Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose … A British icon delivers a powerful blockbuster in an exhilarating London underworld thriller. Martin Kemp, the music, film and TV legend creates fiction gold as he introduces fictional anti-hero Johnny Klein in a breathless, high-octane page-turner. Johnny Klein is a rock casualty, a fallen 1980s popstar who has lost everything — his family, his money and his fame. Thrown a lifeline by an old contact in the music business, Johnny doesn’t care what he is getting himself into. Dragged down into East London’s dark underbelly, Johnny discovers there is more at stake than his own shattered ego. Johnny hates being yesterday’s man but now he’s wishing he could disappear altogether. The party might be over, but there’s no escape from the past…

Ticket to the World is a joyous, nostalgic celebration of 80s culture from one man at the centre of it all. New Year’s Eve, 1979. My family and I stand arm in arm around our Formica kitchen table, counting down to the new decade with each televised chime of Big Ben. We have no idea what is about to hit us, no idea of the seismic waves of change approaching. The 80s transformed life as we knew it. Music, style and culture exploded in a haze of dayglo colour. There were hardships, but there were opportunities too. And I lived through – and helped to shape – Britain’s last real youth movement. Ticket to the World is my time-warp trip down memory lane, reliving that truly unforgettable decade. Join me as I recall what it was like to lead the New Romantics, stay up all night at the Blitz with Sade and Boy George, travel the world with Spandau Ballet and contribute to the era-defining Live Aid. So, grab that glass of Babycham and let’s toast the very best of the 80s: the creativity and the culture, the fashion and the FUN!

Throughout his long career, David Hockney has insistently explored diverse ways of depicting the visible world. He has scrutinised the methods of the old masters, and explored radical departures from their cherished assumptions. The exhibitions accompanied by this volume are the first to focus on this central theme in his art. 'Western art' from the Renaissance until at least the late 19th century has been dominated by the depiction of nature. Was this to be accomplished by direct looking (called “eyeballing� by Hockney) or with the assistance of optical theory and devices, such as cameras? Hockney has experimented with the full range of existing strategies, overtly using perspective in some of his classic pictures and rigorously investigating optical aids for the imitation of nature, including the camera obscura and camera lucida. Yet he has come to reject the photograph as the definitive image of what we see. Along the way, he has identified a 'camera culture' in European painting from 1400, arguing very controversially that the supreme naturalism of painters like Jan van Eyck are the product of optical devices. His book, Secret Knowledge (2001), with its majestic panorama of paintings over the course of five centuries, claims that art historians have missed the central aspect of painters’ practice. The 'Hockney thesis' has been received more favourably outside the professional world of art history than in it. His own artistic practice has been in vigorous dialogue with his radical thesis, and he has progressively demonstrated new and dynamic ways of characterising the visual world without perspective and other conventional techniques. This quest results a series of joyous challenges to our ways of seeing in the major exhibition in Cambridge at the Fitzwilliam Museum and in the Heong Gallery (Downing College). It will look at the whole span of Hockney’s varied career and at the nature of the optical devices he has tested. His vision will be explored in the setting of traditional masterpieces of naturalistic observation, and in the context of modern sciences and technologies of seeing. The first section of the book looks at his thrilling experiments in seeing and representing in broad historical and contemporary contexts. This is followed by discussions of pre-photographic devices for capturing the appearances of things by optical means. The third section includes essays on Hockney’s experiments from the perspectives of neuroscience and computer vision. In short, it reveals in a new way the working of Hockney’s unique eye.

Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Most Famous Painters, Sculptors and Architects (1550 and 1569) is a classic of cultural history. A monumental assembly of artists' lives from Giotto to Michelangelo, it paints a vivid picture of the progress of art in the hands of individual masters. No Life is more vivid than that of Leonardo, a near-contemporary of Vasari - not even Vasari's account of Michelangelo, whom he knew and idolized. This beautiful edition offers a literary translation that respects the 16th-century Italian, transposing Vasari's vocabulary into its modern equivalent. Martin Kemp is an eminent scholar, who has written on the vocabulary of Renaissance writings on art, and has co-translated Leonardo on Painting and Leonardo's Codex Leicester. Translated in partnership with Lucy Russell, the text will be the first to cover both the 1550 edition and the expanded version of 1568, and the first to integrate the texts of the two editions on the page. Discreet endnotes will provide succinct comments in the light of modern knowledge of Leonardo's career. Illustrated with all the works of art discussed by Vasari and a selection of Leonardo's studies of science and technology, this will be the perfect accompaniment to Leonardo's 500th anniversary celebrations.

Ticket to the World is a joyous, nostalgic celebration of 80s culture from one man at the centre of it all. New Year's Eve, 1979. My family and I stand arm in arm around our Formica kitchen table, counting down to the new decade with each televised chime of Big Ben. We have no idea what is about to hit us, no idea of the seismic waves of change approaching. The 80s transformed life as we knew it. Music, style and culture exploded in a haze of dayglo colour. There were hardships, but there were opportunities too. And I lived through - and helped to shape - Britain's last real youth movement. Ticket to the World is my time-warp trip down memory lane, reliving that truly unforgettable decade. Join me as I recall what it was like to lead the New Romantics, stay up all night at the Blitz with Sade and Boy George, travel the world with Spandau Ballet and contribute to the era-defining Live Aid. So, grab that glass of Babycham and let's toast the very best of the 80s: the creativity and the culture, the fashion and the FUN!

Ideas in Profile: Small Introductions to Big Topics Art has always been part of history. But we often think of it as outside history. When we look at a painting by Raphael, Rembrandt or Rubens it speaks to us directly, but it's also an historical document, part of a living world. Renowned art historian Martin Kemp takes the reader on an extraordinary trip through art, from devotional works to the revolutionary techniques of the Renaissance, from the courtly Masters of the seventeenth century through to the daring avant-garde of the twentieth century and beyond. Along the way we encounter the great names of art history: Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo; Vermeer and Velasquez; Picasso and Pollock. We get under the skin of the many 'isms', schools, styles and epochs. We see the complex sweep of art history with its innovations, collaborations, rivalries, break-throughs and masterpieces. Above all, Kemp puts art in context; art isn't about disembodied images, art itself is history. Part of the Ideas in Profile series, uniquely enlivened with animations and illustrations from the award winning studio Cognitive Media, Art in History is an indispensable, accessible and richly detailed guide to our culture, our history, our heritage and our art. Also available in two ebook formats. Please note that ISBN 9781782831020 is for the usual ebook format and 9781781254110 is for an enhanced edition with additional video and audio which should be used only with tablet devices that are capable of playing this additional content.

All 24 episodes from the first three series of the revived British sitcom starring Pauline Quirke, Linda Robson and Lesley Joseph. Sisters Sharon (Quirke) and Tracey (Robson) reunite in Chigwell at a signing for new book 'Sixty Shades of Green' and, much to their surprise, the author turns out to be Dorien (Joseph). Series 1 episodes are: 'Gimme Shelter', 'Slave', 'Hot Stuff', 'Hearts for Sale', 'Tattoo You', 'Blinded By Love', 'Back to Zero' and 'You Can't Always Get What You Want'. Series 2 episodes are: 'Birds On a Plane', 'There's Something About Sharon', 'Guess Who's Coming to Essex?', 'The Girls With the Pearl Buttons', 'Tracey's Choice', 'The Chief, the Cook, His Mum and Her Lodger', 'Without a Trace' and 'Spa Wars'. Series 3 episodes are: 'Knocking On Heaven's Door', 'Too Much of Nothing', 'Tombstone Blues', 'Going, Going, Gone', 'Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You', 'Abandoned Love', 'Blonde On Blonde' and 'Forever Young'.

Documentary about the rise, fall and reunion of the British new wave band Spandau Ballet. Featuring past performances, unseen archive footage and interviews with the band members, this documentary provides an insight into one of the most successful bands of the 1980s.

This volume represents an important tool for getting to know every aspect of Leonardo da Vinci's work: his pictorial technique, his scientific and technological investigation, his study on anatomy, his Codices, and every suggestion produced by his genius. All works and paintings are accompanied by descriptive and technical sheets, and ample space has been given to images and details, to the updated report on his most controversial works, to those of recent critical acceptance, and to the masterpieces that have animated the international debate such as The Encarnate Angel, the Salvator Mundi, and La Bella Principessa (Portrait of Bianca Sforza). The narrative captions reveal the most curious aspects of the history of each painting. Thanks to the direct contribution of collectors and museums the photographic reproductions of paintings and works reflect the last restorations. Text in English and French.

'A really emotional read... it's wonderful' - Zoe Ball, BBC Radio 2 'It's such a lovely book!' - Holly Willoughby, This Morning 'A lovely read... it's got everything - emotion and lots of laughs' - Alex Jones, The One Show 'A gorgeous book!' - Lorraine 'From Wham! to Spandau Ballet, from success to chaos in the blink of an eye - Martin and I are two ordinary people who have been on an extraordinary adventure together. Through it all, our commitment to each other and to our family is what has always mattered the most.' Shirlie Kemp With a heartwarming foreword by Noel Fitzpatrick,IT'S A LOVE STORY tells the incredible story of Martin and Shirlie Kemp - from the moment they set eyes on each other, through their stellar careers, to raising a family together. For the first time, fans and readers will have an insight into their journey together, the lessons they have learned in the spotlight and behind the scenes, and their secrets to success, happiness and raising a loving family. The book will uncover the personal highs and lows of Britain's favourite couple, and the unbreakable bond that has kept them strong, no matter how hard the fight gets. '40 years together has been filled with incredible highs, when every teenage dream and every wish literally came true, to the most horrifying of lows that belonged in our nightmares. Shirlie and I are always asked, "What's the secret to a long marriage?" - well, hopefully within the pages of this book we all might find the answer to that question!' Martin Kemp

'From Wham! to Spandau Ballet, from success to chaos in the blink of an eye - Martin and I are two ordinary people who have been on an extraordinary adventure together. Through it all, our commitment to each other and to our family is what has always mattered the most.' Shirlie Kemp With a heartwarming foreword by Noel Fitzpatrick, IT'S A LOVE STORY tells the incredible story of Martin and Shirlie Kemp from the moment they set eyes on each other, through their stellar careers, to raising a family together. For the first time, fans and readers will have an insight into their journey together, the lessons they have learned in the spotlight and behind the scenes, and their secrets to success, happiness and raising a loving family. The book will uncover the personal highs and lows of Britain's favourite couple, and the unbreakable bond that has kept them strong, no matter how hard the fight gets. '40 years together has been filled with incredible highs, when every teenage dream and every wish literally came true, to the most horrifying of lows that belonged in our nightmares. Shirlie and I are always asked, "What's the secret to a long marriage?" - well, hopefully within the pages of this book we all might find the answer to that question!' Martin Kemp

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) is one of the greatest European writers, whose untrammelled imaginative capacity was matched by a remarkable knowledge of the science of his era. His poems also paint compelling visual images. In Visions of Heaven, renowned scholar Martin Kemp investigates Dante's characterisation of divine light and its implications for the visual artists who were the inheritors of Dante's vision. The whole book may be regarded as a new paragone (comparison), the debate that began in the Renaissance about which of the arts is superior. Dante's ravishing accounts of divine light set painters the severest challenge, which it took them centuries to meet. A major theme running through Dante's Divine Comedy, particularly in its third book, the Paradiso, centres on Dante's acts of seeing. On earth his visual perceptions are conducted according to optical rules, while in heaven the poet's human senses are overwhelmed by light of divine origin, which does not obey his rules of mathematical optics. The repeated blinding of Dante by excessive light sets the tone for artists' striving to portray unseeable brightness. Raphael shows himself to be the greatest master of spiritual radiance, while Correggio works his radiant magic in his dome illusions in Parma Cathedral. When Gaulli evokes the glories of the name of Jesus in the huge vault of the Jesuit Church in Rome he does so with an ineffable light that explodes though encircling clusters of glowing angels, whose pink bodies are bleached by the extreme luminosity of the light source. Published to coincide with the 700th anniversary of Dante's death, this hugely original book combines a close reading of Dante's poetry with analysis of early optics and the art of the Renaissance and Baroque to create a fascinating, wide-ranging and visually exciting study.

In this pathbreaking and richly illustrated book, Martin Kemp examines the major optically oriented examples of artistic theory and practice from Brunelleschi's invention of perspective and its exploitation by Leonardo and Durer to the beginnings of photography. In a discussion of color theory, Kemp traces two main traditions of color science: the Aristotelian tradition of primary colors and Newton's prismatic theory that influenced Runge, Turner, and Seurat. His monumental book not only adds to our understanding of a large group of individual works of art but also provides valuable information for all those interested in the interaction between science and art. "This beautifully made volume . . . shows us the unity of the visual study of nature-the exalted mutual task of Renaissance science and art."-Scientific American "[A] wonderful book. . . . Martin Kemp has convincingly demonstrated that even the most diverse styles of Western art from the Renaissance to modern times remained ever enthralled by scientific optics. . . . [A] handsome volume."-Samuel Y. Edgerton, American Scientist "An extraordinarily ambitious, even daring, enterprise. . . . The book leaves us in no doubt about its author's expertise in both fields. It includes the most comprehensive account of the development of perspective theory and practice I know."-Thomas Puttfarken, Times Higher Education Supplement "Kemp has performed a valuable service. . . . His style is lucid and he emerges as an honest broker who judiciously weighs the historical evidence. He has an impressive command of the literature of both art and optical science across much of Europe and over a span of four centuries. . . . Kemp's thesis is amply illustrated with several hundred plates, including many of his own line drawings. . . . The reader is led gently through the history of art and the details of optical science to appreciate their interrelationship."-Geoffrey Cantor, Oxford Art Journal

'Study me reader, if you find delight in me...Come, O men, to see the miracles that such studies will disclose in nature.' Most of what we know about Leonardo da Vinci, we know because of his notebooks. Some 6,000 sheets of notes and drawings survive, which represent perhaps one-fifth of what he actually produced. In them he recorded everything that interested him in the world around him, and his study of how things work. With an artist's eye and a scientist's curiosity he studied the movement of water and the formation of rocks, the nature of flight and optics, anatomy, architecture, sculpture, and painting. He jotted down fables and letters and developed his belief in the sublime unity of nature and man. Through his notebooks we can get an insight into Leonardo's thoughts, and his approach to work and life. This selection offers a cross-section of his writings, organized around coherent themes. Fully updated, this new edition includes some 70 line drawings and a Preface by Martin Kemp, one of the world's leading authorities on Leonardo. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Martin Kemp stars as serial killer George Joseph Smith in this made-for-TV crime drama based on a true story. In order to accumulate wealth Smith commits bigamy under various pseudonyms and kills three of his wives between 1910 and 1915. He tries to make it look as though the women died by accidentally drowning in their bathtubs but the deaths are eventually linked with Detective Inspector Arthur Neil (Alan McKenna) working to solve the case.

To commemorate the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci's death, world-renowned da Vinci expert Martin Kemp explores 100 of the master's milestones in art, science, engineering, architecture, anatomy, and more. Leonardo da Vinci was born in the small Tuscan town of Vinci in April 1452. Over the centuries, he has become one of the most famous people in the history of visual culture. Spring 2019 marks the 500th anniversary of his death in May 1519, with exhibitions and events planned across Europe and the United States. This lavishly illustrated volume by Martin Kemp--one of the world's leading authorities on da Vinci--offers a fresh way of looking at the master's work. Kemp focuses on 100 key, broadly chronological milestones that cover an extraordinary range of topic across Leonardo's many fields of discipline: painting, where he brought new levels of formal and emotional grandeur to his works, including The Last Supper and Portrait of Lisa del Giocondo (the "Mona Lisa"); anatomical studies, which are extraordinary for their sense of form and function (Studies of the Optics of the Human Eye and Ventricles of the Brain); engineering marvels, noted for their range and extraordinary visual quality (Gearing for a Clockwork Mechanism and Wheels without Axles and Designs for a Flying Machine); and his progressive engagement with a range of sciences--anatomy, optics, dynamics, statics, geology, and mathematics.

Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose … A British icon delivers a powerful blockbuster in an exhilarating London underworld thriller. Martin Kemp, the music, film and TV legend creates fiction gold as he introduces fictional anti-hero Johnny Klein in a breathless, high-octane page-turner. Johnny Klein is a rock casualty, a fallen 1980s popstar who has lost everything — his family, his money and his fame. Thrown a lifeline by an old contact in the music business, Johnny doesn’t care what he is getting himself into. Dragged down into East London’s dark underbelly, Johnny discovers there is more at stake than his own shattered ego. Johnny hates being yesterday’s man but now he’s wishing he could disappear altogether. The party might be over, but there’s no escape from the past…

This new edition of Leonardo Da Vinci's Codex Leicester is the most comprehensive scholarly edition of any of Leonardo's manuscripts. It contains a high-quality facsimile reproduction of the Codex, a new transcription and translation, accompanied by a paraphrase in modern language and a page-by-page commentary, and a series of interpretative essays. This important endeavour introduces important new research into the interpretation of the texts and images, on the setting of Leonardo's ideas in the context of ancient and medieval theories, and above all into the notable fortunes of the Codex within the sciences of astronomy, water, and the history of the earth, opening a new field of research into the impact of Leonardo as a scientist after his death.

From jewellery designers to scientists, graphic artists to naturalists, the range of people inspired by Ernst Haeckel's illustrations continues to grow. Following up on Prestel's Art Forms in Nature and Art Forms from the Ocean, this new collection features startlingly beautiful images created by Haeckel, who was commissioned to contribute to the report of the HMS Challenger expedition, which circumnavigated the world from 1872-76. The Challenger's achievements were unparalleled, with nearly 5,000 new species discovered and catalogued from the depths of Earth's oceans. Full-page reproductions bring these organisms colourfully to life, drawing readers into a world at once hypnotic and highly ordered. Divided into three sections-Siphonophores, Medusae and Radiolarians-these illustrations display Haeckel's remarkable artistic skill and understanding of the architecture of organic matter. The authors provide a brief history of the Challenger expedition, background on Haeckel's scientific and artistic accomplishments, as well as informative texts on each group of organisms.A guide to the natural world and an inspiration to artists of every stripe, this collection of Haeckel's work is a fitting tribute to a 19th century genius.

The Roman author Pliny tells the story - well known in the Renaissance - of the famous Greek painter Apelles hiding behind one of his pictures to overhear the comments of spectators. Martin Kemp takes this motif as an effective point of entry into the problem of what lies behind the business of picture-making in the Renaissance, in particular the role of the artist and the function of works of art in relation to their various kinds of audience. Kemp examines a wealth of visual and written evidence, making sense of the often contradictory implications of the contemporary sources that survive for the same artist and indeed for the same work of art. He points out that whereas artists' contracts suggest the cobbler at work and inventories suggest that the products of painters were considerably less valued than those of bed manufacturers, the rise of written theory and the web of criticism woven by humanist authors increasingly depict the artist as an intellectual, as a philosopher-poet with respect to subject matter, and as a scientific investigator of natural appearances.Kemp provides us with an introductory text on Italian Renaissance art that brings the period alive through extensive quotations from original sources. Giving access to a range of traditional and more recent concerns in art history through the application of various approaches to specific sets of raw material, this book is an important and illuminating contribution to current debates in cultural history. Martin Kemp is professor of art history at the University of Oxford and author of 'Leonardo on Painting', 'Leonardo da Vinci' and 'The Science of Art', all published by Yale University Press.

Read this book and the world's most famous image will never look the same again. For the world's greatest cultural icon still has secrets to reveal - not the silly secrets that the 'Leonardo loonies' continue to advance, but previously unknown facts about the lives of Leonardo, his father, Lisa Gherardini, the subject of the portrait, and her husband Francesco del Giocondo. From this factual beginning we see how the painting metamorphosed into a 'universal picture' that became the prime vehicle for Leonardo's prodigious knowledge of the human and natural worlds. We learn about the new money of the ambitious merchant who married into the old gentry of Lisa's family. We discover Lisa's life as a wife and mother, her association with sexual scandals, and her later life in a convent. We meet, for the first time, previously undiscovered members of Leonardo's immediate family and discover new information about his early life. The tiny hill town of Vinci is placed before us, with its widespread poverty. We find out about the career and possessions of his father, a notable lawyer in Florence. The meaning of the portrait that resulted from these human circumstances is vividly illuminated though Renaissance love poetry and verses specifically dedicated to Leonardo. We come to understand how Leonardo's sciences of optics, psychology, anatomy and geology are embraced in his poetic science of art. Recent scientific examinations of the painting disclose how it evolved to assume its present appearance in Leonardo's experimental hands. Above all, we cut through the suppositions and the myths to show that the portrait is a product of real people in a real place at a real time. This is the book that brings back a sense of reality into the creation of the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo. And the actual Mona Lisa, it turns out, is even more astonishing and transcendent than the Mona Lisa of legend.

The Salvator Mundi is the first Leonardo painting to be discovered for over a century. Following its re-emergence, it played a leading role in the landmark Leonardo exhibition at the National Gallery in London in 2011, after which it was purchased by a Russian oligarch. In 2017 it was auctioned by Christie's in New York, fetching the world record price of $450m, and now forms part of the collection of Louvre Abu Dhabi. The Salvator Mundi may be seen as the devotional counterpart to the Mona Lisa, having an extraordinary, communicative presence. The artist has reformed the very traditional subject matter in a number of ways. The elusiveness of Christ's expression suggests his spiritual origins beyond the world of the senses. The traditional sphere of the earth has been transformed into a rock-crystal orb and signifies a crystalline sphere of the heavens. In addition to its spiritual dimension, the image exploits Leonardo's optical knowledge and his growing sense of the illusiveness of seeing. Only the blessing hand is in reasonably sharp focus, with his features softly veiled. The scintillating curls of his hair are characterised in line with his theory that the physics of the curling of hair is analogous to vortex motion in water. This book looks at evidence of Leonardo's Salvator Mundi in the collections of Charles I and Charles II. It explores the appraisal of works by Leonardo at the Stuart courts, and proposes that how works attributed to Leonardo were first encountered and understood in seventeenth-century Britain would shape the wider evolution of Leonardo as a cultural icon. This volume gives a dramatic first-hand account of the modern-day discovery of the painting, from its purchase in a minor New Orleans auction house, to the cleaning of the picture that would disclose it as Leonardo's startling original, and the research processes that would uncover illustrious and obscure former owners. The book presents the definitive study of the new masterpiece.

Alberti wrote De Pictura in Latin in 1435 and in true Renaissance spirit made an Italian translation the following year.

He unfolds his theories step by step. In Book One he explains the process of vision, in Book Two he sets out ‘to instruct the painter how he can present with his hand what he has understood with his mind’. Book Three stipulates the moral and artistic prerequisites of the painter.

The genius of De Pictura surfaced almost immediately – signs are there in Ghiberti’s Baptistery Doors in Florence, in the paintings of Fra Angelico and Domenico Veneziano – and it remains a living classic of art theory.

This edition at last makes widely available Cecil Grayson’s translation from the Latin, the best English version of Alberti’s text. It contains diagrams integrated into the text and an introduction by Martin Kemp which discusses De Pictura in the light of Alberti’s life and philosophy.