This is a special book of art - one to celebrate the military - an important, but oft overlooked part of society. These paintings are all of soldiers or soldiers' gear - depicting soldiers from across the globe and down through the centuries. But they are not paintings depicting battles. Instead they are paintings that show soldiers in a variety of other activities - both in and out of camps, towns, and more.

The next book in the Enjoying Great Art series is about an usual topic for art appreciation: Necklaces may or may not be part of your day to day life. But do you think of them when you think of great art? Here is a picture book for adults and students of all ages...A picture book of necklaces in art There are more than three dozen paintings depicted on the following pages, paintings that span more than four centuries. As might be expected, most of the necklaces are worn by women - many of them women from very high positions. Note of warning to parents/teachers - the paintings chosen for this book, as with the others in this series, are intentionally chosen to be child-friendly. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for many other paintings by some of these same artists (so please go investigating their other works cautiously )

The latest book in the "Enjoying Great Art" series Adults and students of all ages can enjoy more than three dozen paintings of trees - many by artists you are probably familiar with (Monet, Renoir, Homer) and numerous others you may be less familiar with. Some of these are single trees, some include many...Some include people, many do not. But all are family-friendly (sadly we can't promise that about all the other paintings by some of these same artists).

The latest book in the "Enjoying Great Art" series: Eagles may or may not be a part of our everyday lives. But, either way, do we think of them when we think of great art? Here is a picture book for adults and students of all ages...A picture book of eagles in art (Though, maybe not the youngest - these are birds of prey, after all ) Different colors, shapes, sizes...Some that are only small parts of the painting, some which are the focus of the painting. Mostly arranged in chronological order, these paintings will show you eagles through the centuries.

This next book in the "Enjoying Great Art" series shows great art from four centuries - all around the theme of music. See musicians and instruments alone and in groups, as the focus of a painting, and as a mere prop. Enjoy these full cover copies of great art and see the similarities and differences between each. Clearly three dozen paintings can only show the tip of a theme - but they should be enough to give adults and students of all ages a nice introduction to "music in art." Note: As in all of Catherine's other "In Art" books, these paintings have all been chosen to be family-friendly (though we can make no guarantees about other paintings by the same artists )

Enjoying Great Art Series: Turkey is a land of intersections - the intersection of Asia and Europe and the intersection of a variety of people groups across a multitude of ages. A booklet this size can merely touch on the art from across such a great region - and from across more than two millennia. But maybe it will whet your appetite to investigate this historic country more. This small booklet is meant to be enjoyed by adults and students of all ages. You may enjoy finding the similarities and differences between different paintings or different artists - both topically and stylistically: Explore the different treatments of color, of landscapes, of animals, people, and more. Please pay special attention to the variety of maps included.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1900 Edition.

This little picture book brings you New York City through dozens of beautiful paintings - paintings from a variety of artists from the 19th and 20th centuries. Each painting includes the title of the painting, the artist's name, and the approximate date of its completion.

One of the many books in the new "Enjoying Great Art" series: In the past, particularly during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, religion was a common theme for paintings. So it should be no surprise that different themes of Christmas were captured often by painters of these times. Enjoy this pictorial look at different aspects of the Christmas story - the angel's proclamation to Mary, Mary and Elizabeth, the shepherds, and the Wise Men - as you've likely never seen them before.

Robert W. Burns lives in an ordinary house in Brighton, England.
Except it's not an ordinary house. Not at all. On the outside, it seems like any other dwelling, but on the inside, it's been transformed into an incredible art gallery, a shrine to and celebration of Renaissance art, containing wonderful reproductions of classic works from centuries gone by; portraits, wall frescos, lunettes and friezes alike. This picture book is packed with them.
Just turn the pages - you won't believe your eyes. The house also contains original Renaissance-style portraits of Russell Brand and Wayne Rooney.
As featured by BBC's 'The One Show', ABC, Channel 9 Australia and AFP. Certain images are from Robert W. Burns, others included by kind permission of legendary international photographer Facundo Arrizabalaga.
A treat for art connoisseurs and historians everywhere, and a real bargain, given the immense quality of the artwork on show.

One of the original books in the "Enjoying Great Art" series, but now bigger and better: Hats - ordinary things we see every day...But are they always ordinary? Here is a picture book for students of all ages...A picture book of hats and other head coverings Different styles, colors, shapes, and sizes...Some worn by men, some by women, and some by children...Many representing status or station in life...Some that look like they are just being worn for the fun of it. Look through the paintings that span many centuries and come from different parts of the globe. Notice the similarities and the differences...See the colors, the textures and patterns. Observe whether the hats seem to be a primary focus of the painting, or merely a smaller, insignificant portion. But, most of all, enjoy

Leon Battista Alberti made several references to miracoli della pittura (miracles of painting) in two of his early works, Vita (Life) and De Pictura (On Painting). After extensive research, author Jim Egan has concluded that these "miracles of painting" were the amazing full-detail and full-color images seen in a camera obscura. In Latin, camera obscura means "dark room." In a dark room with one small hole, the image of what's outside appears projected on the interior wall upside-down and reversed left-to-right. The room can be a people-sized room or a small box, like a pinhole camera. Nowadays, with slide shows, movies, TV, and computers, we're quite accustomed to seeing projected images. But over 575 years ago, back in the 1430s, a camera obscura image would have blown the socks off people. However, there was a down side: this was risky business. Creating full-color, full-motion, magical images inside a dark room might be considered heretical. You might find yourself on the wrong side of a barbecue. If you're so excited that you must share your knowledge, there's a solution: write about it cryptically. Only those "in-the-know" will catch your gist. That's what Egan thinks Alberti did. Alberti, whose books On Painting and On Architecture revolutionized these two fields, has been explored extensively by art historians for years. Surely they saw that Alberti was talking about a camera obscura. But no. Dozens of the top art historians of the 20th century write that Alberti's description of his "small box" was definitely not a reference to a camera obscura. Instead, they think it was a "show box," a small dark box with a small hole through which you viewed a picture, which was painted on glass and backlit to make it luminous, like a photographic slide. Who is Jim Egan to challenge great art historians like Kenneth Clark, Helmut Gernsheim, Samuel Edgerton, Anthony Grafton, and Robert Tavernor? For 40 years, Egan has been an in-the-trenches guy: a professional photographer, spending hours viewing upside-down images under the dark cloth of 4x5 and 8x10 view cameras. He has built dozens of pinhole cameras, camera obscura rooms, and even a camera obscura building. Plus, he's written ten books involving Renaissance optics, mathematics and architecture. How did the art historians get it wrong? The short answer is: "lost in translation" and "follow the leader." Egan thinks Alberti not only had a camera, but that he also had a lens to sharpen the image. And that Alberti had another camera obscura, which was a "Lucy" machine, used to enlarge and reduce artwork. And that Alberti hid clues expressing his understanding that "the eye is a camera obscura" in the design of his "Winged Eye" symbol and his bronze self-portrait plaque (both shown on the front cover).

A few years ago a learned bibliophile, stumbled on a 500 years old manuscript hidden among the funds of an Italian library and recognized it as the handwritten draft of a mythical book, thought lost and for centuries, actively but vainly sought after. "DE LUDO SCACHORUM" lost opus of Luca Pacioli, Franciscan friar, father of modern accounting, friend, counsellor, teacher & contributor to the century's incomparable genius, Leonardo da Vinci. The booklet is mesmerizing. It is a hand sketched draft of hundreds of complicated chess studies that Luca Pacioli must have been collecting over a long span of time. Now, perusing the booklet something catches your attention and the more you look at it the more it becomes evident. While the writing is Pacioli's, two hands instead had been there penning in the chess pieces, the first with scholarly diligence the second with artistic swiftness. Whose? Luca's and Leonardo's. They were friends, congregating and travelling together, they had a history of partnership Leonardo having illustrated Luca's DE DIVINA PROPORTIONE. It is clear: Luca was set to prepare another yet of his popularising textbooks and Leonardo had lent to his friend his "incomparable left hand" once again. Obviously the possible implication of Leonardo da Vinci in the drafting of the manuscript could not, not to be taken into consideration. And it was rejected. Rightly, at times like ours, adept to Dan Brown's like flights of fancy, doubt is a virtue and suspicion should be "de rigueur" which means that a lasting grudge must not be held to the "expert" who, possibly startled by the news, not having been warned or seen the manuscript, quipped, "the silly season on Leo never closes." In reality the discovery of Luca Pacioli's lost manuscript heralds, without doubt, that the "a la rabiosa" problems therein reported are of Leonardo's hand and we well know that Leonardo penned between 1487 and 1490 a rebus "I a roccha ro'" (I shall castle) confirming his perfect knowledge of the games new rules. These can be traced back to the coronation of queen Isabella of Spain in the year 1474 and to her crowning are dated the new powers attributed to the Bishop and the Queen whose status of most powerful piece on the chessboard justified the new rules nickname of "mad queen" or "a la rabiosa." Yet nothing is said at that time about castling, that important move absolutely necessary in modern chess to counterbalance the overpowering new status of the Queen. Nothing, from 1474 until Leonardo's rebus of 1487. Would it be its inventor Leonardo should then be considered, if such hypothetical case were true, not only the co-author as he is, of "DE LUDO SCACHORUM" and designer of the chess pieces therein drafted but, as well and rightfully, one among the major: FATHER OF MODERN CHESS. Time flies; while the excitement due to the discovery of Luca Pacioli's lost work is ineluctably subsiding, so the focus on this other of Leonardo's prodigious accomplishment is quietly worming its way into the cosy corners of expert knowledge and world oblivion. To avoid this fate this book, LEONARDO & LUCA PACIOLI - THE EVIDENCE, is set to confirm that the chess design is indeed the work of Leonardo. That two hands have been drawing the booklet's chess pieces and that, so great was his genius and so swift his incomparable left hand, that "the season on Leo still brings beautiful fruits." Supporting the evidence, you'll find, in appendix, a study of the Vitruvius Man showing its exacting geometrical structure, further to a deep reflection and elaboration of the principles Leonardo and Luca Pacioli outlined in DE DIVINA PROPORTIONE. In truth, the design of the Vitruvian Man, based on an extraordinary conception of the Golden Section, stands as a paradigm for the geometric structure and proportions of the DE LUDO SCHACORUM chessmen set. Wonder and enjoy

In this collection of nine essays some of the preeminent art historians in the United States consider the relationship between art and craft, between the creative idea and its realization, in Renaissance and Baroque Italy. The essays, all previously unpublished, are devoted to the pictorial arts and are accompanied by nearly 150 illustrations. Examining works by such artists as Michelangelo, Titian, Volterrano, Giovanni di Paolo, and Annibale Carracci (along with aspects of the artists' creative processes, work habits, and aesthetic convictions), the essayists explore the ways in which art was conceived and produced at a time when collaboration with pupils, assistants, or independent masters was an accepted part of the artistic process. The consensus of the contributors amounts to a revision, or at least a qualification, of Bernard Berenson's interpretation of the emergent Renaissance ideal of individual ""genius"" as a measure of original artistic achievement: we must accord greater influence to the collaborative, appropriative conventions and practices of the craft workshop, which persisted into and beyond the Renaissance from its origins in the Middle Ages. Consequently, we must acknowledge the sometimes rather ordinary beginnings of some of the world's great works of art--an admission, say the contributors, that will open new avenues of study and enhance our understanding of the complex connections between invention and execution. With one exception, these essays were delivered as lectures in conjunction with the exhibition The Artists and Artisans of Florence: Works from the Horne Museum hosted by the Georgia Museum of Art in the fall of 1992.

Rembrandt's Code - From the Attic of Civilization can best be described by quoting a reviewer: 5 out of 5 stars "Dr. Girsh has a wonderful grasp of the complex nuances of Rembrandt's works, tying together Biblical references to other important figures in history. He shines light on hidden concepts that eludes even the most analytical of readers. A strong theme of "the origin of thought" branching into many subjects: languages, human thinking and behavior. Truly a masterpiece " The book also serves as a guide to the paintings in exhibition form enabling readers to enjoy the reproductions of great masterpieces of European art on Biblical themes, from Genesis to Deuteronomy. These are artistic interpretations of scenes in Genesis: Creation, Noah and the Flood, Abraham and the Binding of Isaac, Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph. Rembrandt, Poussin, Rubens and West are but a few of the prominent artists represented in Rembrandt's Code - From the Attic of Civilization. For example, Rembrandt's masterpiece, "Isaac and Rebecca," sensitively depicts the love that Isaac had for his wife, Rebecca. The Biblical scenes are depicted by these classical artists whose art is part of our cultural evolution. Rembrandt's Code - From the Attic of Civilization has been honored by being sold at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the National Gallery of Art in Scotland. This book has been presented in exhibition format throughout the country and has been very well received. To quote a visitor present at an exhibition, "We were treated to a 'feast for our eyes' with some of the greatest Biblical art ever produced."

During Pope Sixtus V's reign at the end of the Roman Cinquecento (1585-1590), counter-reformed Rome underwent a significant transformation of its liturgy and of the way in which its religious monuments were approached by the faithful. The changes implemented by the pope affected the decoration of monuments on the various estates over which the Vatican has historically held dominion.

"Renovatio Christiana" is a scholarly study detailing the many building projects Pope Sixtus V carried out in order to provide clergy, residents, and pilgrims better access to Rome's main basilicas and churches, as well as to grant the clergy new processional pathways across the major churches. It also emphasizes the relationship between patron and artists, showing how Pope Sixtus V reshaped the Holy Steps, for instance, from a private chapel exclusively for papal use to a stand-alone building open to anyone seeking penance.

A highly academic and original text, "Renovatio Christiana" is a thoroughly informative and insightful must-read for anyone looking for a more detailed history and understanding of Rome's art during the late Italian Renaissance period.