Inspired by the recent identification of a third autograph version of Gainsborough's masterpiece The Cottage Door, this book examines the significance of the multiple versions of designs that the artist produced during the 1780s. It demonstrates that without the pressure of exhibiting his work annually at the Academy and without a string of sitters waiting for their finished portraits, Gainsborough's work became more personal, more thoughtful. This study of the last phase of the artist's work is a totally fresh interpretation of not only The Cottage Door but other key works such as Mrs Sheridan and Diana and Acteon. Gainsborough's creative energies changed around 1780. He became restless and wanted to promote his landscape painting more effectively. He started to paint coastal scenes using an innovative painting technique to depict the water and he embarked on a series of`fancy' pictures that he would position him as a descendant of an Old Master tradition. He was never happy with the constraints of the Royal Academy and he was at odds with the dictatorial opinions promoted by its president, Sir Joshua Reynolds. Removing himself from the Academy enabled him finally to do what he wanted. He began to turn to portrait compositions that he had developed and refined over a number of years. With subtle alterations they could be made suitable for a variety of sitters. The subtlety of his skilled observation was less easy to accommodate in standard-sized full-length canvases and in these portraits he sometimes resorted to rhetoric gesture that fought against the closely observed likenesses in his best portraits. The margin between`fancy' pictures and portraits became blurred and the categorization of some of these paintings changed while they were on the easel. Always finding composition difficult, rather than begin something new he often revisited earlier designs that had pleased him. He would paint them again and make slight changes of tone and emphasis that would radically change the concept and intention of the design. The subject matter in some of his late paintings veers towards the autobiographical and shows a certain rift between him and his family.

A countrywoman's illustrated ramble through the seasons on the South Downs. Written over a period of twenty years, as she witnessed the stunning natural world around her, Antonia Dundas' diary records the progress of twelve months over her beloved South Downs. Accompanied with her own beautiful and delicately observed watercolours, this book revels in the passing of the seasons. Her celebration of nature's finery has been lovingly created, and will appeal to anyone with a love of the Downs and the natural world.

In his third book, Strauss delves into the mysterious process whereby an idea is born in the mind and materialized through the hand in the expression of an artwork. How exactly does this happen? It's a question so basic, an act so fundamental to art-making, that it has rarely received attention. It makes an ideal topic for Strauss, a writer with an exceptional ability to animate art's philosophical dimensions in a clear, persuasive manner. During this time when craft and the direct manipulation of materials by the artist appear to be in eclipse, Strauss comes to their defense in a spirited cri de coeur.
Featuring over 35 illustrations, the book examines a wide variety of media and individual examples. It explores the works of sculptors Martin Puryear, Ursula von Rydingsvard, and Donald Lipski; painters Leon Golub and Ron Gorchov; and writers Robert Duncan, Robert Kelly, Guy Davenport, John Berger, and Leo Steinberg. In addition, there are essays on Joseph Beuys's 7000 Oaks in Ireland, contemporary Haida carvers Reg Davidson and Jim Hart, Cecilia Vicuna's "memory of the fingers," and the influence of curators Harald Szeemann and Walter Hopps on the staging of contemporary art exhibitions.
Known primarily for his writings on photography and politics, Strauss here focuses on the least mediated arts--painting, sculpture, and writing. His claims are supported by a series of close readings which succeed in recovering the immediacy of the hand and revitalizing contemporary art's connection to the past."

The Urban Sketching Handbook: Understanding Light is an informative guide to heightening the impact of your artwork by capturing the look and subtleties of light in any scene. In settings ranging from fields and mountains at daybreak to neon cityscapes at midnight, learn how to express light effects through color and value to improve and refine your drawings and paintings. Artist and urban sketcher Katie Woodward offers strategies for: Selectively translating values for maximum effect Using your sketchbook to experiment with the effects of natural as well as artificial light Considering many options for visual solutions through work contributed by experienced urban sketchers Master the art of rendering light with The Urban Sketching Handbook: Understanding Light as your guide. The Urban Sketching Handbook series offers location artists expert instruction on creative techniques, on-location tips and advice, and an abundance of visual inspiration. These handy references come in a compact, easy-to-carry format-perfect to toss in your backpack or artist's tote.

"Catherine Cusset's book caught a lot of me. I recognised myself" DAVID HOCKNEY "A perfect short expose of Hockney's life as seen through the eyes of an admiring novelist" Kirkus Reviews "Hers is an affirming vision of a restless talent propelled by optimism and chance" New York Times With clear, vivid prose, this meticulously researched novel draws an intimate, moving portrait of the most famous living English painter. Born in Bradford in 1937, David Hockney had to fight to become an artist. After leaving home for the Royal College of Art in London his career flourished, but he continued to struggle with a sense of not belonging, because of his homosexuality, which had yet to be decriminalised, and because of his inclination for a figurative style of art, which was not sufficiently "contemporary" to be valued. Trips to New York and California - where he would live for many years and paint his iconic swimming pools - introduced him to new scenes and new loves, beginning a journey that would take him through the fraught years of the AIDS epidemic. A compelling hybrid of novel and biography, David Hockney: A Life offers an insightful overview of a painter whose art is as accessible as it is compelling, and whose passion to create has never been deterred by heartbreak or illness or loss. Translated from the French by Teresa Lavender Fagan

"The book is packed with step-by-step guides on drawing and painting techniques, colour mixing and clever compositions, it is an invaluable source of ideas for anyone wanting to develop their flower painting skills." - SAA Billy Showell's exquisite and technically brilliant watercolour flower portraits are beautifully presented in this highly informative, lavishly illustrated book. First published in 2009 and now back by popular demand in paperback, it provides the reader with valuable information on the brushes, paints, paper and other equipment they need, together with detailed guidance on drawing and painting techniques, colour mixing and composition. Learn how to paint white flowers, leaves and stems; add shadows; and create stamen, carpels, veins and texture. The book finishes with four stunning step-by-step projects to practice and consolidate your newly-acquired skills. This is an invaluable source of information and inspiration for anyone who wants to develop their flower painting skills.

Diversifying the current art historical scholarship, this edited volume presents the untold story of modern art by exposing global voices and perspectives excluded from the privileged and uncontested narrative of “isms.” This volume tells a worldwide story of art with expanded historical narratives of modernism. The chapters reflect on a wide range of issues, topics, and themes that have been marginalized or outright excluded from the canon of modern art. The goal of this book is to be a starting point for understanding modern art as a broad and inclusive field of study. The topics examine diverse formal expressions, innovative conceptual approaches, and various media used by artists around the world and forcefully acknowledge the connections between art, historical circumstances, political environments, and social issues such as gender, race, and social justice. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, imperial and colonial history, modernism, and globalization.

This book presents a detailed account of Guillermo Kuitca's major bodies of work, analysing his diverse range of imagery and reflecting on his engagement with the spaces in which we live. Following Kuitca's development from the 1980s to his latest body of work, the narrative reveals an artist who has continually challenged himself and his audience with new kinds of painterly language. In Kuitca's hands, everyday visual material such as road maps, street plans, architectural blueprints and theatre seating charts are transformed into remarkable paintings. Their impact comes from their apparent engagement with dark subjects such as the Holocaust and Argentina's 'Dirty War,' as well as the artist's innovative imagery and techniques. Drawing on conversations and studio visits the author has had with the artist, Guillermo Kuitca reveals the multifarious elements of a challenging and exciting body of work. It is essential reading for anyone fascinated by this truly original artist.

American artist Brice Marden has had a profound impact on painting today. While there has been a sea change in art movements, Marden has unwaveringly adhered to modernist principles of abstraction. From his early monochrome paintings to landscapes of China or the Greek island, Hydra, composed of vivid and calligraphice loops and webs, Marden's deeply personal work incorporates multiple art historical and cultural inspirations. This book explores his work.

Robert Lehman, one of the foremost art collectors of his generation, embraced both traditional and modern masters. This volume catalogues 130 nineteenth- and twentieth-century paintings that are now part of the Robert Lehman Collection at the Metropolitan Museum. The majority of the works are by artists based in France, but there are also examples from the United States, Latin America, and India, reflecting Lehman's global interests.

The catalogue opens with outstanding paintings by Ingres, Theodore Rousseau, and Corot among other early nineteenth-century artists. They are joined by an exemplary selection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist canvases by Degas, Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro, Seurat, Signac, Van Gogh, Cezanne, and Gauguin. Twentieth-century masters include Bonnard, Matisse, Rouault, Dali, and Balthus. Newly researched modern works are represented by Vicente do Rego Monteiro, Kees van Dongen, Dietz Edzard, and D.G. Kulkarni (DIZI).

From Robert Lehman's studied and conventional taste for nineteenth-century French academic practitioners to his intuitive eye for emerging young artists of his own time, all are documented and discussed here. Some three hundred comparative illustrations supplement the catalogue entries, as do extensively researched provenance information, exhibition histories, and references. The volume also includes a bibliography and indexes."

Today we view Cezanne as a monumental figure, but during his lifetime (1839-1906), many did not understand him or his work. With brilliant insight, drawing on a vast range of primary sources, Alex Danchev tells the story of an artist who was never accepted into the official Salon: he was considered a revolutionary at best and a barbarian at worst, whose paintings were unfinished, distorted and strange. His work sold to no one outside his immediate circle until his late thirties, and he maintained that 'to paint from nature is not to copy an object; it is to represent its sensations' - a belief way ahead of his time, with stunning implications that became the obsession of many other artists and writers, from Matisse and Braque to Rilke and Gertrude Stein. Beginning with the restless teenager from Aix who was best friends with Emile Zola at school, Danchev carries us through the trials of a painter tormented by self-doubt, who always remained an outsider, both of society and the bustle of the art world. Cezanne: A life delivers not only the fascinating days and years of the visionary who would 'astonish Paris with an apple', with interludes analysing his self-portraits, but also a complete assessment of Cezanne's ongoing influence through artistic imaginations in our own time. He is, as this life shows, a cultural icon comparable to Monet or Toulouse.

Album Picabia is an inspiring, artistic chronicle of Francis Picabia's life (1879-1953) as seen through the eyes of his last wife and creative protegee, Olga Mohler Picabia. Begun in 1936, four years before their marriage, and left unfinished in 1951, two years before Picabia's death, the album is a collection of souvenirs, sketches, newspaper clippings, photographs, and annotations that document the artist's public and private lives with acute affection and appreciation. This rich visual account grants us entry into one of the greatest, yet one of the least known, creative and romantic partnerships of the 20th century. Distributed for Mercatorfonds

Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), perhaps the most famous of all German artists, embodies the modern ideal of the Renaissance man--he was a remarkable painter, printmaker, draftsman, designer, theoretician, and even a poet. More is known about his thoughts and his life than about any other Northern European master of his time, since he wrote extensively about himself, his family's history, his travels, and his friends. His woodcuts and engravings were avidly collected and copied across Europe, and they quickly established his reputation as a master. Praised in life and elegized in death by such thinkers as Martin Luther and Erasmus, he served Emperor Maximilian and other leading church and secular princes in the Holy Roman Empire.Although there is a vast specialized literature on the Nuremberg master, "The Essential Durer" fills the need for a foundational book that covers the major aspects of his career. The essays included in this book, written by leading scholars from the United States and Germany, provide an accessible, up-to-date examination of Durer's art and person as well as his posthumous fame. The essays address an array of topics, from separate and detailed studies of his paintings, drawings, printmaking, and sculpture, to broader concerns such as his visits to and interactions with Venice and the Netherlands, his personal relationships, and his relationships with other artists. Collectively these stimulating essays explore the brilliance of Durer's creativity and the impact he had on his world, exposing him as an artist fully engaged with the tumultuous intellectual and religious challenges of his time.

"Wylie fearlessly tackles the thorniest topics head-on, committing her thoughts and questions about politics, religion, fame, love, history, money and nature to canvas." - Charlotte Brook, Harper's Bazaar Inspired by film, pop culture, and the history of fashion as she experienced personally, Wylie harnesses a union of high and low culture with a bold technique of mark making. Her unique practice of material overlay and erasure creates fantastic compositions. Creating conceptual tensions between formal and informal aesthetics, Wylie employs the visual elements of text as formal details in her paintings. With a beautiful swiss binding, this monograph compiles the work of four exhibitions at David Zwirner offering a full breadth of Wylie's most recent work to date. Giving insight and compassion to Wylie's feminist and rebellious impulses, Judith Bernstein writes an accompanying text on how she relates to Wylie's ambitious and playful energy. With a foreword by Nicholas Serota, this publication also features new essays by Barry Schwabsky and David Salle and an enlightening interview between the artist and Hans Ulrich Obrist.

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) felt a profound empathy with the natural environment, and considered the spiritual essence of trees to be comparable with that of human figures. Vincent's Trees traces Van Gogh's development as a painter of trees in the natural landscape - from his home province of North Brabant, through Paris to Provence. Ralph Skea's elegant prose is accompanied by Van Gogh's vibrant illustrations of trees, which range from pencil and ink sketches to watercolours and oil. Stylistic experiments encompassing Pointillism and compositions inspired by Japanese prints give way to the expressive, painterly depictions of his later work. The book also includes quotes from Van Gogh's letters, which convey the depth of his feeling for the natural landscape, and the force with which it affected him.

The title Caravaggio to Mattia Preti aptly provides the parameters that span seventeenth century baroque painting in Malta. Caravaggio's move to Malta in 1607 opened this magnificent chapter in Maltese art, to which the island responded with extraordinary artistic foresight. Malta offered Caravaggio security, but more importantly it offered him the opportunity to redeem himself. On the island, the power of Caravaggio's brush and the celebration of his virtuosity overcame the dishonour of his lifestyle, despite the fact that this materialised in a Catholic frontier country until then renowned, not for the artistic patronage of its rulers, but for its military austerity. During this period, Malta was ruled by the Knights of the Order of St John and their fascinating political context impinged significantly on the character of its art. Their political clout and their eight-pointed cross attracted other artists, including Mattia Preti, whose four-decade stay on the island defined the triumphant manner of Maltese baroque art. Preti's death on the island in 1699 came at the end of the century. This book discusses the work of the major artists who painted on the island during the seventeenth century and analyses the context in which they were produced. It also discusses paintings of importance that were sent from mainland Italy and reviews them and their critical fortune within the story of Maltese art.

Following the arc of Bellini's career, from his early devotional paintings to his later, occasionally secular works, this book offers an in-depth appreciation of the Venetian master who dominated the Early Renaissance. Featuring nearly every extant Bellini work, as well as those of his contemporaries, this book brims with gorgeous Renaissance art. Author Johannes Grave focuses on some of the artist's greatest works including Allegoria Sacra, the Brera Pieta, and the altarpiece of San Giobbe-to explore how Bellini excelled in tempera before mastering oil painting. Grave discusses how Bellini's precise lines, his delicate facial expressions, and the subtle effects of light and shadow were used in his religious paintings as well as his portraiture and late mythological depictions. This book examines Bellini's life, including his complex relationships with his father Jacopo, his brother Gentile, and his brother-in-law Andrea Mantegna. It considers the original contexts of Bellini's works, and elucidates the ways in which these paintings were meant to be perceived. The book also links Bellini's devotional paintings with the poetic creations of his pupil Giorgione. An important contribution to the scholarship of Renaissance art, this masterful book reaffirms Bellini's status as one of Venice's greatest painters.

An essential and practical handbook on choosing and mixing colours successfully. Choosing and mixing colours successfully in different media is all about creating the maximum colour range from the minimum number of paints. In this comprehensive guide, the authors - all experts in the field - show you how to approach watercolours, acrylics and oils in terms of mixing, blending and diluting them to achieve a wide range of effects. Whether you are an amateur or a professional, The Art of Colour Mixing provides a handy source of invaluable information on how to get the most from your paints in terms of colour. This is a book that should be on all painter's reference shelves.

The first major monograph on Zhang Xiaogang (b. 1958), a leading Chinese contemporary artist, world-renowned for his haunting, surrealist works. Both a retrospective of his paintings and a biography of his dramatic life, Zhang Xiaogang: Disquieting Memories is a key resource for academia and art enthusiasts alike. This book features all of the artist's iconic series - major works as well as lesser-hyphen;known drawings - and never-before-published letters dating from the early 1980s between the artist and his friends. These offer an inside view of everyday life in China, historic and political events, as well as invaluable insight into Zhang's artistic practice. With a chronology illustrated with personal photographs from the artist's archive, this is the most comprehensive account of the artist's life and work.

San Francisco based artist Ian Johnson has been busy since his 2008 monograph Beauty is a Rare Thing. Six solo shows and a group exhibition later, his work has evolved while remaining jarringly cool and full of life. This new book from Paper Museum Press presents new paintings and drawings by Johnson in his signature style: portraits of jazz musicians from the '40s, '50s, and '60s produced using gouache, acrylic, or pen on paper or wood panel. Johnson combines abstract backgrounds with figurative representations to create jaw-dropping pieces that succeed at evoking the music of each artist. Creative geometric compositions of space and color unfold to express the tone of each musician's output. Ian Johnson's work has been featured in Juxtapoz and Jazz Colours and he has created illustrations for The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Wax Poetics, and The New Yorker.

Create Better Compositions by Design

The path to better painting begins with "Mastering Composition." This effective guide blends clear, visual instruction with 5 step-by-step demonstrations to show you how to plan and paint your best work yet.

Composition is the key, and here you'll learn to design paintings with new skill and confidence. It all begins with the armature or structure of the picture plane. Every great painting has one, and you'll see through several famous examples exactly how the Old Masters used armatures to create movement, narrative, harmony and fluidity. Based on these examples, you'll practice what you've learned following a series of hands-on demonstrations.

Once you understand the basic principles of design, you'll be amazed at how quickly and effectively your compositions come together. Soon you will be painting more boldly and confidently than ever before with less reworking and overworking.

Whether you're a beginner looking for basic instruction or a more advanced painter troubleshooting a specific problem, the proven methods in this book will work for you. Ideal for all mediums, "Mastering Composition" gives you the knowledge you need to create powerful paintings out of every subject.