at the narrow end of the funnel-shaped Mississippi flyway zone, south Louisiana serves as a seasonal stopover for wintering birds from all across North America as well as for some neotropical birds from Central America. Many other bird species make the region their permanent home. For more than fifty years Charlie Hohorst, an avid outdoorsman, hunted ducks in the marshes of south Louisiana. Now he shoots waterfowl with his camera, and his passion extends to all birds living in or passing through the state's wetland areas. Wings of Paradise, the first book of Hohorst's breathtaking photography, demonstrates the attributes that served him well as a hunter -- an exceptional eye, focus, keen observation, manual dexterity, patience, a sense of oneness with the outdoors.

Brilliant color and clarity, as well as variety and movement, define Hohorst's photographs. Organized by type as shorebirds, raptors, woodland songbirds, and migratory ducks and geese, his images display dozens of different species engaged in their many and fascinating activities: swooping, skimming, plunging, meandering, soaring, pausing, preening, nesting, romancing, arguing, catching prey, drying their wings, and more. Hohorst captures individual features in remarkable detail, and his commentary shows an intimate familiarity with his subjects.

Following Hohorst's photographic feast for the eyes, noted food writer Marcelle Bienvenu reflects on south Louisiana's cherished hunting rituals and shares twenty-four favorite duck and goose recipes from the area. From close-ups to panoramic scenes, Wings of Paradise provides a visual delight for families, birders, naturalists, conservationists, sportsmen, and all who appreciate the natural beauty of south Louisiana.

**A BEAUTIFUL NEW SERIES FOR NATURE LOVERS** This lavish book displays and describes the characteristics of more than 50 varieties of flower. Exquisite botanical illustrations accompany a lyrical text by nature writer and botanist Michael Scott. Press-out sections enable you to reveal the outlines of the flowers and transform your book into a work of art.

Less than thirty years after Lewis and Clark completed their epic journey, Prince Maximilian of Wied--a German naturalist--and his entourage set off on their own daring expedition across North America. Accompanying the prince on this 1832-34 voyage was Swiss artist Karl Bodmer, whose drawings and watercolors--designed to illustrate Maximilian's journals--now rank among the great treasures of nineteenth-century American art. This lavishly illustrated book juxtaposes Bodmer's landscape images with modern-day photographs of the same views, allowing readers to see what has changed, and what seems unchanged, since the time Maximilian and Bodmer made their storied trip up the Missouri River.

To discover how the areas Bodmer depicted have changed over time, photographer Robert M. Lindholm and anthropologist W. Raymond Wood made several trips over a period of years, from 1985 to 2002, to locate and record the same sites--all the way from Boston Harbor, where Maximilian and Bodmer began their journey, to Fort McKenzie, in modern-day western Montana. Pairing sixty-seven Bodmer works side by side with Lindholm's photographs of the same sites, this volume uses the comparison of old and new images to reveal alterations through time--and the encroachment of a built environment--across diverse landscapes.

"Karl Bodmer's America""Revisited" is at once a tribute to the artistic achievements of a premier landscape artist and a photographer who followed in his footsteps, and a valuable record of America's ever-changing environment.

I Like Birds explores the history and habits of 60 of Britain's most interesting, popular and prized species of bird.

From the coast to the heart of the countryside, each entry features a bold illustration that captures a bird's individual personality, bringing them to life through the pages of this book. As well as providing useful stats including breeding times, egg quantity, wingspan, diet, nest type and more this guide tells the story of each bird s lifestyle, behaviour, distinguishing features and birdsong.

Dotted with lively anecdotes, plus binocular basics and an egg-opedia, whether you're simply interested in attracting more birds to your garden, or trekking deeper into the wild on your search for Britain's best avian wildlife, I Like Birds is the perfect companion for any beginner or avid birdwatcher.

Following the award-winning Seeds: Time Capsules of Life, Wolfgang Stuppy and Rob Kesseler explore the fascinating world of fruits through a unique presentation of extraordinary images from around the world accompanied by a lively explanatory text. Fruit. The word itself conjures up mouthwatering memories of crunchy apples, luscious strawberries, sweet bananas, succulent melons and juicy pineapples, to which we can add the splendid tropical fruits on our supermarket shelves. They are one of nature's most wonderful gifts but providing us with a healthy source of food is not the reason that plants produce such delicious fruits. It is therefore quite legitimate to ask what fruits are, and why they exist. As will be revealed, the true nature of fruits is concealed in what is buried in their core: their seeds. The key role that both play in the survival of each species explains the manifold strategies and ruses that plants have developed for the dispersal of their seeds. Whether these involve wind, water, humans, animals or the plant's own explosive triggers, they are reflected in the many colours, shapes and sizes of the fruits that protect the seeds and in the extraordinary way that some fruits have adapted to the animals that disperse their seeds, and the animals to the fruits they relish. In this pioneering collaboration, visual artist Rob Kesseler and seed morphologist Wolfgang Stuppy use scanning electronmicroscopy to obtain astonishing images of a variety of fruits and the seeds they protect. Razor-sharp cross-sections reveal intricate interiors, nuts and other examples of botanical architecture and reproductive ingenuity. The black and white microscope images have been sumptuously coloured by Rob Kesseler highlighting the structure and functioning of the minuscule fruit and seeds some almost invisible to the naked eye and in so doing creating a work of art. Larger fruits, flowers and seeds have been especially photographed. The formation, development and demise of the fruits are described, their vital role in the preservation of the biodiversity of our planet explained. Fruits are the keepers of the precious seeds that ensure our future; some are edible, others inedible and many, quite simply, incredible.

Numbering some 1,500 individual items and housed at over 80 historic properties across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the collection of portrait miniatures cared for by the National Trust is considered to be one of the most significant in the world. As a whole, these precious works of art represent the highest standard of artistry and provide a history of miniature painting in Britain. They range from Holbein's 1533 portrait of A Man Holding a Pink at Upton House in Warwickshire through to Wainwright's portrait of Evelyn Ward (1916), painted several decades after the advent of photography had begun to supersede the art of the miniature. This comprehensive catalogue, featuring every miniatures in the National Trust's care, is being prepared in volumes, divided by region. The first volume, covering Northern Ireland, was published in July 2003. This second volume looks at miniatures from the Trust's historic houses in the counties of Cornwall, Devon and Somerset, including those that recently came to the Trust as part of its acquisition of the magnificent Victorian mansion of Tyntesfield, south of Bristol.

Julia Kay's Portrait Party is an international collaborative project in which artists all over the world make portraits of each other and share them online. After years of exchanging portraits, tips and techniques within the group, in Portrait Revolution these artists are now sharing their art, their words, and their inspiration with everyone who is interested in or would like to get started with portraiture. Here you can find information on using different media, how to handle difficult portrait issues, and more. Portrait Revolution showcases 450 portraits by 200 artists, in a wide variety of media from oil painting to iPad art, watercolour to ballpoint, linocut to mosaic. There are a range of styles from realistic to abstract and interpretations by multiple artists of the same subject.

Do you recognise these ingredients? 35 recipes as you've never seen them before. A gorgeous gift book as well as a cookery title, Dinner Deconstructed features 35 recipes as you've never seen them before, broken down into their individual ingredients and photographed in stylish still-life arrangements. Serried rows of vegetables and small heaps of flour turn into a comforting cauliflower bake, the ingredients of steak bernaise boil down to meat, peppercorns, eggs, butter and herbs, and key lime pie looks mesmerising before the ingredients are magically melded together in the kitchen. And after you've feasted your eyes on the dishes in their natural and aesthetically pleasing state, simply turn to the back of the book to get the recipes themselves, so you can turn the raw ingredients into the delicious dishes they were destined to be. Word count: 7,000

This visually stunning survey provides an in-depth look at Eileen Hogan's (b. 1946) working methods. Covering her entire career, it focuses particularly on two dominant themes in the artist's oeuvre-enclosed gardens and portraiture. Her depictions of gardens range from London's well-known Kew Gardens and Chelsea Physic Garden to Little Sparta, Ian Hamilton Finlay's garden in the Pentland Hills near Edinburgh. Her portraits include expressive sketches and paintings of veterans of the Second World War, and of HRH The Prince of Wales and HRH The Duchess of Cornwall. The book includes images from Hogan's sketchbooks, her studies, and finished paintings, accompanied by striking photographs of the artist at work. Essays by scholars and Hogan herself trace the artist's career from her student days at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts through the present. This volume provides an unprecedented, intimate look at the life and work of one of the most interesting and evocative artists working today.

Award-winning and hugely popular artist Rosie Sanders showcases the beauty of the rose in her follow up to Rosie Sanders Flowers. Over 80 stunning paintings and sketches are shown for the first time. The artist writes a personal letter on each of her rose paintings (to be given unopened to the final recipient or buyer of the painting). Many of these personal letters sit alongside the paintings, as they explain the creative and emotional process she went through to create it. The book is a revealing insight into the artist's muse and the author's sketches and drawings are also included to show the full artistic process. The book is introduced by an extended essay on the resonance of the rose - all across the world - in our art, literature, poetry, folklore and gardens. The rose emblem is timeless and this book not only celebrates its beauty in art but tells the story of the rose as one of nature's most powerful motifs.

Whether as a reaction to our technological present or as a manifestation of fears concerning our environmental future, depictions of the natural world in painting have never seemed more pertinent or urgent. Some of the most ambitious, crucial and intellectually vibrant paintings being created in this century involve the landscape - from a more traditional, perceptual based approach for rendering vistas to a looser, topography-inspired gestural abstraction that blurs the line between form and space, to many other modes in between. Surprisingly, there has not been an ambitious and wide-reaching publication on the subject - until now. The result of several years' worth of research, Landscape Painting Now is the first book to explore the very best contemporary landscape painting. Featuring artists from nearly twenty-five countries born over seven decades, it includes some of the brightest stars of the contemporary art world. It is introduced by an essay from Barry Schwabsky, who discusses the history of landscape painting, exploring how the genre developed through the 20th century to today, and how it has become increasingly relevant to art now. He also explores the notion of what is actually called a landscape painting today, and looks to expand beyond commonly held preconceptions concerning the genre.