'The cultural history of the mirror is fully explored by Sabine Melchior-Bonnet. The book marries science and art, literature and philosophy.' - New York Times

'This erudite meditation ... reveals how significantly the mirror has influenced Western culture ... this beautifully illustrated study offers so many intriguing glimpses into the meanings of reflection that it will reward anyone who peers beneath its surface.' - Publishers' Weekly

This title was first published 2003. In the twentieth century, Britain was rich in artistic achievement, especially in sculpture. Just some of those working in this field were Jacob Epstein, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Anthony Caro, Richard Long, Mona Hatoum and Anish Kapoor. The work of these and other known and less well-known artists has an astonishing variety and expressive power, a range and strength that has placed Britain at the hub of the artistic world. Alan Windsor has compiled a concise biographical dictionary of sculpture in Britain in book form. Richly informative and easy-to-use, this guide is an art-lover's and expert's essential reference. Written by scholars, the entries are cross-referenced and each concise biographical outline provides the relevant facts about the artist's life, a brief characterization of the artist's work, and, where appropriate, major bibliographical references.

Peering down from rooftops with their haunting, even humorous expressions, gargoyles have endured for centuries as architectural necessities directing rainwater away from age-old buildings, or as others speculate, warding off evil to protect the cathedrals, churches and homes where they were perched. Today, these mysterious beasts are a popular carving subject for anyone looking to add primitive ornamentation in and around their homes. If you've ever wanted to carve a gargoyle, grotesque, chimera or guardian, or just understand their differences, this unique step-by-step tutorial from renowned woodcarver, Shawn Cipa, will guide you from start to finish. In addition to being led through the entire carving and finishing process, you'll also discover fascinating legends and lore about each of these spirited creatures, where surviving gargoyles can be found around the world, and the facts and conjecture surrounding their purpose and meaning. After you master the skills to complete the Traditional Water-Spouting Gargoyle and Class Grotesque projects, you'll find 10 additional original patterns for rowdy characters, like the Crouching Imp and the Screaming Keystone Grotesque. You'll even find patterns for functional projects, like a gargoyle cane-topper, and a green man door knocker.

Contents:
Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Spaces 2. Site 3. Materials 4. Frames Conclusion Notes on Contributors Notes Bibliography

Site-Specific Art charts the development of an experimental art form in an experimental way. Nick Kaye traces the fascinating historical antecedents of today's installation and performance art, while also assembling a unique documentation of contemporary practice around the world.
The book is divided into individual analyses of the themes of space, materials, site, and frames. These are interspersed by specially commissioned documentary artwork from some of the world's foremost practitioners and artists working today. This interweaving of critique and creativity has never been achieved on this scale before.
Site-Specific Art investigates the relationship of architectural theory to an understanding of contemporary site related art and performance, and rigorously questions how such works can be documented.
The artistic processes involved are demonstrated through entirely new primary articles from:
* Meredith Monk
* Station House Opera
* Brith Gof
* Forced Entertainment.
This volume is an astonishing contribution to debates around experimental cross-arts practice.

In the 15th century, the ideas of the great Renaissance artists required the attentions of engineers and artisans to construct and explain the dynamics of their ambitious works. Leonardo da Vinci's helicopter was built in a studio; very probably his submarine, too. Today that endeavour and enquiry is represented by Mike Smith, whose studio in the Old Kent Road in London furnishes the architecture for the most pressing installations and sculptures of young British artists. He is the carborundum that enables the best artists working in Britain today to realise their work--Rachel Whiteread's Monument in Trafalgar Square is a testament to his abilities. The painter Patsy Craig has here unravelled the activities of the Mike Smith Studios, including the symbiosis of the studio with those of Damien Hirst, Mona Hatoum, Keith Tyson, Darren Almond, Mark Wallinger, and others. The last 12 years of the studio's archives include the detritus, correspondence, notes, ideas, failures, and successes of these and other artists who collaborate with the studio. They are a diary and vade mecum of the construction of a significant theory in current British art. It is an extraordinary assembly of the very templates of the thinking, design and creation of art in Britain today, edited with a painter's eye to the relevant and disdain for the irrelevant. It is as if one were provided with a pop-up illustration of how and why artists think, and how their ideas are engineered by those who translate their odessys into reality. Germano Celant, a Senior Curator for Guggenheim New York, has contributed the critical text. William Furlong, from Audio Arts, has conducted the artists' interviews.

India's Kochi-Muziris Biennale has been described as one of the most significant newly emergent biennales, alongside Shanghai, Sharjah and Dakar. However, there have been few sustained and critical studies of these events as specific sites of production and reception of contemporary art. This book, engaging with the Kochi Biennale, provides detaile

This book provides a wealth of practical guidance on building and painting realistic model naval ships aimed at those who are new to this hobby through to the experienced modeller. An in-depth look at the creation of four models is included: the Type 45 destroyer HMS Daring (Dragon), the pre-war aircraft carrier USS Wasp (Aoshima), the River-class frigate HMS Nadder (Starling Models) and the 'pocket battleship' Admiral Graf Spee (Academy). With a focus on the popular kit scales of 1/700 and 1/350 in the waterline style, this book demonstrates the techniques used in building model ships, from the basic to the more complex, larger-scale models requiring many differing skills. There are chapters on the fundamentals such as building resin kits, painting and weathering, rigging and creating a water effect. It provides guidance on more advanced techniques such as the use of photo-etched parts and creating rough-water effects. Finally, it is packed with helpful tips and finishing touches, such as making flags and how to take professional-standard photographs of your completed model.

Beneath the original Venetian glass and rosewood case at La Specola in Florence lies Clemente Susini's Anatomical Venus (c. 1790), a perfect object whose luxuriously bizarre existence challenges belief. It - or, better, she - was conceived of as a means to teach human anatomy without need for constant dissection, which was messy, ethically fraught and subject to quick decay. This life-sized wax woman is adorned with glass eyes and human hair and can be dismembered into dozens of parts revealing, at the final remove, a beatific foetus curled in her womb. Sister models soon appeared throughout Europe, where they not only instructed the specialist students, but also delighted the general public. Deftly crafted dissectable female wax models and slashed beauties of the world's anatomy museums and fairgrounds of the 18th and 19th centuries take centre stage in this disquieting volume. Since their creation in late 18th-century Florence, these wax women have seduced, intrigued and amazed. Today, they also confound, troubling the edges of our neat categorical divides: life and death, science and art, body and soul, effigy and pedagogy, spectacle and education, kitsch and art. Incisive commentary and captivating imagery reveal the evolution of these enigmatic sculptures from wax effigy to fetish figure and the embodiment of the uncanny.

This book presents a new study of Greek large-scale bronze statuary of the late Archaic and Classical periods. It examines the discovery, origin, style, date, artistic attribution, identification, and interpretation of the surviving bronzes, and focuses in particular on their technical features and casting techniques. It contains over 170 plates of photographs and drawings to illustrate its discussion. It also places the development of the casting techniques in connection with the stylistic evolution in Greek free-standing sculpture. During the Classical period, artists preferred bronze to marble when creating their contrapposto figures. Indisputably, bronze gave particular freedom to artists in creating three-dimensional figures. In addition, the evolution in style encouraged the development of the uses of bronze to serve the new needs and tendencies in sculpture during the late Archaic and especially the Classical period. Through the examination of how technical matters affect style, this book presents fresh interpretations of these important monuments of Greek art and offers a new approach in the field of Greek free-standing bronze sculpture.

Bringing together established and emerging specialists in seventeenth-century Italian sculpture, Material Bernini is the first sustained examination of the conspicuous materiality of Bernini's work in sculpture, architecture, and paint. The various essays demonstrate that material Bernini has always been tied (whether theologically, geologically, politically, or in terms of art theory) to his immaterial twin. Here immaterial Bernini and the historiography that sustains him is finally confronted by material Bernini. Central to the volume are Bernini's works in clay, a fragmentary record of a large body of preparatory works by a sculptor who denied any direct relation between sketches of any kind and final works. Read together, the essays call into question why those works in which Bernini's bodily relation to the material of his art is most evident, his clay studies, have been configured as a point of unmediated access to the artist's mind, to his immaterial ideas. This insight reveals a set of values and assumptions that have profoundly shaped Bernini studies from their inception, and opens up new and compelling avenues of inquiry within a field that has long remained remarkably self-enclosed.

The world that shaped Europe's first national sculptor-celebrities, from Schadow to David d'Angers, from Flaxman to Gibson, from Canova to Thorvaldsen, was the city of Rome. Until around 1800, the Holy See effectively served as Europe's cultural capital, and Roman sculptors found themselves at the intersection of the Italian marble trade, Grand Tour expenditure, the cult of the classical male nude, and the Enlightenment republic of letters. Two sets of visitors to Rome, the David circle and the British traveler, have tended to dominate Rome's image as an open artistic hub, while the lively community of sculptors of mixed origins has not been awarded similar attention. Rome, Travel and the Sculpture Capital, c.1770-1825 is the first study to piece together the labyrinthine sculptors' world of Rome between 1770 and 1825. The volume sheds new light on the links connecting Neo-classicism, sculpture collecting, Enlightenment aesthetics, studio culture, and queer studies. The collection offers ideal introductory reading on sculpture and Rome around 1800, but its combination of provocative perspectives is sure to appeal to a readership interested in understanding a modernized Europe's overwhelmingly transnational desire for Neo-classical, Roman sculpture.

This encyclopaedic book provides everything readers need to know about working with polymer clay. Clear, concise and comprehensive, this is an essential addition to any crafter's library, no matter their skill level. It features six original projects that include pendants, curio boxes and a bracelet. From pins and pendants to bracelets, buttons and embellishments, crafters of all ages are embracing the creativity that polymer clay inspires. This encyclopaedic book by renowned expert Lisa Pavelka includes the latest techniques, handy tips and trade secrets. Pavelka presents a sweeping overview of materials, how-to fundamentals and construction techniques. She also introduces six original projects with complete instructions showing readers how to make pendants, curio boxes, a necklace and a bracelet. Clear, concise and comprehensive, this is an essential addition to any crafter's library, no matter his or her skill level. For even more inspiration, this indispensable reference features a gallery of 50 original projects by Pavelka and other talented polymer clay designers.

First published in 1935, this book was intended to provide westerners with a more definite and comprehensive understanding of Chinese Art and its achievements. Newly available opportunities to study authentic examples, such as the Royal Academy exhibition that provided the impetus for this volume, allowed for greater opportunities to conduct in-depth examination than had previously been possible. Following an introduction giving an overview of Chinese art and its history in the west, six chapters cover painting and calligraphy, sculpture and lacquer, 'the potter's art', bronzes and cloisonne enamel, jades, and textiles - supplemented by a chronology of Chinese epochs, a selected bibliography and 25 images.

Godzilla & Kong: The Cinematic Storyboard Art of Richard Bennett features storyboard art from the blockbuster hits Godzilla vs. Kong, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and Kong: Skull Island. It features a selection of the best sequences from these three films, along with full color stills reflecting the final shots in the film. Special "Unused Scenes" sections give you an unprecedented peek into the making of the films, revealing never before seen sequences. Presented in a deluxe 11.75" x 8.5" widescreen hardcover coffee table book of over 200 pages, plus featuring an introduction by Godzilla vs. Kong director Adam Wingard and afterword by Oscar-Nominated Production Designer Stefan Dechant, this collection is a must for movie buffs, film students, and all Kaiju aficionados. "Within these pages we find the imagination and artistry of Richard Bennett. He brings to life the Kaiju of cinema's yesteryear through the modern retelling of Legendary Pictures' Monsterverse." -Stefan Dechant, Oscar-Nominated Production Designer "When I see Richard's boards, I see the film." -Adam Wingard, Director of Godzilla vs. Kong

Blazed Wax is a comprehensive and colourful guide to contemporary candle making from friends and designers Ruby Kannava and Emma Cutri, with twenty-five projects for beautiful candles and candleholders that will light up your life. Candle making is an ancient craft, but modern candle making is all about incredible shapes and surprising colour combinations. This book brings together everything you need to start making your own sculptural candles at home - from mould-making using everyday items like fruit and vases, to dip-dyed candle-pouring, or even making fun twisted candles from supermarket candles. Including twenty-five projects for candles and candle holders, with easy instructions, step-by-step photography and guides to materials, scents, safety and styling, Blazed Wax will have you creating in no time. Beautiful candles are a surprisingly easy art to try at home, the possibilities are endless, and you can always melt your creation down and start again! These unique candles bring warmth and ambience to your home, are perfect for celebrations and gifts, and will become the centrepiece of any dinner table or relaxing ritual. There's something innately magical about how a burning candle brings people together, and Blazed Wax will help you to capture some of that magic in your own hand-made candles.

This title was first published 2003. In the twentieth century, Britain was rich in artistic achievement, especially in sculpture. Just some of those working in this field were Jacob Epstein, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Anthony Caro, Richard Long, Mona Hatoum and Anish Kapoor. The work of these and other known and less well-known artists has an astonishing variety and expressive power, a range and strength that has placed Britain at the hub of the artistic world. Alan Windsor has compiled a concise biographical dictionary of sculpture in Britain in book form. Richly informative and easy-to-use, this guide is an art-lover's and expert's essential reference. Written by scholars, the entries are cross-referenced and each concise biographical outline provides the relevant facts about the artist's life, a brief characterization of the artist's work, and, where appropriate, major bibliographical references.

This book examines a famous series of sculptures by the German artist Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (1736-1783) known as his "Character Heads." These are busts of human heads, highly unconventional for their time, representing strange, often inexplicable facial expressions. Scholars have struggled to explain these works of art. Some have said that Messerschmidt was insane, while others suggested that he tried to illustrate some sort of intellectual system. Michael Yonan argues that these sculptures are simultaneously explorations of art's power and also critiques of the aesthetic limits that would be placed on that power.

This book elaborates on the social and cultural phenomenon of national schools during the nineteenth century, via the less studied field of sculpture and using Belgium as a case study. The role, importance of, and emphasis on certain aspects of national identity evolved throughout the century, while a diverse array of criteria were indicated by commissioners, art critics, or artists that supposedly constituted a "national sculpture." By confronting the role and impact of the four most crucial actors within the artistic field (politics, education, exhibitions, public commissions) with a linear timeframe, this book offers a chronological as well as a thematic approach. Artists covered include Guillaume Geefs, Eugene Simonis, Charles Van der Stappen, Julien Dillens, Paul Devigne, Constantin Meunier, and George Minne.

The Gorillaz Art Book is here! Featuring brand new artwork by Jamie Hewlett, who has invited more than 40 creators to offer new interpretations of 2D, Murdoc Niccals, Noodle, and Russel Hobbs in one expansive volume of original artwork. Contributing artists include Ruff Mercy, Kim Jung Gi, Robert Smith, Kerbscrawler Ghost, Robert Valley, Craig McCracken and Tim McCourt & Max Taylor. Celebrating 20 years of Gorillaz, this latest Z2 partnership sees Hewlett expand the band’s collaborative vision to fellow visual artists in The Gorillaz Art Book, a stunning visual feast of 306 pages.

Vertigo seeks to document the surge of multimedia art driven by the advent of new technologies, including works produced by great names in art such as Balla, Warhol, Beuys, Anselm Kiefer, Nam June Paik, and Laurie Anderson.

Rodinsky's world was that of the East European Jewry, cabbalistic speculation, an obsession with language as code and terrible loss. He touched the imagination of artist Rachel Lichtenstein, whose grandparents had left Poland in the 1930s. This text weaves together Lichtenstein's quest for Rodinsky - which took her to Poland, to Israel and around Jewish London - with Iain Sinclair's meditations on her journey into her own past and on the Whitechapel he has reinvented in his own writing. Rodinsky's Room is a testament to a world that has all but vanished, a homage to a unique culture and way of life.

Bestselling true-crime master Harold Schechter explores the real-life headline-making psychos, serial murderers, thrill-hungry couples, and lady-killers who inspired a century of classic films. The necktie murders in Alfred Hitchcock’s Frenzy; Chicago’s Jazz Age crime of passion; the fatal hookup in Looking for Mr. Goodbar; the high school horrors committed by the costumed slasher in Scream. These and other cinematic crimes have become part of pop-culture history. And each found inspiration in true events that provided the raw material for our greatest blockbusters, indie art films, black comedies, Hollywood classics, and grindhouse horrors. So what’s the reality behind Psycho, Badlands, The Hills Have Eyes, A Place in the Sun, Arsenic and Old Lace, and Dirty Harry? How did such tabloid-ready killers as Bonnie and Clyde, body snatchers Burke and Hare, Texas sniper Charles Whitman Jr., nurse-slayer Richard Speck, and Leopold and Loeb exert their power on the public imagination and become the stuff of movie lore? In this collection of revelatory essays, true-crime historian Harold Schechter takes a fascinating trip down the crossroads of fact and fiction to reveal the sensational real-life stories that are more shocking, taboo, and fantastic than even the most imaginative screenwriter can dream up.