The startling conclusion of The Late Paintings of Velazquez is that Diego Velazquez painted two of his most famous works, The Spinners and Las Meninas, as theoretically informed manifestos of painterly brushwork. As a pair, Giles Knox argues, the two paintings form a learned retort to the prevailing critical disdain for the painterly. Knox presents a Velazquez who was much more aware of the art theory of his era than previously acknowledged, leading him to reinterpret Las Meninas and The Spinners as representing together a polemically charged celebration of the "handedness" of painting. Knox removes Velazquez from his Iberian isolation and seeks to recover his highly self-conscious attempt to carve out a place for himself within the history of European painting as a whole. The Late Paintings of Velazquez presents an artist who, like Annibale Carracci, Poussin, Rembrandt, and Vermeer was not only aware of contemporary theoretical writings on art, but also able to translate that knowledge and understanding into a distinctive and personal theory of painting. In Las Meninas and The Spinners, Velazquez propounded this theory with paint, not words. Knox's rethinking of the dynamic relationship between text and image presents a case, not of writing influencing painting, or vice versa, but of the two realms being inextricably bound together. Painterly brushwork presented a challenge to writers on art not just because it was connected too intimately with the base actions of the hand; it was also devilishly hard to describe. By reading Velazquez's painterly performance as text, Knox deciphers how Velazquez was able to craft theoretical arguments more compelling and more vivid than any written counterparts.

Over the past three decades, guidance on the selection of art in hospitals has suggested realistic art that depicts soothing and comforting images such as tranquil waters, green vegetation, flowers, and open spaces. Based on these findings, curators have been cautioned to avoid art with uncertain meaning that risks upsetting viewers in stressful states. However, some hospitals exhibit ambiguous or abstract art and cite anecdotal evidence of its appropriateness for healthcare settings. More recent research is going beyond anecdotal evidence, and indicates that the ambiguity of meaning in abstract compositions can have positive effects. 'Purpose-built' Art in Hospitals is built on an international study of artwork in hospitals around the globe. Exploring 'purpose-built' (specially commissioned) artwork in hospitals through the dual lens of an artist and healthcare professional, Rollins identifies 15 specific 'purposes' of visual artwork in hospitals and presents a compelling case for their use that is grounded in research. The book builds the reader's understanding of the many functions of artwork in hospitals, with the goal of encouraging greater variety in art offerings to better serve the many diverse needs of patients, families, visitors and staff within the hospital environment.

In this first comprehensive full length study in English on the art of Jan Brueghel the Elder, Leopoldine Prosperetti illuminates how the work of this painter relates to a philosophical culture prevailing in the Antwerp of his time. She shows that no matter what scenery, figures or objects stock the pictorial field, Brueghel's diverse pictures have something in common: they all embed visual trajectories that allow for the viewer to craft out of the raw material of the picture a moment of spiritual repose. Rooted in the art of Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder these vistas are shown to meet the expectation of viewers to discover in their mazes a rhetorically conceived path to wisdom. The key issue is the ambition of pictorial images to bring into practice the humanist belief that philosophy and rhetoric are inseparable. This original study analyzes the patterns of thought and recurrent optical tropes that constitute a visual poetics for shifting genres - no longer devotional, yet sharing in the meditative goal of redirecting the soul toward an intuitive knowledge of what is good in life. This book reveals how everyday life is the preferred vehicle for delivering the results of philosophical pursuits. One chapter is dedicated to Brueghel's innovative attention to the experience of traveling in a variety of wheeled vehicles along the roads of his native Brabant. He is unique, and surprisingly modern, in giving contemporary viewers an accurate account of all the different types of conveyances that clutter the roads. It makes for lively versions of one of his favorite themes: The Traveled Road. By taking the pursuit of wisdom as its theme, the book succeeds in presenting a new model for the interpretation of a range of visual genres in the Antwerp picture trade.

This book presents an engaging and sophisticated look at the debates and ideas involved in the aesthetics of painting - part of a major new series from Continuum's philosophy list."Aesthetics and Painting" introduces and opens up current debates and ideas in the aesthetics of painting. At the book's centre is an investigation of the complex relationship between what a painting depicts and the means by which it is depicted. The book looks at: how and why pictorial representation can be distinguished from other forms of representation; the relationship between the painted surface and the depicted subject; the 'rules of representation' specific to painting; abstract art and non-representational painting; painting as an historically reflexive and self-critical practice; the most recent technological and aesthetic developments and their implications; and, the contemporary challenges to painting. A sophisticated treatment of major ideas in art and philosophy, "Aesthetics and Painting" remains highly readable throughout, offering a clear and coherent account of the nature of painting as an art form." The Continuum Aesthetics Series" looks at the aesthetic questions and issues raised by all major art forms. Stimulating, engaging and accessible, the series offers food for thought not only for students of aesthetics, but also for anyone with an interest in philosophy and the arts.

For nearly three centuries Leonardo da Vinci's work was known primarily through the abridged version of his Treatise on Painting, first published in Paris in 1651 and soon translated into all the major European languages. Here for the first time is a study that examines the historical reception of this vastly influential text. This collection charts the varied interpretations of Leonardo's ideas in French, Italian, Spanish, English, German, Dutch, Flemish, Greek, and Polish speaking environments where the Trattato was an important resource for the academic instruction of artists, one of the key sources drawn upon by art theorists, and widely read by a diverse network of artists, architects, biographers, natural philosophers, translators, astronomers, publishers, engineers, theologians, aristocrats, lawyers, politicians, entrepreneurs, and collectors. The cross-cultural approach employed here demonstrates that Leonardo's Treatise on Painting is an ideal case study through which to chart the institutionalization of art in Europe and beyond for 400 years. The volume includes original essays by scholars studying a wide variety of national and institutional settings. The coherence of the volume is established by the shared subject matter and interpretative aim: to understand how Leonardo's ideas were used. With its focus on the active reception of an important text overlooked in studies of the artist's solitary genius, the collection takes Leonardo studies to a new level of historical inquiry. Leonardo da Vinci's most significant contribution to Western art was his interpretation of painting as a science grounded in geometry and direct observation of nature. One of the most important questions to emerge from this study is, what enabled the same text to produce so many different styles of painting?

The popular Color Mixing Recipe Cards have served as a handy reference of essential colour combinations for almost 10 years. And now this collection of recipes is available in an updated, convenient format developed with artists' needs in mind. Re-packaged in a concealed wire-o-bound book that lies flat, the recipe cards will always stay in order with no risk of getting lost. The book also comes with a smart pocket that holds the detachable, washable Color Mixing Grid - a perfect guide for accurately measuring paints. With William F. Powell's recipes for mixing more than 450 colour combinations, along with instruction in a variety of painting techniques, "Color Mixing Recipes" is a valuable and practical resource for both oil and acrylic artists!

Watercolours are the first choice for many painters, but few master the full potential of the medium. This book encourages you to be bold and colourful. Written by an internationally respected artist and teacher, it offers practical ways of working with watercolours, and shares ideas and thoughts that can make your painting methods more exciting and adventurous. With over 180 illustrations, it is a beautiful book that will be invaluable for both new and experienced painters alike.

Hans Holbein's famous portrayal of Sir Thomas More is one of the artist's greatest and most popular portraits. In the opening piece of this appealing new volume, "A Letter to Thomas More, Knight", award-winning author Hilary Mantel vividly imagines the background to the creation of this extraordinary portrait, giving it both historical perspective and immediacy. An insightful, concise, scholarly essay by Xavier Salomon grounds it in the art-historical world. Hans Holbein (1497/98-1543) painted Sir Thomas More in 1527, having been a guest in More's house when he first arrived in England. He brilliantly renders his sitter's rich fabrics and unshaven face with sympathy and perception. Frick Diptychs, a new series of small books to be co-published by GILES with The Frick Collection, New York, pairs masterworks from the Frick with critical and literary essays. The novelist Hilary Mantel will be followed by the filmmaker James Ivory on Vermeer's "Mistress and Maid" and the artist and author Edmund de Waal on a pair of porcelain and bronze candlesticks by the 18th-century French metalworker Pierre Gouthiere.

Johannes Vermeer, one of the greatest Dutch painters and for some the single greatest painter of all, produced a remarkably small corpus of work. In Vermeer's Family Secrets, Benjamin Binstock revolutionizes how we think about Vermeer's work and life. Vermeer, The Sphinx of Delft, is famously a mystery in art: despite the common claim that little is known of his biography, there is actually an abundance of fascinating information about Vermeer's life that Binstock brings to bear on Vermeer's art for the first time; he also offers new interpretations of several key documents pertaining to Vermeer that have been misunderstood. Lavishly illustrated with more than 180 black and white images and more than sixty color plates, the book also includes a remarkable color two-page spread that presents the entirety of Vermeer's oeuvre arranged in chronological order in 1/20 scale, demonstrating his gradual formal and conceptual development. No book on Vermeer has ever done this kind ofvisual comparison of his complete output. Like Poe's purloined letter, Vermeer's secrets are sometimes out in the open where everyone can see them. Benjamin Binstock shows us where to look. Piecing together evidence, the tools of art history, and his own intuitive skills, he gives us for the first time a history of Vermeer's work in light of Vermeer's life.

On almost every page of Vermeer's Family Secrets, there is a perception or an adjustment that rethinks what we know about Vermeer, his oeuvre, Dutch painting, and Western Art. Perhaps the most arresting revelation of Vermeer's Family Secrets is the final one: In response to inconsistencies in technique, materials, and artistic level, Binstock posits thatseveral of the paintings accepted as canonical works by Vermeer, are in fact not by Vermeer at all but by his eldest daughter, Maria. How he argues this is one of the book's many pleasures.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir's (1841-1919) timelessly charming paintings still reflect our ideals of happiness, love, and beauty. Derived from our large-format volume, the most comprehensive retrospective of his work published to date, this compact edition examines the personal history and motivation behind the legend. Though he began by painting landscapes in the Impressionist style, Renoir found his true affinity in portraits, after which he abandoned the Impressionists altogether. Though often misunderstood, Renoir remains one of history's most well-loved painters-undoubtedly because his works exude such warmth, tenderness, and good spirit. In an incisive text tracing the artist's career and stylistic evolution, Gilles Neret shows how Renoir reinvented the painted female form, with his everyday goddesses and their plump contours, rounded hips and breasts. Renoir's later phase, marked by his return to the simple pleasure of the female nude in his Bathers series, was his most innovative and stylistically influential, and would inspire such masters as Matisse and Picasso. With a complete chronology, bibliography, photos, sketches, and brilliant reproductions, this is the essential work of reference on this enduring master artist. 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.

An important and critical re-evaluation of the Galerie Espagnole, this book presents new interpretations of the special collection of Spanish (or purportedly Spanish) paintings formed under Louis-Philippe and exhibited in the Louvre from 1838 through 1848. Alisa Luxenberg undertakes a new examination of the Parisian collection in relation to its lesser-known Spanish homologue, the Museo Nacional in Madrid, a collection of mostly old master Spanish paintings and sculptures that was formed at the very same time. Revealing the political agendas behind each museum, and the different manners in which their goals were pursued, Luxenberg analyzes the critical and visual reception of the collections as well as their intersection with contemporary debates about aesthetics and patrimony, the role of the art museum, and national and international politics.

Raphael's Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican Palace has often been considered the artist's most aesthetically perfect work. Executed between 1508 and 1511, it features a painted ceiling, a pavement of inlaid marble, and four frescoed walls, all orchestrated with a cast of famous historical figures who exemplify the various disciplines of learning. Joost-Gaugier's study is the first to examine the elements of the Stanza della Segnatura as an ensemble, exploring the meaning of the frescoes and accompanying decoration in light of recent studies into the intellectual world of High Renaissance Rome.

Back in print, the most authoritative overview on the beloved Bauhaus Renaissance man and pioneer of abstraction, the first artist to take a line for a walk The many books on Paul Klee (1879-1940) published over the years should not obscure the fact that there has been no new, comprehensive Klee overview since Will Grohmann's oft-reprinted 1954 monograph. With Paul Klee: Life and Work, the Zentrum Paul Klee has set out to fill this gap, drawing on a wealth of new resources including the Klee family's archives, much of which is published here for the first time. Life and work are truly integrated in this massive, 344-page volume: Klee's vast body of work is surveyed chronologically, as the book narrates his life alongside the abundant reproductions of drawings, paintings, watercolors, sculptures, puppets and numerous archival documents and photographs (nearly 500 reproductions in total). The book divides Klee's career into eight periods: "Childhood and Youth"; "Munich and the Encounter with the Avant Garde"; "World War I and the Breakthrough to Success"; "At the Bauhaus in Weimar"; "Master of Modern Art"; "The Move to Dusseldorf and the Nazi Rise to Power"; "First Years of Emigration in Bern"; and "Final Years." The result of many years of research and labor, this magisterial publication demonstrates conclusively why Klee numbers among the most influential and best-loved artists of the past 100 years.

A comprehensive, in-depth study of North American waterfowl. This study is covered in three lavishly illustrated volumes. Volume III covers our goose and swan species of North America, plus the nene goose of Hawaii, the barnacle goose of Europe, the beautiful little red-breasted goose and lesser white-fronted goose of Europe and Asia, and the mute swan, a native of Europe.

The magic of painting has been present throughout human history, serving as a faithful narrator and mirror of times past, reflecting society's dreams and concerns. With an infinite number of different techniques and styles, from the purest realism to symbolism, abstraction, and expressionism, painting has allowed artists to create works that will appeal to everyone. Each painting becomes a means of expression in and of itself, we live in a time in which we enjoy total creative freedom and are exposed to a large quantity of visual information. So much so that the multidisciplinary approach, the simplicity of lines, the blend of textures, and experimentation with styles and techniques are constant factors in the work of every artist.This magnificently illustrated book brings together the best works of artists from all over the world, showcasing an extraordinary breadth of talent and creativity.

An attractive new hardcover edition of the classic biography of Tamara de Lempicka, whose paintings defined Art Deco and whose life epitomised the Jazz Age. As F. Scott Fitzgerald portrayed the mad glories of the 1920s on the printed page, Tamara de Lempicka (1898-1980) captured them on canvas. A seductive Garbo-esque beauty with an irresistible force of personality, this refugee of the Russian Revolution successively conquered Paris, Hollywood, and New York with coruscating portraits of the world's rich and famous. Her Art Deco paintings earned for her a life more fabulously excessive than anything Fitzgerald dreamed of. Passion by Design, authored by Tamara de Lempicka's own daughter, is an intimate look at a fascinating personality, and remains the best account of her life and work. This new edition is illustrated with vibrant colour reproductions of her finest paintings, as well as exclusive photographs from family albums. An additional chapter by Victoria de Lempicka, the artist's granddaughter, explores the ever-evolving legacy of Tamara de Lempicka, from the record eight-figure price fetched by her painting La Tunique Rose in November 2019 to the new musical based on her life.

Sungsook Setton learned ink painting techniques from Chinese and Korean masters in her native South Korea; now she brings them to you in The Spirit of the Brush. Chinese ink painting is one of the oldest continually practiced art forms in the world. First appearing in China in the fifth century, it soon traveled to Korea, and then to Japan. As old and deeply rooted in East Asian aesthetics and meditation as it is, ink painting is credited with influencing the development of modern Western art. Its minimalist approach to painting continues to have enormous appeal. Author, artist, and teacher, Sungsook Setton is now bringing her years of experience to you with The Spirit of the Brush. You will learn traditional disciplines for holding and using the brush, as well as how to turn these techniques into inner meditation which will help your own world; city views, music, and the essence of contemporary life.

Nobody ever said that oil painting was easy. But it gets much easier and a lot more fun when you follow a step-by-step approach that starts you off on the right foot, helps you build your skills one at a time, and gives you plenty of exercises to develop your craft. That's what you'll find in "Oil Painting For Dummies."

Completely free of arty jargon, this full-color guide has all the hands-on instruction you need to master the basics. You'll see how to plan a painting, build an image in layers, mix colors, and create stunning compositions. You'll also find everything you need to know about oil paints, solvents, and pigments; brushes, palettes, and painting surfaces; and how to keep costs down at the art supply store. Discover how to: Choose the right suppliesSet up your studio and care for your equipmentHandle your materials safelyDevelop your design and composition skillsMake practice sketches and studiesUse broken stroke, dry brush, glazing, scraffito and other brush strokesTry out different compositionsMix any color you wantSimplify tricky still-life subjectsPaint landscapes and common objects out doorsPaint portraits and the human form

Complete with handy color chart, basic materials list, and a very useful viewing square, "Oil Painting For Dummies" is the fun and easy way to discover your inner artist

Leng Bingchuan: Master of Chinese Black and White Painting is the most comprehensive collection of ink paintings he has created so far, containing his 256 works from 1980 to 2000. Through these works, we can see the author's self-conscious pursuit of the theme, his straightforward, pure, strong and distinct characteristics, reflecting the spirit and charm of oriental art. With its unique cover design, Leng Bingchuan: Master of Chinese printmaking and Engraving also implies the design concept of minimalism.

Based on a close study of Van Dyck's Self-portrait with a Sunflower, this book examines the picture's context in the symbolic discourses of the period and in the artist's oeuvre. The portrait is interpreted as a programmatic statement, made in the ambience of the Caroline court after Van Dyck's appointment as 'Principal Painter', of his view of the art of painting. This statement, formulated in appropriately visual terms, characterizes painting as a way of looking and seeing, a mode of vision. In making such a claim, the artist steps aside from the familiar debate about whether painting was a manual or an intellectual discipline, and moves beyond any idea of it as simply a means of representing the external world: the painter's definitive faculty of vision can reach further than those realities which present themselves to the eye. John Peacock analyses the motif of looking - the ways in which figures regard or disregard each other - throughout Van Dyck's work, and the images of the sunflower and the gold chain in this particular portrait, to reveal what is essentially an idealist conception of pictorial art. He contradicts previous opinions that the artist was pedestrian in his thinking, by showing him to be familiar with a range of ideas current in contemporary Europe about painting and the role of the painter.

Sold in packs of 6. Gorgeous, foiled, handmade greeting cards, blank inside and shrink-wrapped with a gold envelope. Themed with our art calendars, foiled notebooks and illustrated art books. Our greeting cards are printed on FSC paper and wrapped in biodegradeable cellobag, and are themed with our art calendars, foiled notebooks and illustrated art books. This example features Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers.

This new publication explores the whole career of Winifred Nicholson with a special emphasis on her theories of colour. Using specific paintings to examine her ideas and writings about colour the book includes her late 'prismatic' pictures which have never been properly explained. Throughout her life Winifred Nicholson was interested in prisms and rainbows, but when she was given some prisms by a physicist friend in the mid 1970s her painting took on a new direction. Looking through a prism she saw objects with a rim of prismatic colour, and explored and developed these ideas, often painting pictures that verged on the abstract. Nicholson's 'prismatic' pictures were a culmination of her life's search to find "form's secret and rhythmic law". She painted them in Greece in 1979, at her home in Cumbria, and during her last painting trip to the Island of Eigg in the Hebrides in 1980, where she had an inspired period of painting and made some of her best loved pictures. Published on the occasion of the exhibition 'Liberation of Colour' at mima, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern art, the book illustrates many previously unseen paintings from private collections, as well as some of Nicholson's best known works, and draws on new research, including previously unseen archival material.

Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680) was Charles II's Principal Painter and the outstanding artistic figure of Restoration England. When Lely arrived in England in the early 1640s his ambition was to be a painter of narrative scenes and not to work as a portraitist. However, the 'subject pictures' did not find favor with many English patrons and he produced less than thirty. As Lely's friend Richard Lovelace explained, all they wanted was "their own dull counterfeits" or portraits of their mistresses. Thus, Lely was obliged to turn to portraiture to make a living. Yet, his poetic pictures of figures in idyllic landscapes are among the most beautiful paintings made in 17th-century England and this catalog will be the first in-depth look at this important chapter of this major painter's career. Lely was born in Westphalia and received his artistic training in Haarlem with Frans Pietersz. De Grebber. He came to England around 1643. Few painters had stayed in London following the move of the Royal Court to Oxford, and Lely was therefore free to establish his reputation in the city. By 1650 he had settled at a house on Covent Garden Plaza (a five-minute walk from Somerset House) where he remained for the rest of his life. His major patrons were the 'Puritan Earls', a group of cultivated noblemen including the Duke of Northumberland and the Earls of Pembroke and Salisbury, as well as the circle surrounding the Countess of Dysart at Ham House. Lely never met Van Dyck (who had died in London in 1641), but he had the opportunity to study his paintings and those of the great Venetian 16th-century artists Giorgione and Titian in the houses of these wealthy aristocratic patrons. He began to buy these works himself and by the end of his life had amassed one of Europe's richest collections of 16th- and 17th-century Italian paintings and drawings. It was probably in response to the pictures of Van Dyck and the Venetian Renaissance that he made his most ambitious works, including The Concert (The Courtauld Gallery) and Nymphs by a Fountain (Dulwich Picture Gallery, London). This group of enigmatic paintings are massive in scale and united by strong lighting, idealized landscape settings and a sense of theatricality and sensuality. Unlike many painters, Lely did not rely on classical mythology, but was able to create his own, highly personal dramas. For instance, it is likely that the man playing the viola da gamba in the center of The Concert is the painter himself. The exhibition Peter Lely: A Lyrical Vision at The Courtauld Gallery, London, is on view from 11 October 2012 to 13 January 2013.

This book is an excellent tool for learning to sketch on location. Through the "no drawing first" technique, readers will learn to use only watercolour and a brush to draw in notebooks, make quick urban sketches, keep visual journals and create compelling outdoor urban work. Designed like a workshop on the go, with more than fifty progressive exercises, this book invites you to experiment with watercolour by translating space and movement through shapes and color into masses and values rather than contours and strict rules of perspective. The author, a theatrical scenic painter, urban sketcher and urban sketching teacher, shows you how to represent the world around us. She encourages the reader to observe the place, to understand it, to learn how to choose the subject when capturing the place's soul, preserving the sense of the fleetingness of the instant described. The themes include vegetation, buildings, forms of people in movement and stop-motion.

In the 2022 Dung Beetle Calendar, Elia has brought together 'The Best Of' the 'Dung Beetle New Words Reading Scheme'. Twelve of her favourite and most popular pages from Dung Beetle Books (2014-2020) have been handpicked and are showcased through the months of the year 2022, with handy spaces to record your plans. Time passes all the time. We at Dung Beetle Books want to help you to keep track of it, and so have devised this entirely original 'calendar book', which details all of the days and months in the year 2022 - each accompanied by a specially selected image from our ancient archives - so that you may count them as they pass, and insert notes of any apparently vital plans of your own. We at Dung Beetle Books believe that life is only manageable with reference to a divinely or scientifically ordained central authority, and so require that you forward any such plans to your relevant representative of tyrannical rule, before committing them to the pages of this calendar. We also wish you all the best in your constant, pointless struggle with the inevitable chaos of everything, and hope this product proves a useful tool in pretending that it isn't. Ezra Elia (Head of Mental Manure Development) & Miriam Elia (Director of Defecation) Features 'the best of' works from the Dung Beetle Reading Scheme 1a We go to the gallery, 1b We learn at home, 1c We go out, 1d We do Christmas & 2a We do Lockdown. All images by Miriam Elia, writing Miriam Elia & Ezra Elia. Graphic Design by Becky Philp.