Defining Decadence The legacy of Gustav Klimt A century after his death, Viennese artist Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) still startles with his unabashed eroticism, dazzling surfaces, and artistic experimentation. This monograph gathers all of Klimt's major works alongside authoritative art historical commentary and privileged access to the artist's archive with some 179 letters, cards, writings, and other documents. With top quality illustration, including new photography of the celebrated Stoclet Frieze, the book follows Klimt through his prominent role in the Secessionist movement of 1897, his candid rendering of the female body, and his lustrous "golden phase" when gold leaf brought a shimmering tone and texture to such beloved works as The Kiss and Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, also known as The Woman in Gold. Through luminous spreads and carefully curated details, the monograph traces the repertoire of Japanese, Byzantine, and allegorical stimuli that informed Klimt's flattened perspectives, his symbolic vocabulary, and his mosaic-like textures. Drawing upon contemporary critics and voices, the book also examines the art world's polarized reception to Klimt's pictures as much as his own stylistic trajectory. From his landscape painting to erotic works to the controversial ceiling for the Great Hall of the University of Vienna, we see how Klimt's admixture of tradition and daring divided the press and public, becried by some as a pornographer, hailed by others as a modern maestro.

This is an accessibly written, illustrated biography of Venetian painter Rosalba Carriera (1673-1757), one of the most famous women artists in 18th-century Europe. It presents an overview of her life and work, considering Carriera's miniatures alongside her better-known, larger-scale works. Focusing on interpretation of her paintings in the historical context of her life as a single woman in Venice, the book offers an easy guide through Carrieras life, the people she met, her clients and her artistic approach. The author's new iconographic analysis of some of Carriera's works reveals that she was an erudite painter, drawing on antiquity as well as the work of Renaissance virtuosos such as Leonardo da Vinci and Paolo Veronese.

Patron Saints: Collecting Stanley Spencer is a revealing new exhibition at the renowned Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham - Spencer's spiritual home and major source of inspiration. The exhibition draws together a spectacular collection of loans, including The Centurion's Servant (Tate); Love on the Moor (Fitzwilliam); John Donne Arriving in Heaven, (Fitzwilliam) and one work not seen in the public domain in over 50 years. The exhibition and catalogue examine the often complex relationships between Spencer and his patrons and what drove them to collect his work. Spencer was a single-minded genius, but the influence of his patrons on his painting is far greater than has hitherto been realised. At the turn of the century, collecting art was no longer the preserve of the aristocracy and the upper classes, but Spencer's art appealed to a broad spectrum of art lovers, fellow artists, businessmen and politicians. Many of his patrons lived in Cookham, where he lived and found artistic inspiration, and many of his paintings were influenced by his spiritual feelings for that place. His idiosyncratic and deeply personal approach gave him a wide and enduring appeal, and he was patronised by some of the most important cultural figures and taste-makers of that time. Curator Amanda Bradley comments, "Behind Stanley Spencer, one of the greatest Modern British artists, were a group of individuals who enabled his very existence - both artistically and emotionally. They were not wildly rich, but they were powerful, cultivated, intellectual and artistic. Some bought on spec, others were true patrons, giving him the freedom to fulfil his artistic genius. Most fostered long-lived relationships with the artist, influencing his life and work more than has hitherto been realised. These were the patron saints." Patron Saints: Collecting Stanley Spencer explores the emergence of Spencer as an artistic personality, looking at those who helped him and why he - and his popularity - was a product of the zeitgeist (first half of the twentieth century) characterised by social and economic anxiety.

This is a concise and engaging, yet detailed and informative monograph that explores Gauguin's most Important works. Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) was one of the most important artists of the late 19th century, and one whose work was to have a profound influence on the development of art in the 20th century. He began as an Impressionist, but went on to develop a richly-coloured style in his constant search for pristine originality and unadulterated nature. This concise monograph collects the most important works by Gauguin, not only of his best known paintings of Tahiti in which the artist attempted to reconstruct the perfect life which he had failed to find in reality, but also of many powerful works that reflect the artist's contact with other seminal early modern masters like Van Gogh or Cezanne.