The Impressionists are world renowned for their vibrant depictions of the atmospheric effects and shimmering beauty of the French countryside. These paintings, often produced in Paris, found an enthusiastic market in the city. The inhabitants of that hub of modernity had an apparently paradoxical interest in the mythologies of rural living. As the city became more and more the motive force of social change so the country was understood as the anchor of changelessness and nostalgia. The essayists in this volume examine the complex relationship between country and city. Their work draws widely on the contemporary culture exploring folklore and children's literature, anarchism and urbanism, and offers significant new insights into the work of major artists and writers including Courbet, Millet, Monet, Van Gogh and Zola.

In City Views in the Habsburg and Medici Courts, Ryan E. Gregg relates how Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and Duke Cosimo I of Tuscany employed city view artists such as Anton van den Wyngaerde and Giovanni Stradano to aid in constructing authority. These artists produced a specific style of city view that shared affinity with Renaissance historiographic practice in its use of optical evidence and rhetorical techniques. History has tended to see city views as accurate recordings of built environments. Bringing together ancient and Renaissance texts, archival material, and fieldwork in the depicted locations, Gregg demonstrates that a close-knit school of city view artists instead manipulated settings to help persuade audiences of the truthfulness of their patrons' official narratives.

Award-winning urban sketcher and best-selling author Stephanie Bower presents a spectacular, all-new collection of sketchers and their art from 39 countries in a city-to-city tour around the world. The remarkable work of the vibrant, international urban sketching community was first documented in The Art of Urban Sketching by Gabriel Campanario. In the ten years since its release, sketching on location has grown into nothing less than a worldwide phenomenon. A visual feast of more than 700 images from over 150 sketchers, The World of Urban Sketching unveils the latest developments and innovations in the creative and rewarding pursuit of on-location drawing and painting. New Artwork. Discover the stunning and informative work of both established and emerging urban sketchers, from Seattle to Santiago, from Singapore to Sydney. New Techniques. Consider new styles and approaches in color and linework, including digital, through artists' tips and step-by-step demonstrations. New Stories. Learn what inspires sketchers, even during a pandemic, and get invaluable insights into creating artwork on location through artists' observations and advice. Whether you draw during your travels or in your own backyard, the beautiful work in The World of Urban Sketching will expand your skills and inspire you to pick up a pencil and sketch your world!

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.

An important resource for scholars of contemporary art and architecture, this volume considers contemporary art that takes architecture as its subject. Concentrated on works made since 1990, Contemporary Art About Architecture: A Strange Utility is the first to take up this topic in a sustained and explicit manner and the first to advance the idea that contemporary art functions as a form of architectural history, theory, and analysis. Over the course of fourteen essays by both emerging and established scholars, this volume examines a diverse group of artists in conjunction with the vernacular, canonical, and fantastical structures engaged by their work. Inigo Manglano-Ovalle, Matthew Barney, Monika Sosnowska, Pipo Nguyen-duy, and Paul Pfeiffer are among those considered, as are the compelling questions of architecture's relationship to photography, the evolving legacy of Mies van der Rohe, the notion of an architectural unconscious, and the provocative concepts of the unbuilt and the unbuildable. Through a rigorous investigation of these issues, Contemporary Art About Architecture calls attention to the fact that art is now a vital form of architectural discourse. Indeed, this phenomenon is both pervasive and, in its individual incarnations, compelling - a reason to think again about the entangled histories of architecture and art.

"Re""-""Imagining the City: Art, Globalization, and Urban Spaces "examines how contemporary processes of globalization are transforming cultural experience and production in urban spaces. It maps how cultural productions in art, architecture, and communications media are contributing to the reimagining of place and identity through events, artifacts, and attitudes. This book recasts how we understand cities--how knowledge can be formed, framed, and transferred through cultural production and how that knowledge is mediated through the construction of aesthetic meaning and value.

Villa Albani Torlonia, with its collections, the Italian garden, and the hemicycle of the Kaffeehaus, is a sublime testimony of that particular antiquarian taste which came to the fore in the mid-eighteenth century, that for which Rome became a favourite destination on the Grand Tour. The classicist dream of Cardinal Alessandro Albani (1692 1779), was preserved thanks to the Torlonia family, who purchased the villa in 1866, enlarging the collection and the gardens and restoring the most important cardinal residence of the eighteenth century. More than 300 images by the great Italian master Massimo Listri recount the history of this extraordinary cultural heritage for the very first time. An immersive journey leads the reader between its collections of ancient masterpieces. Statues, bas-reliefs, and fountains are ensconced between the various buildings and gardens of the villa in a composition of environments, landscapes, and works of art forever waiting to be discovered.

"Unmapping the City, " the first title in the new Intellect series Critical Photography, features photographs shot between 2004 and 2008 in different cities around the world. The images are linked by their shared attempts to define a two-dimensional approach to a three-dimensional built reality, and to address spatial representation, ritual, and urbanity through art. In representing the cityscape through a flat texture of lines and bold colors, the reader is drawn into a conversation about the interplay between reality and its representation. This volume significantly challenges and expands the critical discourse on photography and text and will be of interest to artists, curators, photographers, architects, and critical theorists.

Los Angeles is both background and subject in the respective oeuvres of Israel and Ellis. For Israel, the American dream, as embodied by the L.A. mythos, remains affecting and potent, and he approaches his hometown with an uncanny coupling of local familiarity and anthropological curiosity. While Ellis, who became famous for his portrait of an amoral, decadent L.A. of the 1980s in his debut novel Less Than Zero, has continued to elaborate upon his jaundiced vision of a superficial youth society over the past two decades. Now these two artists have come together to create a lively discourse on their city. At Israel s provocation, Ellis has written short texts that Israel then converted into various fonts and combined with commercial stock images. These striking images are displayed in full colour, along with double-page installation photos of the 2016 exhibition and insightful essays and interviews.

The Brooklyn Bridge is a pre-eminent global icon. It is the world's most famous and beloved bridge, a "must-see" tourist hotspot, and a vital fact of New York life. For almost a hundred and forty years it has inspired artists of all descriptions, fueling a constant stream of paintings, photographs, lithographs, etchings, advertising copy, movies, and book, magazine, and LP covers. In consequence, the bridge may have the richest visual history of any man-made object, so much so, in fact, that almost no major American artist has failed to pay homage to the span in some form or other. Oddly, however, there are no books currently available that chart and discuss the bridge's visual history or its role in the development of American (or Western) art. This monograph aims to correct that, providing a full visual record of the bridge from the origins of its conception to the present day. It is a celebration of the bridge's glorious visual heritage timed to appear when the city will celebrate the span's 125 th birthday.

.,."Richard Haw's beautiful book is about one of the world's great bridges, but also all about the city that makes it great." "-- Russell Shorto, author of The Island at the Center of the World"

Cities provide endless exciting scenes for the artist, from sun-baked cafes, rain-soaked streets, illuminated nightscapes and busy squares to quiet, atmospheric corners. This practical book explains how to paint these scenes using water-based painting materials and new techniques. With invaluable tips and advice throughout, it encourages a looser, more colourful approach to painting and shares a range of ideas for style and interpretation.

Representation of Artificial Intelligence in the Arts, Vol. 1: Androids, Golems, and Prometheus addresses the way in which artificial intelligence, mechanical anthropoids, Golems, and similar types of robots are represented in contemporary culture. These can be seen both in literature and in the cinema. This book does not seek to define or contain what artificial intelligence is. Rather, it argues our own limitations limit the possibilities and potentials of artificial intelligence. Representation of Artificial Intelligence in the Arts, Vol. 1 makes it clear these imaginaries have more to do with what we are as a society and individuals than with the parameters that these creations actually have.

Urban sketching has become one of the biggest art trends of the last decade, with artists preferring to capture a scene on location rather than relying on a photograph. Featuring 20 step-by-step exercises, Sketch Club: Urban Drawing is your essential guide to putting your drawing skills into practice on location. You'll learn how to start, when to stop and how to fix common mistakes. Packed with all the energy and inspiration of a drawing group, this is the ideal book for anyone looking to take their urban drawing further. Perfect your urban drawing skills and develop your own unique style with professional urban sketcher, Phil Dean. Chapters include: - Loosening Up - Building a Scene - Adding Contrast - Taking it Further - Finishing Touches

Like Claude Monet s celebrated plein air landscapes at Giverny, the series collected in this book represents among the best-loved examples of Joaquin Sorolla s (1863-1923) work, and a window into the Spanish painter s quest to capture the essence of a garden. Described by Monet as the master of light, Sorolla and his landscapes, formal portraits, and historically themed canvases drew comparisons to contemporary American painter John Singer Sargent. Sorolla had achieved renown on both sides of the Atlantic for grand scenes of Spanish life when he began a personal series of garden works, presented completely for the first time in this publication. Painted at the palaces of La Granja and the Alcazar in Seville, the Alhambra and Generalife in Granada, and at the painter s home in Madrid, these Impressionist works allowed Sorolla to apply his signature loose brushwork and training as a photographer s lighting assistant to gardens and the sculptures, architecture, and sitters that frame and animate them. Sorolla depicted reflections in fountains and pools, the sunlight dappling his glamorous sitters, sprays of orange blossoms, and shaded blue-and-white tile as he endeavoured to render the radiant peace of a summer afternoon.

A window provides access to two of life's essentials, light and air, but it is more than just a means to an end. Windows also have symbolic, expressive and architectural qualities that have for centuries inspired some of the world's greatest artists. In this engaging new study, Christopher Masters celebrates the multiple roles of the window in art through five key themes, from the window as a status symbol to its use as a provider of physical and spiritual illumination; from its employment as a literal window on the world outside the confines of a room to its function as a mirror, reflecting the emotions of the artist or the individuals depicted; and finally to the immense architectural variety of windows that animate interior and exterior scenes throughout Western painting. With superb reproductions of 90 works by major artists from Giotto to Banksy, and spirited analysis of the paintings' meanings, this is a remarkable exploration of an important but hitherto neglected subject in art history.

A wide-ranging study of the significance of swords throughout the whole Anglo-Saxon period, offering valuable insights into the meaning of and attitude towards swords. Swords were special in Anglo-Saxon England. Their names, deeds and pedigrees were enshrined in writing. Many were curated for generations, revealed by their worn and mended condition. Few ended their lives as casual discards, placed instead in graves, hoards and watercourses as part of ritualised acts. Contemporary sources leave no doubt that complex social meanings surrounded these weapons, transcending their use on the battlefield; but they have yet to transcend the traditional view that their primary social function was as status symbols. Even now, half a century after the first major study of Anglo-Saxon swords, their wider significance within their world has yet to be fully articulated. This book sets out to meet the challenge. Eschewing modern value judgements, it focuses instead on contemporary perceptions - exploring how those who made, used and experienced swords really felt about them. It takes a multidisciplinary and holistic approach, bringing together insights from art, archaeology and literature. Comparison with Scandinavia adds further nuance, revealing what was (and was not) distinctive of Anglo-Saxon views of these weapons. Far from elite baubles, swords are revealed to have been dynamic "living" artefacts with their own identities, histories and places in social networks - ideas fuelled by their adaptability, durability and unique rolein bloodshed. Sue Brunning is Curator of European Early Medieval Collections at The British Museum.

The unknown and mysterious Great Southland, or Terra Australis, captured the European imagination for centuries before it became a documented fact. This book traces the history of pictorial imagery associated with the 'Fifth Continent'. It discusses and presents imagery from all parts of the southern continent: Java, Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, the South Pacific Islands and Tierra del Fuego as it evolved up to the Enlightenment. Many European explorers had a passionate interest in depicting the plants, animals and native inhabitants of the southern world. The images associated with the search for the southern continent - paintings, handcolored maps, drawings, tapestries and artefacts - are discussed in the context of the link between art and exploration. Beautifully illustrated with Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch and English images, this book is an exciting visual account of the construction of Terra Australis in the European imagination and as scientific fact.

Trench art is the evocative name given to a dazzling array of objects made from the waste of industrialized war. Each object, whether an engraved shell case, cigarette lighter or a pen made from shrapnel, tells a unique and moving story about its maker. For the first time, this book explores in-depth the history and cultural importance behind these ambiguous art forms. Not only do they symbolize human responses to the atrocities of war, but they also act as mediators between soldiers and civilians, individuals and industrial society, and, most importantly, between the living and the dead. Trench art resonates most obviously with the terror of endless bombardment, night raids, gas attacks and the bestial nature of trench life. It grew in popularity between 1919 and 1939 when the bereaved embarked on battlefield pilgrimages and returned with objects intended to keep alive the memory of loved ones. The term trench art is, however, misleading, as it does not simply refer to materials found in the trenches. It describes a diverse range of objects that have in some way emerged from the experience of war all over the world. Many distinctive objects, for example, were made during conflicts in Bosnia, Vietnam, Northern Ireland and Korea.Surprisingly, trench art predates World War I and it can be made in a number of earlier wars such as the Crimean War, the American Civil War, and the Boer War. Saunders looks at the broader issues of what is meant by trench art, what it was before the trenches and how it fits in with other art movements, as well as the specific materials used in making it. He suggests that it can be seen as a bridge between the nineteenth century certainties and the fragmentedindustrialized values and ideals of the modern world. This long overdue study offers an original and informative look at one of the most arresting forms of art. Spanning from 1800 to the present day, its analysis of art, human experience, and warfare will pave the way for new research and will be of great interest to cultural and military historians, anthropologists, art historians and collectors.

Trench art is the evocative name given to a dazzling array of objects made from the waste of industrialized war. Each object, whether an engraved shell case, cigarette lighter or a pen made from shrapnel, tells a unique and moving story about its maker. For the first time, this book explores in-depth the history and cultural importance behind these ambiguous art forms. Not only do they symbolize human responses to the atrocities of war, but they also act as mediators between soldiers and civilians, individuals and industrial society, and, most importantly, between the living and the dead. Trench art resonates most obviously with the terror of endless bombardment, night raids, gas attacks and the bestial nature of trench life. It grew in popularity between 1919 and 1939 when the bereaved embarked on battlefield pilgrimages and returned with objects intended to keep alive the memory of loved ones. The term trench art is, however, misleading, as it does not simply refer to materials found in the trenches. It describes a diverse range of objects that have in some way emerged from the experience of war all over the world. Many distinctive objects, for example, were made during conflicts in Bosnia, Vietnam, Northern Ireland and Korea.Surprisingly, trench art predates World War I and it can be made in a number of earlier wars such as the Crimean War, the American Civil War, and the Boer War. Saunders looks at the broader issues of what is meant by trench art, what it was before the trenches and how it fits in with other art movements, as well as the specific materials used in making it. He suggests that it can be seen as a bridge between the nineteenth century certainties and the fragmentedindustrialized values and ideals of the modern world. This long overdue study offers an original and informative look at one of the most arresting forms of art. Spanning from 1800 to the present day, its analysis of art, human experience, and warfare will pave the way for new research and will be of great interest to cultural and military historians, anthropologists, art historians and collectors.

On Reflection: Moments, Flight and Nothing New attempts to grapple with the complexities of our present moment. Personal and imagined stories appear as fragments of everyday scenes forming a narrative of self-discovery. Vignettes accompanied by photography explore life's contradictions, trauma, and the ways in which we navigate the fluidity of cities. The poems move back and forth in time and across Europe, highlighting a range of experiences and perspectives of our modern society as a series of snapshots. In each, we catch a glimpse of ourselves, demonstrating how such moments and characters influence our journeys. Written from the consciousness of a British Ghanaian, the collection is a love letter to the lived and shared experience of those struggling and learning about the various intersections of their identity. Through the voice of Akos and other characters, Wiredu reaches to understand the significance of history, its effect on an evolving African diaspora in Europe, and finds hope in the present as she proposes an optimistic dialogue about the future.

In his famous interpretation of Vincent Van Gogh's painting A Pair of Peasant's Shoes (1886), Heidegger argues that shoes tell us all we need to know about the world of the person who walks in them. In the case of Van Gogh's painting, we learn this not through a description of the pair of shoes, nor by a report on how to make shoes, but by looking at the shoes. Heidegger thus gestures towards the power of the visual arts to show us human truths through images of footwear and the feet they conceal or reveal, a power that finds its fullest expression in the cinema. From Chaplin's meal of boots (The Gold Rush, 1925), through Powell and Pressburger's Red Shoes (1948) and Dorothy's ruby slippers (The Wizard of Oz, 1939), to Julia Roberts' pvc thigh-highs (Pretty Woman, 1990), Marty McFly's power-lacing Nikes (Back to the Future, 1985) and the slim, spike-heeled stiletto that graces the poster for The Devil Wears Prada (2006), shoes are not only some of the cinema's most enduring icons; they also serve as characterisations, plot devices, soundtracks, metaphors and philosophical touchpoints. This book anaylses their significnace through a range of approaches drawn from the fields of Film Studies, Philosophy, Cultural History, Fashion, Cultural Studies and Politics.

For the past thirty years, Japanese photographer Naoya Hatakeyama has undertaken a photographic examination of the life of cities and the built environment. Each of his series focuses on a different facet of the growth and transformation of the urban landscape-from studies of architectural maquettes to the extraction and use of natural materials such as limestone, as it is quarried via explosive blasts and subsequently incorporated into the construction of new buildings. In particular, Hatakeyama has routinely returned to the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolis, exploring this ever-evolving urban sprawl from both below and above, mapping the growth and expansion of these sites over time. Additional series focus on other forms of human intervention with the landscape and natural materials, including factories and building sites in Japan and abroad. Finally, his most recent photographs of his hometown of Rikuzentakata, a fishing town that was almost completely destroyed by the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, are also included-an ongoing series begun almost immediately following the disaster. These photographs hauntingly embody the death and rebirth of the city, manifesting a deeply personal connection to the ongoing intersection of geology, architecture, and time.

This book is based on the artwork of Sue Jane Taylor. She is no stranger to extreme working environments, having worked for over thirty years recording the lives of workers in the North Sea oil industry on sites such as Piper Alpha, Piper B, Forties platforms and recently Murchison in the Northern Seas. Her work now extends to the offshore renewable energy industry. The book brings a unique perspective to the relationship between art, environment and industry while revealing a relatively alien way of life on board a North Sea oil platform. Among other themes it will consider the future of energy in Scotland. The book has an introductory essay by Elsa Cox, Senior Curator of Technology at National Museums Scotland, illustrated by relevant objects from the collections in the National Museum. This is followed by Sue Jane Taylor's artwork, with extended captions.

Kris Fierens (born 1957) uses the character of a preliminary study or a sketch as an enduring thing. Or, in their possibility they imitate the character of a preliminary study. Reality and emotion reach a virtual zero point. The gestures that he makes simply become the 'objets trouves'. The object 'on his own' is never present. It's the included matter that enables him to save his dream. Traces of something that still needs to happen. Of which a disappearing memory can already behold. Text in English and Dutch.