With Barry Flanagan is a vivid account of a friendship that evolved into a working relationship when Richard McNeff became 'spontaneous fixer' (Flanagan's description) of the sculptor's show held in June 1992 at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Ibiza, where they were both living. McNeff was to gain a privileged insight into the sculptor's singular personality and eccentric working methods, learning to decipher his memorably surreal turns of phrase and to parry his fascinating, if at times unsettling, pranksteresque quirks . In September 1992 Flanagan and McNeff took the show to Majorca, resulting a lively visit to the celebrated Spanish artist Miquel Barcelo. The following year McNeff was involved in Flanagan's print- making venture in Barcelona and in his Madrid retrospective. Flanagan rescued him from a rough landing in England in 1994 by commissioning a tour of stone quarries there. Subsequently McNeff ran into a fourteen- year-old profoundly deaf girl who turned out to be his unknown daughter. She had a talent for art and the superbly generous sculptor was instrumental in helping with her studies. Late in 2008 Barry was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. By June 2009 he was wheelchair- bound. Two months later he died, and McNeff read the lesson at his funeral. Fleshed out with biographical detail, much of it supplied by the sculptor himself, supplemented by photographs and details of the work, this touching memoir is the first retrospective of a major Welsh-born artist. With Barry Flanagan captures the spirit of this remarkable Merlinesque figure in a moving portrait that reveals a true original.

By 1650, the spiritual and political power of the Catholic Church was shattered. Thanks to the twin blows of the Protestant Reformation and the Thirty Years War, Rome, celebrated both as the Eternal City and Caput Mundi (the head of the world) had lost its pre-eminent place in Europe. Then a new Pope, Alexander VII, fired with religious zeal, political guile and a mania for building, determined to restore the prestige of his church by making Rome the must-visit destination for Europe's intellectual, political and cultural elite. To help him do so, he enlisted the talents of Gianlorenzo Bernini, already celebrated as the most important living artist: no mean feat in the age of Rubens, Rembrandt and Velazquez. Together, Alexander VII and Bernini made the greatest artistic double act in history, inventing the concept of soft power and the bucket list destination. Bernini and Alexander's creation of Baroque Rome as a city more beautiful and grander than since the days of the Emperor Augustus continues to delight and attract.

Architectural sculpture, virtually abandoned for five hundred years following the demise of the Roman Empire, was revivified on the portals of Romanesque churches in eleventh and twelfth-century France and Spain. Long overdue is a reappraisal of those images whose aesthetic of rendering the invisible visible establish them as valuable witnesses to the culture of Europe in the Middle Ages. Countless losses, mutilation through wilful destruction, centuries of accumulated grime, and a dearth of studies in English have impeded the deserved realization and appreciation of these magnificent works of art. Through illustration and illuminative interpretation, Romanesque Sculpture An Ecstatic Art fills the void by tracing the beginnings, maturation, and efflorescence of monumental sculptured facades in the short-lived Romanesque era. Depictions on them are mirrors of the age: sophisticated theological messages, monastic life, the cult of relics, pilgrimages, crusades and politics. The survey considers too the sculptors, mostly anonymous, who in adapting models from several media - both antique and current - created a unique visual vocabulary. The beauty of the sculptures comes to the fore. The stones live

CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI

Constantin Brancusi is one of the greatest of all sculptors, and a key sculptor of the modern era, with Auguste Rodin and Pablo Picasso. Brancusi's influence can be seen in a wide range of Western sculptors, including Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Henry Moore, Jean Arp, Barbara Hepworth, Minimalists and land artists.

This new book studies the religious and mythical dimensions of Constantin Brancusi's distinctive scultpural forms, the 'eggs', 'fishes', 'heads' and 'columns'. His central quest was for the 'essence of things', which resulted in purifying a form until only the essence was left.

It was Constantin Brancusi's project to strip away the detritus that had accumulated around sculpture, Henry Moore said, and to offer the pure, simple shape. What Brancusi did was 'to concentrate on very simple shapes, to keep his sculpture, as it were, one-cylindered, to refine and polish a single shape to a degree almost too precious.'

As well as being a sculptor, Constantin Brancusi was also an accomplished photographer. Quite a few artists (not all of them sculptors) have expressed for Brancusi's photographs, and the way he would set up his sculptures inhis studio and photograph them at particular times of the day, when the lightingwas just right. They are early examples of installation art (and some of the best, too). Andy Goldsworthy said he admired how Brancusi created the right conditions in his studio so that his work 'comes alive at a particular time of the day as the light momentarily touches it'. For Goldsworthy, Brancusi's works were at their best when they were arranged by the sculptor in his studio and photographed. Somehow, it wasn't quite the same when they were displayed in modern art museums (such as the Pompidou Centre in Paris or the Museum of Modern Art in Gotham, which have important Brancusi pieces).

Fully illustrated, including many photos of Brancusi's studio in Paris, and the art of his contemporaries.

Sculpture in Print, 1480-1600 is the first in-depth study dedicated to the intriguing history of the translation of statues and reliefs into print. The multitude of engravings, woodcuts and etchings show a highly creative handling of the 'original' antique or contemporary work of art. The essays in this volume reflect these various approaches to and challenges of translating sculpture in print. They analyze foremost the beginnings of the phenomenon in Italian and Northern Renaissance prints and they highlight by means of case studies amongst many other topics the interrelated terminology between sculpture and print, lost models in print, the inventive handling of fragments, as well as the transformation of statues into narrative contexts.

The Drosten stone - one of Scotland's premier monuments - came to light during restoration work at St Vigeans church, near Arbroath, in the 1870s. A rare example of Pictish writing, the Drosten stone is just one in an astounding collection of exquisitely preserved Pictish sculptures discovered in and around the church. The carvings on these stones revel in Pictish inventiveness, teeming with lively naturalistic animals and innovative compositions of monsters and people, as well as both Pictish symbols and everyday objects. The sculptures' iconography also draws on a deep knowledge of Christian and classical literature, witness to a highly literate and cosmopolitan society. This definitive study of St Vigeans' Pictish stones, generously illustrated with plates of the full collection, begins in the recent past, when the sculptures began to emerge as a remarkable historic entity. It then explores the history of the sculptures, including an analysis of the carvings, the geology of the stones and attempts to extract meaning and context for this unique stone collection as part of a powerful ecclesiastical landscape.

This study of the monument of Godfrey of Bouillon offers new insights to the political uses of public monuments devoted to figures from the past, modern uses and appropriations of the Middle Ages, and the role of historical culture in the creation of national identity. On 15 August 1848, a bronze equestrian statue of the crusading hero Godfrey of Bouillon (d.1100) was unveiled in the Place Royale in Brussels, Belgium's capital. Conceived and largely funded by the national government, its creation was a major element in a programme of political and cultural consolidation put into place after the Belgian Revolution (1830-1831) and the consequent establishment of the nation's independence. From the outset, the monument was designed to transmit ideas about history and nationhood, and functioned as a focal point in discussions of politics, language, religion and identity. This book sheds new light on a range of dynamics in nineteenth-century Belgium, using the statue as a prism; it investigates responses to it both home and abroad, and traces broader national interest in the commemoration of Godfrey, adopted as a national hero despite being born almost 800 years before the emergence of the state. Above all, it reveals that Belgian politics and culture in this period were profoundly shaped by a sustained interest in the Middle Ages, and by efforts to shape a historical narrative that traced Belgian nationhood back to that era, and beyond.

New and better than ever, Launching the Imagination treats design as both a verb and a noun - as both a process and a product. Design is deliberate - a process of exploring multiple solutions and choosing the most promising option. Through an immersion in 2-D concepts students are encouraged to develop methods of thinking visually that will serve them throughout their studies and careers. Building on strengths of the previous five editions Launching the Imagination 6e is even more: Concise. Content has been refined so that maximum content can be communicated as clearly and concisely as possible. Colorful. In addition to the full color used throughout the book, the writing is livelier than that in most textbooks. Analogies expand communication, and every visual example has been carefully selected for maximum impact. Comprehensive. Launching the Imagination is the only foundational text with full sections devoted to critical and creative thinking and to time-based design. The photo program is global, represents a myriad of stylistic approaches, and prominently features design and media arts as well as more traditional art forms. Contemporary. More than half of the visual examples represent artworks completed since 1970, and over 100 represent works completed since 2000 Compelling. Interviews with exemplars of creativity have always been an important feature of this book. Three of the best past profiles have been revised and a new profile has been added. Now inserted into the body of the text, each interview deliberately builds on its chapter content. In Chapter Five, designer Steve Quinn describes the seven-step sequence he uses in developing websites, logos, and motion graphics. In Chapter 8, Jim Elniski describes The Greenhouse Chicago, an innovative home that is both highly energy efficient and elegant. In Chapter 11, ceramicist David MacDonald describes his influences and work process. And, in the new profile in Chapter 6, artist Sara Mast describes an ambitious art and science collaboration begun in celebration of the ideas of Albert Einstein. We have also added a new feature called Success Stories. These short interviews explore connections between foundational coursework and career success. In Chapter Five, Elizabeth Nelson discusses her wide-ranging design work at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. Jason Chin's interview in Chapter Seven connects directly to his self-designed project in the Self Assignment feature earlier in the chapter. As a freshman at Syracuse University, he completed this ambitious illustration project as the final project in a Two-Dimensional Design course. He describes his current work as a professional illustrator. Almost fifty new images have been added, representing major contemporary artists and designers including Wolfgang Buttress, Do Ho Suh, Garo Antresian, Janet Ballweg, Phoebe Morris, Alain Cornu, and Natalya Zahn.