In 1998, TASCHEN introduced the world to the masterful art of Touko Laaksonen with The Art of Pleasure. Prior to that, Laaksonen, better known as Tom of Finland, enjoyed an intense cult following in the international gay community but was largely unknown to a broader audience. In 2009, TASCHEN followed up with the ultimate Tom overview: Tom of Finland XXL, a beautiful big collector's edition with over 1,000 images, covering six decades of the artist's career. The work was gathered from collections across the United States and Europe with the help of the Tom of Finland Foundation, featuring many drawings, paintings, and sketches never previously reproduced. Other images had only been seen out of context and were finally presented in the sequential order Tom intended for full artistic appreciation and erotic impact. The elegant oversized volume showed the full range of Tom's talent, from sensitive portraits to frank sexual pleasure to tender expressions of love and haunting tributes to young men struck down by AIDS, and was completed by eight commissioned essays on Tom's social and personal impact by Camille Paglia, John Waters, Armistead Maupin, Todd Oldham, and others, plus a scholarly analysis of individual drawings by art historian Edward Lucie-Smith. The only thing missing from Tom of Finland XXL was a widely affordable price tag-until now. The new Tom of Finland XXL is still big enough to work your biceps, and includes all of the original content, but costs a fraction of the original price. You're welcome.

Gender, Piety, and Production in Fourteenth-Century English Apocalypse Manuscripts is the first in-depth study of three textually and iconographically diverse Apocalypses illustrated in England in the first half of the fourteenth century by a single group of artists. It offers a close look at a group of illuminators previously on the fringe of art historical scholarship, challenging the commonly-held perception of them as mere craftsmen at a time when both audiences and methods of production were becoming increasingly varied. Analyzing the manuscripts' codicological features, visual and textual programmes, and social contexts, it explores the mechanisms of a fourteenth-century commercial workshop and traces the customization of these books of the same genre to the needs and expectations of varied readers, revealing the crucial influence of their female audience. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of English medieval art, medieval manuscripts, and the medieval Apocalypse, as well as medievalists interested in late medieval spirituality and theology, medieval religious and intellectual culture, book patronage and ownership, and female patronage and ownership.

Public Lives, Private Virtues surveys portraits of American Revolutionary heroes in books, magazines, and school texts from 1782 to 1832 and relates these sketches to cultural changes of the period. The fifty years following the Revolution saw biography shift from historical narration to description of private experience. During this period magazine editors in the mid-Atlantic and New England states occasionally wrote sketches of heroes to provide readers with examples of virtue, but their major contribution was to publish original graphic portraits.
In all their forms during this period, narratives and portraits of Revolutionary heroes extolled classical virtues even though the rise of commerce and Americans' pursuit of individual wealth made these virtues anachronistic.

The secrets to creating stunning landscapes are at your fingertips with Digital Mayhem 3D Landscapes Techniques. Compiled by Duncan Evans, launch Editor of 3D Artist Magazine, Digital Mayhem features a variety of beautiful art from some of the finest digital artists working today. Inspiration and technique meet here as you learn how to create every type of landscape from harsh desert savannahs to icy tundra. Using a blend of showcase images, step-by-step and long-form tutorials, you will be guided through the featured artist's process so you can incorporate their techniques and workflow into your own projects. Not just another button-pushing manual or coffee table book, Digital Mayhem will help develop your critical eye for composition, choice of camera lens, lighting, rendering, and post production, allowing you to work more intuitively. With insight from some of the best digital artists in the world, Digital Mayhem will have you creating your own masterpiece in no time! Unique coverage on a variety of software allows you to hone your skills across different platforms. Illustrious and colorful artwork coupled with artist insight will both inspire and inform your creative decisions. Comprehensive companion website offers additional resources for you to further expand your skillset.

This book contributes to the history of religions and Buddhist studies fields by focussing on what is a far too frequently ignored aspect of religious experience: visual images.

The full beauty and depth of 500 years of Sikh culture is explored in this lavishly illustrated collection of essays on the religion's art and literature. The collection is accompanied by more than 100 black-and-white photos and 24 color plates depicting the finest Sikh art, some of it reproduced for the first time.
Sikh culture emerged with the dawn of the modern age in a land that was a thoroughfare of invading armies, ideas, religions, and arts from the East and West. The poetry of scriptures, the illustrated life stores of Guru Nanak, the paintings from various early artistic schools and regions, the dazzling treasures of the Sikh Kingdoms, the romantic artworks of visiting European dignitaries, and the serenity of Sikh sacred architecture all provide doorways to this heroic and revolutionary faith. Journal excerpts, new translations of early twentieth-century poetry, popular poster art, and a depiction of the 1984 storming of the Golden Temple, add depth and originality to this fully accessible volume. Often overlooked, the importance of art, poetry and literature is crucial to our understanding of Sikh religions. Together this collection of remarkable essays and exquisite art illustrates the impact and value of Sikh culture-with its blend of tolerance, egalitarianism and rational mysticism-in the Modern Age.

While much has been written about how photography serves architecture, this book looks at how fine-art photographers frame constructed space - from cities to single anonymous rooms. It analyses various techniques used and reveals resonances and rhythms found in the photographs as they occur at different scales, times and settings. Photographs become vehicles for thinking about the co-existence between individuals and social groups and their surroundings spaces and settings in the city and the landscape. By considering questions of technique and practice on the one hand, and the formal and aesthetic qualities of photographs on the other, the book opens up new ways of looking at and thinking about architecture and how we relate to our environment.

Sikh Art and Literature traverses the 500-year history of a religion that dawned with the modern age in a land that was a thoroughfare of invading armies, ideas and religions and arts of the East and West.
Essays by art curators, historians and collectors and religion and literary scholars are illustrated with some of the earliest and finest Sikh paintings. Sikh modernism and mysticism is explored in essays on the holy Guru Granth Sahib; the translations and writings of the British Raj convert, M.A. Macauliffe; the fathers of modern Punjabi literature, Bhai Vir Singh and Puran Singh; and the 20th century fiction writers Bhai Mohan Vaid Singh and Khushwant Singh. Excerpts from journals of visitors to the court of the diminutive and new translations of early twentieth century poetry add depth and originality to this beautiful and accessible introduction to the art, literature, beliefs and history of the Sikhs.
Illustrated throughout with 42 colour and 92 black and white images, Sikh Art and Literature is a colourful, heartfelt, and informative introduction to the Sikh culture.

Identifying a beautiful image in nature is easy, but capturing it is often challenging. To truly seize the essence of a photograph shot out of the studio and in the world requires an artistic eye and impeccable set of photographic techniques. John and Barbara Gerlach have been teaching photographers how to master the craft of photographing nature and the outdoors through their workshops and best-selling books for more than twenty years. Now, equipped with brand new images to share and skills to teach, this celebrated photo team is sharing their latest lessons in the second edition of Digital Nature Photography. Notable revisions in this new edition include introducing the concepts of focus stacking and HDR, as well as expanded discussions of multiple exposure, wireless flash, RGB histograms, live view, shutter priority with auto ISO, hand-held shooting techniques, and the author's equipment selections. The inspiring imagery in this book covers a broader range of subjects than before including ghost towns, the night sky, animals, and sports, in addition to the classic nature photographs we expect from this very talented author team. This book is a comprehensive guide to one of the broadest subjects in photography, explained and dymystified by two respected masters.

The Bird explores the fascinating world of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ornithological illustration. This was a period of scientific, artistic and geographic discovery, when people began to fully appreciate the immense variety of form and colour within the natural world. This book celebrates this beauty through the lavish illustrations produced at that time. Each chapter focuses on a category of birds, from shorebirds to birds of prey. Feature sections on key ornithological artists such as John James Audubon, Elizabeth Gould and Edward Lear demonstrated how technology, travel and ambition shaped these amazing images, and how their work transformed our understanding of the wonderful world of birds.

Beautifully painted and brilliantly decorated, rickshaws are indeed one of the defining features of Dhaka, turning the City of Mosques into a city of rickshaws.

Based on a fresh reading of primary sources, Lindy Grant's comprehensive biography of Abbot Suger (1081-1151) provides a reassessment of a key figure of the twelfth century. Active in secular and religious affairs alike - Suger was Regent of France and also abbot of one of the most important abbeys in Europe during the time of the Gregorian reforms. But he is primarily remembered as a great artistic patron whose commissions included buildings in the new Gothic style. Lindy Grant reviews him in all these roles - and offers a corrective to the current tendency to exaggerate his role as architect of both French royal power and the new gothic form.

The Neolithic period, when agriculture began and many monuments - including Stonehenge - were constructed, is an era fraught with paradoxes and ambiguities. Students of prehistory have long found the highly theoretical interpretations of the period perplexing and contradictory. Starting in the Mesolithic and carrying his analysis through to the late Bronze Age, Richard Bradley sheds light on this complex period and the changing consciousness of these prehistoric peoples. The book studies the importance of monuments tracing their history from their first creation to over 6000 years later. Part one discusses how monuments first developed and their role in developing a new sense of time and space among the inhabitants of prehistoric Europe. Other features of the prehistoric landscape - such as mounds and enclosures - across continental Europe are also examined. Part two studies how such monuments were modified and reinterpreted to suit the changing needs of society through a series of detailed case studies.

The Neolithic period, when agriculture began and many monuments - including Stonehenge - were constructed, is an era fraught with paradoxes and ambiguities. Students of prehistory have long found the highly theoretical interpretations of the period perplexing and contradictory. Starting in the Mesolithic and carrying his analysis through to the late Bronze Age, Richard Bradley sheds light on this complex period and the changing consciousness of these prehistoric peoples. The book studies the importance of monuments tracing their history from their first creation to over 60000 years later. Part one discusses how monuments first developed and their role in developing a new sense of time and space among the inhabitants of prehistoric Europe. Other features of the prehistoric landscape - such as mounds and enclosures - across continental Europe are also examined. Part two studies how such monuments were modified and reinterpreted to suit the changing needs of society through a series of detailed case studies.

Learn to paint beautiful watercolor flowers in simple steps with this free and easy approach to watercolor painting for beginners. Marie Boudon's beautifully presented creative course will give you a good grounding in this new-to-you medium and teach you all you need to know to get started with painting flowers in watercolor. Find out about paper, brushes and paints, color mixing, wet and dry techniques, blending and gradients, contrast and even how to digitize your work. Then learn to paint roses, peonies, carnations, dahlias, anemones, poppies, leaves, details and textures and how to bring all of these together into beautiful compositions which make lovely art pieces, journal pages, handmade stationery and greetings cards, inspirational quote frames, personalized gifts and more.

The articles in Naked Truths demonstrate the application of feminist theory to a diverse repertory of classical art: they offer topical and controversial readings on the material culture of the ancient Mediterranean. This volume presents a timely, provocative and beautifully illustrated re-evaluation of how the issues of gender, identity and sexuality reveal 'naked truths' about fundamental human values and social realities, through the compelling symbolism of the body.

The Explicit Body in Performance interrogates the avant-garde precedents and theoretical terrain that combined to produce feminist performance art. Among the many artists discussed are:
* Carolee Schneemann
* Annie Sprinkle
* Karen Finley
* Robbie McCauley
* Ana Mendieta
* Ann Magnuson
* Sandra Bernhard
* Spiderwoman
Rebecca Schneider tackles topics ranging across the 'post-porn modernist movement', New Right censorship, commodity fetishism, perspectival vision, and primitivism. Employing diverse critical theories from Benjamin to Lacan to postcolonial and queer theory, Schneider analyses artistic and pop cultural depictions of the explicit body in late commodity capitalism.
The Explicit Body in Performance is complemented by extensive photographic illustrations and artistic productions of postmodern feminist practitioners. The book is a fascinating exploration of how these artists have wrestled with the representational structures of desire.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203421078

The Explicit Body in Performance interrogates the avant-garde precedents and theoretical terrain that combined to produce feminist performance art. Among the many artists discussed are:
* Carolle Schneemann
* Annie Sprinkle
* Karen Finley
* Robbie McCauley
* Ana Mendieta
* Ann Magnuson
* Sandra Bernhard
* Spiderwoman
Rebecca Schneider tackles topics ranging across the 'post-porn modernist movement', New Right censorship, commodity fetishism, perspectival vision, and primitivism. Employing diverse critical theories from Benjamin to Lacan to postcolonial and queer theory, Schneider analyses artistic and pop cultural depictions of the explicit body in late commodity capitalism.
The Explicit Body in Performance is complemented by extensive photographic illustrations and artistic productions of postmodern feminist practitioners. The book is a fascinating exploration of how these artists have wrestled with the representational structures of desire.

Photographer Bill Lea?known for his artistic documentation of deer and bear behavior, the various moods of the Great Smoky Mountains, and southern ecosystems?has captured in stunning photographs the essence of Great Smoky Mountains wildlife. From rare red-cheeked salamanders, ruby-throated hummingbirds, and playful otters to graceful whitetails, regal elk, and inquisitive black bears, Great Smoky Mountains Wildlife Portfolio is more than a collection of beautiful wildlife photography; it is an inspired and sensitive tribute to one of the world's most spectacular landscapes and the wide variety of unique creatures that reside there.

The Little Big Book of Breasts features over 150 celebrated big breast models from the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, including Michelle Angelo, Virginia Bell, Roxanne Brewer, Joan Brinkman, Lorraine Burnett, Lisa DeLeeuw, Uschi Digard, Sylvia McFarland, Chesty Morgan, Roberta Pedon, Rosina Revelle, Janie Reynolds, Candy Samples, Tempest Storm, Mary Waters, June Wilkinson, and Julie Wills, plus Guinness Book of World Records bra-buster Norma Stitz in a compact and inexpensive format. Photos come not just from the original 398-page edition, but from subsequent Big Breast Calendars, meaning that 40% of the content is unique to this edition. Add reduced text to make more room for the stunning black-and-white and color photos and how could anyone-big, small, or in-between-ask for a better deal?

An Intimate Distance considers a wide range of visual images of women in the context of current debates which centre around the body, including reproductive science, questions of ageing and death and the concept of 'body horror' in relation to food, consumption and sex. A feminist reclamation of these images suggests how the permeable boundaries between the female body and technology, nature and culture are being crossed in the work of women artists.

An Intimate Distance considers a wide range of visual images of women in the context of current debates which centre around the body, including reproductive science, questions of ageing and death and the concept of 'body horror' in relation to food, consumption and sex. A feminist reclamation of these images suggests how the permeable boundaries between the female body and technology, nature and culture are being crossed in the work of women artists.

eBook available with sample pages: HB:041511084X

From its establishment in 1648 until its disbanding in 1793 after the French Revolution, the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture was the centre of the Parisian art world. Taking the reader behind the scenes of this elite bastion of French art theory, education, and practice, this engaging study uncovers the fascinating histories - official and unofficial - of that artistic community. Through an innovative approach to portraits - their values, functions, and lives as objects - this book explores two faces of the Academie. Official portraits grant us insider access to institutional hierarchies, ideologies, rituals, customs, and everyday experiences in the Academie's Louvre apartments. Unofficial portraits in turn reveal hidden histories of artists' personal relationships: family networks, intimate friendships, and bitter rivalries. Drawing on both art-historical and anthropological frames of analysis, this book offers insightful interpretations of portraits read through and against documentary evidence from the archives to create a rich story of people, places, and objects. Theoretically informed, rigorously researched, and historically grounded, this book sheds new light on the inner workings of the Academie. Its discoveries and compelling narrative make an invaluable and accessible contribution to our understanding of this pre-eminent European institution and the social lives of artists in early modern Paris.