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The Romare Bearden Reader by
The Romare Bearden Reader brings together a collection of new essays and canonical writings by novelists, poets, historians, critics, and playwrights. The contributors, who include Toni Morrison, Ralph Ellison, August Wilson, Farah Jasmine Griffin, and Kobena Mercer, contextualize Bearden's life and career within the history of modern art, examine the influence of jazz and literature on his work, trace his impact on twentieth-century African American culture, and outline his art's political dimensions. Others focus on specific pieces, such as A Black Odyssey, or the ways in which Bearden used collage to understand African American identity. The Reader also includes Bearden's most important writings, which grant readers insight into his aesthetic values and practices and share his desire to tell what it means to be black in America. Put simply, The Romare Bearden Reader is an indispensable volume on one of the giants of twentieth-century American art. Contributors. Elizabeth Alexander, Romare Bearden, Mary Lee Corlett, Rachel DeLue, David C. Driskell, Brent Hayes Edwards, Ralph Ellison, Henri Ghent, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Harry Henderson, Kobena Mercer, Toni Morrison, Albert Murray, Robert G. O'Meally, Richard Powell, Richard Price, Sally Price, Myron Schwartzman, Robert Burns Stepto, Calvin Tomkins, John Edgar Wideman, August Wilson
An American Odyssey by
One of the most important and underappreciated visual artists of the twentieth century, Romare Bearden started as a cartoonist during his college years and emerged as a painter during the 1930s, at the tail end of the Harlem Renaissance and in time to be part of a significant community ofblack artists supported by the WPA. Though light-skinned and able to "pass," Bearden embraced his African heritage, choosing to paint social realist canvases of African-American life. After World War II, he became one of a handful of black artists to exhibit in a private gallery - the commercialoutlet that would form the core of the American art world's post-war marketplace. Rejecting Abstract Expressionism, he lived briefly in Paris. After he suffered a nervous breakdown, Bearden returned to New York, turning to painting just as the civil rights movement was gaining ground with the 1954Brown v. Board of Education and the Montgomery bus boycott. By the time of the March on Washington in 1963, Bearden had begun to experiment with collage - or Projection, as he called it - the medium for which he would ultimately become famous.In Romare Bearden: A Reconstructed Life, Mary Schmidt Campbell offers readers an enlightening analysis of Bearden's influences and the thematic focus of his mature work. Bearden's work provides an exquisite portrait of memory and the African American past; according to Campbell, it also offers arecord of the narrative impact of visual imagery in the twentieth century, revealing how the emerging popularity of photography, film and television depicted African Americans during their struggle to be recognized as full citizens of the United States.
Romare Bearden, his life & art by
A full-length biographical and critical study of Romare Bearden, one of America's best-known collagists. It includes conversations between the author and artist as well as reminiscences by the artist's friends, family and colleagues.
Mercy, Mercy Me African-American culture and the American sixties by
Using an interdisciplinary approach, this book argues that American artistry in the 1960s can be understood as one of the most vital and compelling interrogations of modernity. James C. Hall finds that the legacy of slavery and the resistance to it have by necessity made African Americansamong the most incisive critics and celebrants of the Enlightenment inheritance. Focusing on the work of six individuals--Robert Hayden, William Demby, Paule Marshall, John Coltrane, Romare Bearden, and W.E.B. DuBois--Mercy, Mercy Me seeks to recover an American tradition of evaluating the"dialectic of the Enlightenment."
Romare Bearden, American Modernist by
Romare Bearden (1911-1988) was a modernist artist renowned for his experimental and socially conscious works. Bearden is best known for his paintings and collages but also made significant contributions to the fields of printmaking, theatrical design, film, and other visual formats. While acknowledging the artist's place in African-American art history, where he has received his primary recognition, the fourteen essays collected in this volume seek to establish Bearden's role within the broader framework of American modernism in political, social, philosophical, and aesthetic contexts. These essays, written by distinguished scholars, track Bearden's cultural concerns and artistic evolution, from his early political cartoons to his important relationships with preeminent practitioners in the fields of literature, music, theater, and dance. His universal themes are viewed through multiple lenses, distinguishing him as a major figure of culturally and socially engaged modernism in the 20th century.
Intimate geometries : The art and life of Louise Bourgeois by 
After the Revolution: Women who transformed contemporary art by
Now available in a revised and fully updated edition, this book examines the rise of women artists in the late 20th century, viewed through the work of 12 key figures. "Why have there been no great women artists?" asked the prominent art historian Linda Nochlin in an intentionally provocative 1971 essay. In this book, four prominent critics and curators describe the strides made by women artists since the advent of the feminist movement and assess the changes that have occurred in their critical reception, commercial appeal, and institutional support. Following a comprehensive essay that looks back at the recent history of women artists, the authors examine the careers of an international selection of artists--Marina Abramovic', Louise Bourgeois, Ellen Gallagher, Ann Hamilton, Jenny Holzer, Elizabeth Murray, Shirin Neshat, Judy Pfaff, Dana Schutz, Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith, and Nancy Spero--considering each figure's accomplishments and her influence on contemporaries and younger artists.
Broad Strokes by
Historically, major women artists have been excluded from the mainstream art canon. Aligned with the resurgence of feminism in pop culture,Broad Strokes offers an entertaining corrective to that omission. Art historian Bridget Quinn delves into the lives and careers of 15 brilliant female artists in text that's smart, feisty, educational, and an enjoyable read. Replete with beautiful reproductions of the artists' works and contemporary portraits of each artist by renowned illustrator Lisa Congdon, this is art history from 1600 to the present day for the modern art lover, reader, and feminist.
Louise Bourgeois by
One of the century's most distinguished artists, Louise Bourgeois is an utterly unique figure. Born in Paris in 1911, Bourgeois spent most of her career receiving little recognition from the art community. She has worked closely to many of the century's key artistic moments, from Surrealism to Abstract Expressionism to feminist art, and yet she remains distinct from all of them. An extraordinarily influential sculptor, she has worked, often experimentally, with materials varying from alabaster, plaster, latex, bronze and marble. Bourgeois is equally admired for her intimate drawings, often combining fragments of text, and her highly personal writings, which often address her long and complex life story. With the backdrop of a conflicted and sexually complicated family upbringing, her struggles as an artist in a world reserved for men, as well as her experiences as a mother, the subject of her work is as broad as the materials in which she expresses them. As a figure of outstanding significance in contemporary art, her stature has been recognized by such awards as the American National Medal of the Arts (1991), the French Grand Prix National de Sculpture (1991) and the Venice Biennale's Golden Lion Prize (1999), among others. Critic Paulo Herkenhoff (with Thyra Goodeve) has been in discussion with Bourgeois for many years. Topics in their Interview range from her troubled relationship with her father, to men's fashions, to her recollections of Marcel Duchamp, whom she knew personally. Critic and curator Robert Storr's Survey chronicles the unique trajectory of Bourgeois' work and life from a highly personal point of view. In his Focus, critic Allan Schwartzman concentrates on Cell (You Better Grow Up) (1993), an intense cage-like space. For her Artist's Choice Bourgeois has selected extracts from the novel Bonjour Tristesse(1954) by Francoise Sagan, whose story about a young girl's response to her father's amorous relationships parallels to some degree the artist's own childhood experiences. The Artist's Writings include an early text, 'The Puritan', from 1947, alongside discussions of her own work, autobiographical writings and artist's projects.
Abstract Expressionists: the Women by 
Artemisia Gentileschi: The image of the female hero in Italian Baroque art by
Artemisia Gentileschi, widely regarded as the most important woman artist before the modern period, was a major Italian Baroque painter of the seventeenth century and the only female follower of Caravaggio. This first full-length study of her life and work shows that her powerfully original treatments of mythic-heroic female subjects depart radically from traditional interpretations of the same themes.
Broad Strokes by
Historically, major women artists have been excluded from the mainstream art canon. Aligned with the resurgence of feminism in pop culture,Broad Strokes offers an entertaining corrective to that omission. Art historian Bridget Quinn delves into the lives and careers of 15 brilliant female artists in text that's smart, feisty, educational, and an enjoyable read. Replete with beautiful reproductions of the artists' works and contemporary portraits of each artist by renowned illustrator Lisa Congdon, this is art history from 1600 to the present day for the modern art lover, reader, and feminist.
A Companion to Renaissance and Baroque Art by
A Companion to Renaissance and Baroque Art provides a diverse, fresh collection of accessible, comprehensive essays addressing key issues for European art produced between 1300 and 1700, a period that might be termed the beginning of modern history. Presents a collection of original, in-depth essays from art experts that address various aspects of European visual arts produced from circa 1300 to 1700 Divided into five broad conceptual headings: Social-Historical Factors in Artistic Production; Creative Process and Social Stature of the Artist; The Object: Art as Material Culture; The Message: Subjects and Meanings; and The Viewer, the Critic, and the Historian: Reception and Interpretation as Cultural Discourse Covers many topics not typically included in collections of this nature, such as Judaism and the arts, architectural treatises, the global Renaissance in arts, the new natural sciences and the arts, art and religion, and gender and sexuality Features essays on the arts of the domestic life, sexuality and gender, and the art and production of tapestries, conservation/technology, and the metaphor of theater Focuses on Western and Central Europe and that territory's interactions with neighboring civilizations and distant discoveries Includes illustrations as well as links to images not included in the book
Differencing the Canon by
In this major book, Griselda Pollock engages boldly in the culture wars over `what is the canon?` and `what difference can feminism make?` Do we simply reject the all-male line-up and satisfy our need for ideal egos with an all women litany of artistic heroines? Or is the question a chance to resist the phallocentric binary and allow the ambiguities and complexities of desire - subjectivity and sexuality - to shape the readings of art that constantly displace the present gender demarcations?
Italian Women Artists of the Renaissance and Baroque by
Why are women artists of the Italian Renaissance and Baroque so relatively unknown today when, during their lifetimes, their artistic merits were celebrated by their foremost contemporaries? Italian Women Artists of the Renaissance and Baroque aims to provide the first survey of women professionally active as painters, engravers and sculptors in 16th and 17th century Italy, and to document the sociocultural context that contributed to shape their lives and oeuvres. This catalogue, published in association with the travelling exhibition which opens at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington D. C., examines the artistic practices and achievements of these remarkable women who managed to gain public, if not international, acclaim. Featuring 60 outstanding works by a dozen of the foremost Italian female artists, this volume offers an unparalleled opportunity to understand their social, personal, and stylistic developments. This scholarly publication will undoubtedly make a significant contribution to the re-emergence of these women as artists of stature and thus constitute a new departure for historical investigations into the way gender has affected how we perceive works of art and into issues of attributions and art market economics.
Artemisia Gentileschi by
Hailed as one of the most influential and expressive painters of the seventeenth century, Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-ca. 1656) has figured prominently in the art historical discourse of the past two decades. This attention to Artemisia, after many years of scholarly neglect, is partially due to interest in the dramatic details of her early life, including the widely publicized rape trial of her painting tutor, Agostino Tassi, and her admission to Florence's esteemed Accademia del Disegno. While the artist's early paintings have been extensively discussed, her later work has been largely dismissed. This beautifully illustrated and elegantly written book provides a revolutionary look at Artemisia's later career, refuting longstanding assumptions about the artist. The fact that she was semi-illiterate has erroneously led scholars to assume a lack of literary and cultural education on her part. Stressing the importance of orality in Baroque culture and in Artemisia's paintings, Locker argues for her important place in the cultural dialogue of the seventeenth century.
Encyclopedia of Native American Artists by
Indigenous North Americans have continuously made important contributions to the field of art in the U.S. and Canada, yet have been severely under-recognized and under-represented. Native artists work in diverse media, some of which are considered art (sculpture, painting, photography), while others have been considered craft (works on cloth, basketry, ceramics).Some artists feel strongly about working from a position as a Native artist, while others prefer to produce art not connected to a particular cultural tradition.
Jeffrey Gibson: Like a Hammer by
Featuring work from the past decade by Jeffrey Gibson, one of America's most prominent contemporary artists, this monograph shows how he blends American Indian and Western cultural influences and explores issues of identity, alternative sub-cultures, post-colonialism, and marginalisation. A citizen of the Mississippi Choctaw Nation and part Cherokee, Jeffrey Gibson spent time in Germany, England, and Korea in his youth. This mix of cultures informs much of his work, which combines elements from historical and contemporary Native arts and traditions, such as powwow regalia and the use of animal skins, with those from the artistic traditions of Modernism, Geometric Abstraction, and Minimalism. As a gay Native artist, Gibson explores in his work issues of oppression and civil rights in America, as well as universal ideas of love, community, strength, vulnerability, and survival. This magnificent volume focuses on nearly 60 works completed in the last decade, including culturally adorned punching bags, three-dimensional figurative works, text-based wall hangings, painted works on rawhide and canvas, and light and video works. AUTHOR: John P. Lukavic is Associate Curator of Native Arts at the Denver Art Museum. SELLING POINTS: * Artist: Jeffrey Gibson is an American contemporary artist with part Choctaw and part Cherokee roots. He incorporates his heritage into his works, along with influences from Western and American art, modern and contemporary art, craft, and popular culture. * Illustrations: 85 colour illustrations. * Essays: Includes essays by leading scholars in the contemporary and American Indian art fields. * Comprehensive: The first monograph to detail in depth Gibson's career and body of work.
Jeffrey Gibson by
This generously illustrated book explores new developments in Jeffrey Gibson's recent work. Through painting, sculpture, installation, and film, Jeffrey Gibson brings together overlapping and conflicting cultures, histories, and aesthetics. Most recently he has explored notions of cultural and personal identity as they are communicated through aspects of adornment and dress. Highlighting his work from 2014 through 2018, including a series of garments and an original film that will debut as part of the accompanying exhibition at the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art, this volume offers fresh insight into Gibson's approach, which melds the artist's Native American heritage with popular culture. Curated by Tracy L. Adler, Johnson-Pote Director of the Wellin Museum of Art, this selection of over fifty works features punching bags, paintings, beaded panels, and ceramics, among other works of art. An interview with Gibson by Adler and essays by Jane Panetta and Lowery Stokes Sims round out this beautiful book. AUTHOR: Tracy L. Adler is Director of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College in Clinton, NY. 75 illustrations
An Indigenous Present by 
Goya:Order & disorder by
Francisco Goya has been widely celebrated as the most important Spanish artist of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the last of the Old Masters and the first of the Moderns, and an astute observer of the human condition in all its complexity. The many-layered and shifting meanings of his imagery have made him one of the most studied artists in the world. Few, however, have made the ambitious attempt to explore his work as a painter, printmaker, and draftsman across media and the timeline of his life. This book does just that, presenting a comprehensive and integrated view of Goya through the themes that continually challenged or preoccupied him, and revealing how he strove relentlessly to understand and describe human behavior and emotions even at their most orderly or disorderly extremes. Derived from the research for the largest Goya art exhibition in North America in a quarter century, this book takes a fresh look at one of the greatest artists in history by examining the fertile territory between the two poles that defined the range of his boundlessly creative personality.
Goya by
Robert Hughes, who has stunned us with comprehensive works on subjects as sweeping and complex as the history of Australia (The Fatal Shore), the modern art movement (The Shock of the New), the nature of American art (American Visions), and the nature of America itself as seen through its art (The Culture of Complaint), now turns his renowned critical eye to one of art history's most compelling, enigmatic, and important figures, Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes. With characteristic critical fervor and sure-eyed insight, Hughes brings us the story of an artist whose life and work bridged the transition from the eighteenth-century reign of the old masters to the early days of the nineteenth-century moderns. With his salient passion for the artist and the art, Hughes brings Goya vividly to life through dazzling analysis of a vast breadth of his work. Building upon the historical evidence that exists, Hughes tracks Goya's development, as man and artist, without missing a beat, from the early works commissioned by the Church, through his long, productive, and tempestuous career at court, to the darkly sinister and cryptic work he did at the end of his life. In a work that is at once interpretive biography and cultural epic, Hughes grounds Goya firmly in the context of his time, taking us on a wild romp through Spanish history; from the brutality and easy violence of street life to the fiery terrors of the Holy Inquisition to the grave realities of war, Hughes shows us in vibrant detail the cultural forces that shaped Goya's work. Underlying the exhaustive, critical analysis and the rich historical background is Hughes's own intimately personal relationship to his subject. This is a book informed not only by lifelong love and study, but by his own recent experiences of mortality and death. As such this is a uniquely moving and human book; with the same relentless and fearless intelligence he has brought to every subject he has ever tackled, Hughes here transcends biography to bring us a rich and fiercely brave book about art and life, love and rage, impotence and death. This is one genius writing at full capacity about another--and the result is truly spectacular.
Goya by
This intriguing book on Goya concentrates on the closing years of the eighteenth century as a neglected milestone in his life. Goya waited until 1799 to publish his celebrated series of drawings, the Caprichos, which offered a personal vision of the "world turned upside down". Victor I. Stoichita and Anna Maria Coderch consider how themes of Revolution and Carnival (both seen as inversions of the established order) were obsessions in Spanish culture in this period, and make provocative connections between the close of the 1700s and the end of the Millennium. Particular emphasis is placed on the artist's links to the underground tradition of the grotesque, the ugly and the violent. Goya's drawings, considered as a personal and secret laboratory, are foregrounded in a study that also reinterprets his paintings and engravings in the cultural context of his time.
Francisco Goya by
Goya is perhaps the most approachable of painters. His art, like his life, is an open book. He concealed nothing from his contemporaries, and offered his art to them with the same frankness. The entrance to his world is not barricaded with technical difficulties. He proved that if a man has the capacity to live and multiply his experiences, to fight and work, he can produce great art without classical decorum and traditional respectability. He was born in 1746, in Fuendetodos, a small mountain village of a hundred inhabitants. As a child he worked in the fields with his two brothers and his sister until his talent for drawing put an end to his misery. At fourteen, supported by a wealthy patron, he went to Saragossa to study with a court painter and later, when he was nineteen, on to Madrid. Up to his thirty-seventh year, if we leave out of account the tapestry cartoons of unheralded decorative quality and five small pictures, Goya painted nothing of any significance, but once in control of his refractory powers, he produced masterpieces with the speed of Rubens. His court appointment was followed by a decade of incessant activity - years of painting and scandal, with intervals of bad health. Goya's etchings demonstrate a draughtsmanship of the first rank. In paint, like Velázquez, he is more or less dependent on the model, but not in the detached fashion of the expert in still-life. If a woman was ugly, he made her a despicable horror; if she was alluring, he dramatised her charm. He preferred to finish his portraits at one sitting and was a tyrant with his models. Like Velázquez, he concentrated on faces, but he drew his heads cunningly, and constructed them out of tones of transparent greys. Monstrous forms inhabit his black-and-white world: these are his most profoundly deliberated productions. His fantastic figures, as he called them, fill us with a sense of ignoble joy, aggravate our devilish instincts and delight us with the uncharitable ecstasies of destruction. His genius attained its highest point in his etchings on the horrors of war. When placed beside the work of Goya, other pictures of war pale into sentimental studies of cruelty. He avoided the scattered action of the battlefield, and confined himself to isolated scenes of butchery. Nowhere else did he display such mastery of form and movement, such dramatic gestures and appalling effects of light and darkness. In all directions Goya renewed and innovated.
Old Man Goya by
In 1792, when he was forty-seven, the Spanish painter Francisco de Goya contracted an illness that left him stone deaf. Yet he continued to interact with the world and to create, spending the next thirty-five years in a world emptied of sound but bursting with images of pageantry, cruelty, and pathos. In this brilliant, idiosyncratic book - a kaleidoscope of biography, memoir, history, and meditation - Julia Blackburn vividly imagines the artist' s world during this time. She recreates the artist' s friendships and love affairs and breathes life into the subjects of his paintings: an ethereally lovely duchess; the spoiled grotesques of the Bourbon court; the atrocities of the Napoleonic wars. Old Man Goya is a rare work of empathy and imagination, a stunning portrait of the mind and life of a great artist.
Goya by
This intriguing book on Goya concentrates on the closing years of the eighteenth century as a neglected milestone in his life. Goya waited until 1799 to publish his celebrated series of drawings, the Caprichos, which offered a personal vision of the "world turned upside down". Victor I. Stoichita and Anna Maria Coderch consider how themes of Revolution and Carnival (both seen as inversions of the established order) were obsessions in Spanish culture in this period, and make provocative connections between the close of the 1700s and the end of the Millennium. Particular emphasis is placed on the artist's links to the underground tradition of the grotesque, the ugly and the violent. Goya's drawings, considered as a personal and secret laboratory, are foregrounded in a study that also reinterprets his paintings and engravings in the cultural context of his time.
Kahlo by
Behind Frida Kahlo's portraits, lies the story of both her life and work. It is precisely this combination that draws the reader in. Frida's work is a record of her life, and rarely can we learn so much about an artist from what she records inside the picture frame. Frida Kahlo truly is Mexico's gift to the history of art. She was just eighteen years old when a terrible bus accident changed her life forever, leaving her handicapped and burdened with constant physical pain. But her explosive character, raw determination and hard work helped to shape her artistic talent. And although he was an obsessive womanizer, the great painter Diego Rivera was by her side. She won him over with her charm, talent and intelligence, and Kahlo learnt to lean on the success of her companion in order to explore the world, thus creating her own legacy whilst finding herself surrounded by a close-knit group of friends. Her personal life was turbulent, as she frequently left her relationship with Diego to one side whilst she cultivated her own bisexual relationships. Despite this, Frida and Diego managed to save their frayed relationship. The story and the paintings that Frida left us display a courageous account of a woman constantly on a search of self discovery.
Frida Kahlo: A biography by
Frida Kahlo was born in 1907 to parents of German and Spanish descent, in Coyoacan, outside Mexico City. After contracting polio at age six, Frida also suffered severe injuries in a bus accident. Her time spent in recovery turned her toward a painting career. These experiences, combined with a difficult marriage to the artist Diego Rivera, generated vibrant works depicting Frida's experiences with pain as well as the symbolism and spirit of Mexican culture. Though she died in 1954, interest in her work continues to grow, with museum exhibitions and publications around the world. This biography will introduce art students and adult readers to one of the Latino culture's most beloved artists. In 2002, the film Frida introduced the artist and her works to a new audience. In 2007, the 100th anniversary of Kahlo's birth, a major exhibition of her work was held at the Museum of the Fine Arts Palace in Mexico. In 2007 through 2008, another major exhibition began its journey to museums throughout the United States.
Devouring Frida by
Beginning in the late 1970's Frida Kahlo achieved cult heroine status less for her richly surrealist self-portraits than by the popularization of the events of her tumultuous life. Her images were splashed across billboards magazine ads, and postcards; fashion designers copied the so-called "Frida" look in hairstyles and dress; and "Fridamania" even extended to T-shirts, jewelry, and nail polish. Margaret A. Lindauer argues that this mass market assimilation of Kahlo's identity has consistently detracted from appreciation of her work, leading instead to narrow interpretations based on "an entrenched narrative of suffering." While she agrees that Kahlo's political and feminist activism, her stormy marriage to fellow artist Diego Reviera, and the tragic reality of a progressively debilitated body did represent a biography colored by emotional and physical upheaval, she questions an "author-equals-the-work" critical tradition that assumes a: one-to-one association of life events to the meaning of a painting." In kahlo's case, Lindauer says, such assumptions created a devouring mythology, an iconization that separates us from rather than leads us to the real significance of the oeuvre. Accompanied by 26 illustrations and deep analysis of Kahlo's central themes, this provocative, semiotic study recontextualizes an important figure in art history at the same time it addresses key questions about the language of interpretation, the nature of veneration, and the truths within self-representation. Ebook Edition Note: All images have been redacted.
Frida Kahlo:an open life by
Uses medical records, journals, letters, interviews, and personal recollections to bring us closer than ever to the Mexican artist and her milieu.
Frida Kahlo at Home by
Frida Kahlo at Home explores the influence of Mexican culture and tradition, the Blue House and other places Frida travelled to and called home, on her life and work. Fully illustrated, the book features Frida's paintings together with archive images and family photographs, objects and artefacts she collected and photographs of the surrounding landscape to provide an insight into how these people and places shaped this much-loved artist and how the homes and landscapes of her life relate to her work.
México, 1900-1950 by
México 1900-1950 offers an unprecedented survey of Mexican art from the turn of the century through the Revolution (1910-20) and until the early 1950s. It examines key works across different mediums by major Mexican artists, including Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and José Clemente Orozco, as well as by lesser-known figures and women artists. The catalogue showcases Mexican modern art as its own distinct avant-garde, fundamentally different from that of Europe. Although many Mexican artists lived and practiced in Paris during the early decades of the 20th century, they eventually returned home and drew extensively from themes surrounding nationhood and Mexico's rich, mythical past, poignantly articulating their country's revolutionary ideals, traditions, and aspirations. Over 250 illustrations foreground this wholly original and sweeping study of Mexico as a hotbed for modernism and artistic achievement.
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera by
KEYNOTE:Now available again, this bestselling book reveals the story of two creative geniuses, their important contributions to twentieth-century art, and their tumultuous romance. This captivating book delves into the forces that shaped Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera's lives and art, and made them important painters in their own right. Elegant reproductions of their best-known works and historical photographs illustrate the thoughtful text, which explores the political, social, and cultural upheaval that was at the center of their relationship. What emerges is a portrait of the artists, the tension between their love for each other and their commitment to their work, and the indelible legacy of paintings, murals, and words they left behind. AUTHOR: Isabel Alcantara and Sandra Egnolff are art historians specializing in Mexican art. 83 illustrations
Kandinsky by
The richness of Wassily Kandinsky's life, work, and intellect make him one of the leading figures of twentieth-century art. He was a founding member of the artistic group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), and his theories influenced many of the major artistic movements of his time, including Dada, the Bauhaus, De Stijl, and Russian Constructivism. A man of diverse interests, he was a friend to artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Paul Klee and had fruitful relationships with contemporary musicians including Arnold Schoenberg and Thomas de Hartmann.This book traces the chronological evolution of Kandinsky's art, making use of an unprecedented wealth of documents from the artist's own workshop--including autobiographical writings, correspondence, and theoretical essays--to shed new light on his prolific creative imagination. Kandinsky divided his work into three categories: impressions (observations of the exterior world), improvisations (expressions of inner feeling), and compositions (images on a grander scale that brought inner and outer visions together).Generously illustrated throughout, this book uncovers the well of symbolic imagery that lies behind Kandinsky's paintings, prints, and poetry and explores his passionate belief in the spiritual and harmonizing power of art.
Concerning the Spiritual and the concrete in Kandinsky's art by
This book examines the art and writings of Wassily Kandinsky, who is widely regarded as one of the first artists to produce non-representational paintings. Crucial to an understanding of Kandinsky's intentions is On the Spiritual in Art, the celebrated essay he published in 1911. Where most scholars have taken its repeated references to "spirit" as signaling quasi-religious or mystical concerns, Florman argues instead that Kandinsky's primary frame of reference was G.W.F. Hegel's Aesthetics, in which art had similarly been presented as a vehicle for the developing self-consciousness of spirit (or Geist, in German). In addition to close readings of Kandinsky's writings, the book also includes a discussion of a 1936 essay on the artist's paintings written by his own nephew, philosopher Alexandre Kojève, the foremost Hegel scholar in France at that time. It also provides detailed analyses of individual paintings by Kandinsky, demonstrating how the development of his oeuvre challenges Hegel's views on modern art, yet operates in much the same manner as does Hegel's philosophical system. Through the work of a single, crucial artist, Florman presents a radical new account of why painting turned to abstraction in the early years of the twentieth century.
Point and Line to Plane by
This book examines the art and writings of Wassily Kandinsky, who is widely regarded as one of the first artists to produce non-representational paintings. Crucial to an understanding of Kandinsky's intentions is On the Spiritual in Art, the celebrated essay he published in 1911. Where most scholars have taken its repeated references to ""spirit"" as signaling quasi-religious or mystical concerns, Florman argues instead that Kandinsky's primary frame of reference was G.W.F. Hegel's Aesthetics, in which art had similarly been presented as a vehicle for the developing self-consciousness of spirit.
Where Heaven and Earth Meet:the spiritual in the art of Kandinsky, Rothko, Warhol, and Kiefer by
Art has always been important for religion or spirituality. Secular art displayed in museums can also be spiritual, and it is this art that is the subject of this book. Many of the works of art produced by Wassily Kandinsky, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, and Anselm Kiefer are spiritual in nature. These works reveal their own spirituality, which often has no connection to official religions. Wessel Stoker demonstrates that these artists communicate religious insights through images and shows how they depict the relationship between heaven and earth, between this world and a transcendent reality, thus clearly drawing the contours of the spirituality these works evince.
The triumph of modernism : the art world, 1987-2005 by
Table of Contents: I: Modernism and abstraction Kandinsky and the birth of abstraction -- Mondrian and mysticism : "my long search is over" -- Art, revolution, and Kazimir Malevich -- Abstraction and utopia -- Abstraction in America : the first generation -- Was Rothko an abstract painter? -- Jackson Pollock and the New York school -- II: Modernism and its critics Clement Greenberg in the forties -- Clement Greenberg and the Cold War -- T.J. Clark and the Marxist critique of modern painting -- Rembrandt as Warhol : Svetlana Alpers's "enterprise" -- III: Modernism and after Richard Serra at MOMA -- The death of Andy Warhol -- How good was Gauguin? -- John Szarkowski's "history of photographic pictures" -- Reflections on matisse -- Philip Johnson's brilliant career -- Duchamp and his legacy -- Leger's modernism 192 Bonnard and "the stupidities" -- A gallery chronicle -- IV: Modernism and its institutions Modernism and its institutions -- Has success spoiled the art museum? -- Tate modern inside and out : the museum as culture mall -- The man who created MOMA -- Does abstract art have a future?
Russian Avant-Garde by
The Russian Avant-garde was born at the turn of the 20th century in pre-revolutionary Russia. The intellectual and cultural turmoil had then reached a peak and provided fertile soil for the formation of the movement. For many artists influenced by European art, the movement represented a way of liberating themselves from the social and aesthetic constraints of the past. It was these Avant-garde artists who, through their immense creativity, gave birth to abstract art, thereby elevating Russian culture to a modern level.Such painters as Kandinsky, Malevich, Goncharova, Larionov, and Tatlin, to name but a few, had a definitive impact on 20th-century art.
Embattled avant-gardes : modernism's resistance to commodity culture in Europe by 
William Kentridge
Critical texts and interviews that explore the drawings, animations, and theatrical work of the South African artist William Kentridge. Since the 1970s, the South African artist William Kentridge has charted the turbulent terrain of his homeland in both personal and political terms. With erudition, absurdist humor, and an underlying hope in humankind, Kentridge's artwork has examined apartheid, humanitarian atrocities, aging, and the ambiguities of growing up white and Jewish in South Africa. This October Files volume brings together critical essays and interviews that explore Kentridge's work and shed light on the unique working processes behind his drawings, prints, stop-animation films, and theater works. The texts include an interview by the artist Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, curator of the first major retrospective of Kentridge's work; an essay by Andreas Huyssen on the role of shadow-play in Kentridge's film series 9 Drawing for Projection; and investigations of Kentridge's work for opera and theater by Maria Gough, Joseph Leo Koerner, and Margaret Koster Koerner. An analysis by influential art historian Rosalind Krauss, the editor of this volume, argues that Kentridge's films are the result of a particularly reflexive drawing practice in which the marks on the page--particularly the smudges, smears, and erasures that characterize his stop-animations--define the act of drawing as a temporal medium. Krauss's understanding of Kentridge's work as embodying a fundamental tension between formal and sociological poles has been crucial to subsequent analyses of the artist's work, including the new essay by the anthropologist Rosalind Morris, who has collaborated with Kentridge on several projects. Essays and Interviews Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Maria Gough, Andreas Huyssen, William Kentridge, Joseph Leo Koerner, Margaret Koster Koerner, Rosalind Krauss, Rosalind Morris ion between formal and sociological poles has been crucial to subsequent analyses of the artist's work, including the new essay by the anthropologist Rosalind Morris, who has collaborated with Kentridge on several projects. Essays and Interviews Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Maria Gough, Andreas Huyssen, William Kentridge, Joseph Leo Koerner, Margaret Koster Koerner, Rosalind Krauss, Rosalind Morris
William Kentridge by
William Kentridge is an exhibition catalogue focusing on the acclaimed films, drawings, and theatrical productions of this important contemporary South African artist. Kentridge's work explores the complex and often violent history of his native South Africa, and considers the effects its past will have on its future. The exhibition will present eleven of Kentridge's powerful and intensely complex animated films. Approximately forty large-scale charcoal drawings, many used in the making of the films, will be shown alongside the film projections.
Tate Modern Artists: William Kentridge by After the Revolution: Women who transformed contemporary art by
Now available in a revised and fully updated edition, this book examines the rise of women artists in the late 20th century, viewed through the work of 12 key figures. "Why have there been no great women artists?" asked the prominent art historian Linda Nochlin in an intentionally provocative 1971 essay. In this book, four prominent critics and curators describe the strides made by women artists since the advent of the feminist movement and assess the changes that have occurred in their critical reception, commercial appeal, and institutional support. Following a comprehensive essay that looks back at the recent history of women artists, the authors examine the careers of an international selection of artists--Marina Abramovic', Louise Bourgeois, Ellen Gallagher, Ann Hamilton, Jenny Holzer, Elizabeth Murray, Shirin Neshat, Judy Pfaff, Dana Schutz, Cindy Sherman, Kiki Smith, and Nancy Spero--considering each figure's accomplishments and her influence on contemporaries and younger artists.
Reclaiming Female Agency: feminist art history after postmodernism
This volume is the third in an influential series of anthologies by editors Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrard that challenge art history from a feminist perspective. Following their Feminism and Art History: Questioning the Litany (1982) and The Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History (1992), this new volume identifies female agency as a central theme of recent feminist scholarship. Framed by a lucid and stimulating critical introduction, twenty-three essays on artists and issues from the Renaissance to the present, written in the 1990s and after, offer a nuanced critique of the poststructuralist premises of 1980s feminist art history. Contributors: Allison Arieff, Janis Bergman-Carton, Babette Bohn, Norma Broude, Anna C. Chave, Julie Cole, Bridget Elliott, Mary D. Garrard, Sheila ffolliott, Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, Ruth E. Iskin, Geraldline A. Johnson, Amelia Jones, Maud Lavin, Julie Nicoletta, Carol Ockman, Erica Rand, John B. Ravenal, Lisa Saltzman, Mary D. Sheriff
Women Making Art:History, Subjectivity, Aesthetics. by
Women have been making art for centuries, yet their work has been seen as secondary or has gone unrecognized altogether. Women Making Art asks why this is so, and what it would take for us to realize the extent of women's extraordinary contribution to the arts. Marsha Meskimmon mobilizes contemporary feminist thinking to reconsider how and why women have made art. She examines work by a wide range of women artists from different cultures and historical periods, including Rebecca Horn, Rachel Whiteread, Shirin Neshat and Maya Lin, emphasizing the diversity of women's art and the importance of differences between women.
The Migrant's Time: Rethinking art history and diaspora by
The conditions of alienation and exclusion are inextricably linked to the experience of the migrant. This volume explores both the increasing emergence of the theme of migration as a dominant subject matter in art as well as the ways in which the varied mobilities of a globalized world have radically reshaped art's conditions of production, reception, and display. In a selection of essays, fourteen distinguished scholars explore the universality of conditions of global migration and interdependence, inviting a rethinking of existing perspectives in postcolonial, transnational, and diaspora studies, and laying the foundation for empirical and theoretical directions beyond the terms of these traditional frameworks.
Global and Local Art Histories by
There are now many books on postcolonial theory, yet relatively few of them gather together sustained, dynamic and insightful analyses of visuality, art and art history outside of hegemonic Euro-American themes and concerns. Global and Local Art Histories explores what it means to have a global and local experience of art. The 15 essays published here suggest ways of interpreting works of art from a broad range of cultural perspectives, many of them transcultural. Here are voices contesting ...
Contemporary Art, World Cinema, and Visual Culture by
"Contemporary Art, World Cinema, and Visual Culture: Essays by Hamid Dabashi" is a collection of writings by the acclaimed cultural critic and scholar. A thorough Introduction rigorously frames chapters and identifies in Dabashi's writings a comprehensive approach, which forms the criteria for selecting the essays for the volume. The Introduction also teases out of these essays the overarching theme that holds them together, the manner they inform a particularly critical angle in them and the way they cohere. The Introduction dwells on the work of one scholar, public intellectual and theorist of modern and contemporary arts to extrapolate more universal issues of concern to art criticism in general. These scattered materials and their underlying theoretical and critical logic are a unique contribution to the field of modern and contemporary arts.
Contemporary Art in Latin America by
Contemporary Art in Latin America, the second book in Black Dog Publishing's ARTWORLD series, is a bold and rousing exploration of the most significant art being created by Latin American's today. Emerging from complex cultural roots, Latin American art is extraordinarily diverse and original. This book covers a variety of contemporary art methods, looking at photography, installation art, sculpture, painting, textiles, and examines the styles, current perceptions and culture of this region. Contemporary Art in Latin America is an engaging, challenging and inspiring comprehensive survey of the most important art being made in the region today. With essays by esteemed writers and practitioners, and profiles of both established and emerging artists, this volume delves into the region's past, present and future, to examine its position within the contemporary global art world. The work featured shatters stereotypes and clear-cut distinction of the area, blending the personal and the political, the local and the global. Artists featured include H lio Oiticica, Doris Salcedo, Cildo Meireles, Lygia Clark, Jes s Rafael Soto, Lygia Pape, Gabriel Orozco, Oscar Mu oz and Miguel Calder n. With beautiful images and an equally impressive list of contributors, this volume is the ultimate resource for anyone interested in art produced in Latin America today.
Escultura Social by
Mexico City has emerged as a thriving center of contemporary art. Escultura Social features recent work by a group of artists whose influence has already extended far beyond Mexico and focuses on how they have contributed to an international dialogue through their use of nontraditional materials, new media, and critical perspectives. This book takes Joseph Beuys's idea of "social sculpture," or escultura social, as a multivalent reference point for understanding how these socially engaged works draw connections between people and nature and promote a demystified and democratic concept of art-making. Featuring the work of twenty artists, this bilingual volume includes several artists' writings by pioneers of artist-run exhibition spaces: Stefan Brüggemann, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Yoshua Okón, and Pedro Reyes. Critical essays on the contemporary Mexican scene and relevance of Beuys's ideas are accompanied by illustrated texts on each artist in this unique and important book. Bilingual (English/Spanish)
Do It Yourself by
A survey of the innovative sculptural and installation work of Damián Ortega. In works that spin, dangle, sprawl and climb, Damián Ortega reveals his fascination with how everyday things—whether manmade or organic—are constructed, and his keen interest in the tools and elements that facilitate the process of construction, from pickaxes and pulleys to bricks to molecules. A former political cartoonist, Ortega infuses his sculptural work with an incisive wit, bringing the humorist’s eye to works in which materials are manipulated in surprising ways. His objects reflect the dynamism of the world around us in ways that we might otherwise overlook, subtly subverting conventional views of sculpture as permanent and monumental. This book, accompanying a major exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, brings together work from 1996 to 2007, including sculpture, photography, and video, revealing the rich range of Ortega’s artistic activity.
Damián Ortega by
This first North American monograph on Mexican artist Damian Ortega documents 10 years of work focused on conceptual practice, social organization, and humor, including the installations and performances that make up his acclaimed Beetle Trilogy, several works never before exhibited and a great deal of unpublished material. Most of what's here hasn't been seen before. The first episode of the trilogy, "The Cosmic Thing," a disassembled Volkswagen suspended in the air, was featured in Gabriel Orozco's Il Quotidiano Alterato at the 2003 Venice Biennale, and was one of the most widely reproduced images of that year's exhibition. "Moby Dick," a heroic action involving the artist's Beetle, a live band, ropes and pulleys, followed, and then "Beetle '83 Escarabajo," a ritual return to the vehicle's place of birth, closed the cycle. The Beetle Trilogy and Other Works includes a new comic, 150 color images and an original essay by Hari Kunzru, author of The Impressionist and one of Granata's 20 "Best Young British Novelists" in 2003.
A Companion to Renaissance and Baroque Art by
A Companion to Renaissance and Baroque Art provides a diverse, fresh collection of accessible, comprehensive essays addressing key issues for European art produced between 1300 and 1700, a period that might be termed the beginning of modern history. Presents a collection of original, in-depth essays from art experts that address various aspects of European visual arts produced from circa 1300 to 1700 Divided into five broad conceptual headings: Social-Historical Factors in Artistic Production; Creative Process and Social Stature of the Artist; The Object: Art as Material Culture; The Message: Subjects and Meanings; and The Viewer, the Critic, and the Historian: Reception and Interpretation as Cultural Discourse Covers many topics not typically included in collections of this nature, such as Judaism and the arts, architectural treatises, the global Renaissance in arts, the new natural sciences and the arts, art and religion, and gender and sexuality Features essays on the arts of the domestic life, sexuality and gender, and the art and production of tapestries, conservation/technology, and the metaphor of theater Focuses on Western and Central Europe and that territory's interactions with neighboring civilizations and distant discoveries Includes illustrations as well as links to images not included in the book
Italian Renaissance Art by
Drawing on the most recent scholarship, this book is accessible to students and non-specialist readers, telling the story of art in the great centers of Rome, Florence, and Venice, while profiling a range of other cities and sites throughout Italy. While the book presents the classic canon of Renaissance painting and sculpture in full, it expands the scope of conventional surveys by offering a more through coverage of architecture, decorative and domestic art, and print media. Rather than emphasizing artists' biographies, this new account concentrates on the works, discussing means of production, the place for which images were made, concerns of patrons, and the expectation and responses of the works first viewers. Renaissance art is seen as decidedly new, a moment in the history of art whose concerns persist in the present.
Lives of the Artists by
Packed with facts, attributions, and entertaining anecdotes about his contemporaries, Vasari's collection of biographical accounts also presents a highly influential theory of the development of Renaissance art.Beginning with Cimabue and Giotto, who represent the infancy of art, Vasari considers the period of youthful vigour, shaped by Donatello, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, and Masaccio, before discussing the mature period of perfection, dominated by the titanic figures of Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo.This specially commissioned translation contains thirty-six of the most important lives as well as an introduction and explanatory notes.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.
Renaissance Art by
The Renaissance began at the end of the 14th century in Italy and had extended across the whole of Europe by the second half of the 16th century. The rediscovery of the splendour of ancient Greece and Rome marked the beginning of the rebirth of the arts following the break-down of the dogmatic certitude of the Middle Ages. A number of artists began to innovate in the domains of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Depicting the ideal and the actual, the sacred and the profane, the period provided a frame of reference which influenced European art over the next four centuries.Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Fra Angelico, Giorgione, Mantegna, Raphael, Dürer and Bruegel are among the artists who made considerable contributions to the art of the Renaissance.
Raphael by
This monograph explores the life and work of one of the most important artists in the history of the West, Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, 1483-1520). Its scope covers Raphael's origins, his early influences, his important Urbino period and subsequently the extraordinary series of frescoes and portraits of his last phase in Rome. Over two hundred of Raphael's finest paintings and drawings are illustrated, accompanied by an accessible yet highly informative text by the distinguished Renaissance scholar Bette Talvacchia. The author also explores Raphael's artistic relationships with such Renaissance masters as Leonardo and Michelangelo, culminating in a brilliant account of his masterpieces done in Rome under the patronage of Popes Julius II and Leo X.
Raphael and the Redefinition of Art in Renaissance Italy by
Raphael was one of the most important artists of the Italian Renaissance and one of the most important and influential in the entire history of art. His practice of 'synthetic' or 'critical' imitation became a model of creative method; his engagement with the principle of decorum revealed its deeper expressive and philosophical significance and the operation of his workshop helped to redefine the nature of the work that artists do. Robert Williams draws upon the history of literature, philosophy, and religion, as well as upon economic history, to support his detailed and illuminating accounts of Raphael's major works. His analyses serve as the foundation for a set of hypotheses about the aims and aspirations of Italian Renaissance art in general and the nature of art-historical inquiry.
Renaissance Art by
Botticelli, Holbein, Leonardo, D--uuml--;rer, Michelangelo: the names are familiar, as are many of the works. But who were these artists, why did they produce such memorable images, and how would their original beholders have viewed these objects? This book answers such questions by considering both famous and lesser-known artists, patrons, and works of art from the period. -;Botticelli, Holbein, Leonardo, D--uuml--;rer, Michelangelo: the names are familiar, as are the works, such as the Last Supper fresco, or the monumental marble statue of David. But who were these artists, why did they produce such memorable images, and how would their original beholders have viewed these objects? Was the Renaissance only about great masters and masterpieces, or were mistresses also involved, such as women artists and patrons? And what about the 'minor'-pieces thatRenaissance men and women would have encountered in homes, churches and civic spaces? This exciting and stimulating volume will answer such questions by considering both famous and lesser-known artists, patrons and works of art within the cultural and historical context of Renaissance Europe. -;Johnson has succeeded in packing a great deal of intelligent discussion into a very limited space. I would wholeheartedly recommend this book for anyone, from teenagers onwards, requiring an introduction to current views on Renaissance Art
The Great Masters:Giotto, Botticelli, Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian by 
Van Gogh, 1853-1890 : vision and reality by
'This man will go insane or leave us all far behind', prophesied the great impressionist Camille Pissarro. The man was Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890), a vicar's son born at Groot-Zundert near Breda in Holland. Van Gogh was a solitary, despairing and self-destructive man and followed a variety of professions before becoming an artist. He craved recognition throughout his life which was denied until after his self-inflicted death. Today he is universally recognised as one of the great forerunners of 20th century painting, and one of the tragic masters of art. This study by the two leading experts - Reiner Metzer and Ingo F. Walther (who previously published the first ever "Complete paintings of Van Gogh) follows the artist from the early gloom-laden paintings in which he captured the misery of peasants and workers in his home province, through the bright and colourful paintings from his period in Paris, to the work of his final years under the southern sun in Arles, where at last he found the light that produced the unmistakable Van Gogh style. Bombarded by influences from every quarter, Van Gogh tried a number of approaches and techniques before leaving Arles in 1888. In search of a new style and in a feverish burst of creative energy that marked the last two and a half years of his life, he produced the 465 paintings on which his immortality rests.
Van Gogh: The life by
Draws on newly available primary sources to present a profile that offers revisionist assessments of the influential artist's turbulent life and genius works.
Van Gogh: The birth of an artist by
An unprecedented, in-depth exploration of the dawn of Van Gogh's artistic career In 1878, at age 25, Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) arrived in the area of Belgium known as the Borinage to work as a Protestant evangelist in rural coal mining communities. He failed in that vocation, and after months of soul-searching, in August 1880, he decided to become an artist. This fascinating publication is the first to examine in depth Van Gogh's time in the Borinage and his artistic development in the following years, when he created his works that in many cases have direct ties with this early period. Vivid essays tell the story of Van Gogh's life in the mining communities, and the effect this environment had on his way of thinking and seeing the world. Augmenting the text are letters Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo from the Borinage, in which he describes his desire to sketch, and drawings that he modeled after prints of masterworks by artists such as Jean-François Millet. Other essays trace Van Gogh's development as an artist in subsequent years, including his move to Brussels to fully pursue life as an artist. Thought-provoking examinations of works that Van Gogh completed after leaving the Borinage demonstrate how motifs that he developed there--rustic dwellings, laborers, agriculture, nature--became themes that spanned his entire oeuvre.
Post-Impressionism by
Whilst Impressionism marked the first steps toward modern painting by revolutionising an artistic medium stifled by academic conventions, Post-Impressionism, even more revolutionary, completely liberated colour and opened it to new, unknown horizons. Anchored in his epoch, relying on the new chromatic studies of Michel Eugène Chevreul, Georges Seurat transcribed the chemist's theory of colours into tiny points that created an entire image. With his heavy strokes, Van Gogh illustrated the midday sun, whilst Cézanne renounced perspective. Rich in its variety and in the singularity of its artists, Post-Impressionism was a passage taken by all the well-known figures of 20th century painting - it is here presented, for the great pleasure of the reader, by Nathalia Brodskaïa.
The Cambridge Companion to Velázquez by
The Cambridge Companion to Velázquez, first published in 2002, offers a synthetic overview of one of the greatest painters of Golden Age Spain and seventeenth century Europe as a whole. With contributions from art historians and those working in other disciplines, this book offers fresh approaches to the vast literature on this artist. Velázquez's portraits of his patron, King Philip IV, and his wives are examined by two historians in an effort to reconstruct their reception and readings by contemporaries. Two historians of Golden Age Spanish literature provide an interdisciplinary account of the relationships between poetry, theater, and the visual arts at the Spanish court, as practiced by Velázquez, the poet Francisco de Quevedo and the dramatist, Calderón de la Barca. An expert on the history of Spanish music offers an unprecedented examination of how instruments 'play' in Velázquez's compositions.
A Companion to Renaissance and Baroque Art by
A Companion to Renaissance and Baroque Art provides a diverse, fresh collection of accessible, comprehensive essays addressing key issues for European art produced between 1300 and 1700, a period that might be termed the beginning of modern history. Presents a collection of original, in-depth essays from art experts that address various aspects of European visual arts produced from circa 1300 to 1700 Divided into five broad conceptual headings: Social-Historical Factors in Artistic Production; Creative Process and Social Stature of the Artist; The Object: Art as Material Culture; The Message: Subjects and Meanings; and The Viewer, the Critic, and the Historian: Reception and Interpretation as Cultural Discourse Covers many topics not typically included in collections of this nature, such as Judaism and the arts, architectural treatises, the global Renaissance in arts, the new natural sciences and the arts, art and religion, and gender and sexuality Features essays on the arts of the domestic life, sexuality and gender, and the art and production of tapestries, conservation/technology, and the metaphor of theater Focuses on Western and Central Europe and that territory's interactions with neighboring civilizations and distant discoveries Includes illustrations as well as links to images not included in the book
Take a Closer Look by
What painting can teach us--if we can really learn to see them What happens when we look at a painting? What do we think about? What do we imagine? How can we explain, even to ourselves, what we see or think we see? And how can art historians interpret with any seriousness what they observe? In six engaging, short narrative "fictions," each richly illustrated in color, Daniel Arasse, one of the most brilliant art historians of our time, cleverly and gracefully guides readers through a variety of adventures in seeing, from Velázquez to Titian, Bruegel to Tintoretto. By demonstrating that we don't really see what these paintings are trying to show us, Arasse makes it clear that we need to take a closer look. In chapters that each have a different form, including a letter, an interview, and an animated conversation with a colleague, the book explores how these pictures teach us about ways of seeing across the centuries. In the process, Arasse freshly lays bare the dazzling power of painting. Fast-paced and full of humor as well as insight, this is a book for anyone who cares about really looking at, seeing, and understanding paintings.
Collected Writings on Velázquez by
In this stimulating book, a leading authority on the Spanish master Diego Velázquez discusses this enigmatic artist and explores the mysteries presented by his paintings. The essays collected here, written over the course of Jonathan Brown's distinguished career, include some which are published in English for the first time and one which has never before been published. Two themes unite them. The first concerns the changing relationship between Velázquez and his patron Philip IV, which provides a framework for Brown to interpret the painter's career. The centerpiece of this relationship is Veláquez's masterpiece, Las Meninas, and this painting is the subject of two essays. The second theme is the problem of attributions and the related issue of Velázquez's innovative technique. Since Velázquez was not a prolific painter, questions of authenticity become increasingly contentious. Brown considers this matter in its widest dimensions and participates in the debate about individual attributions.
Velázquez by
In this beautiful and engaging book, an art historian and a conservation scientist discuss the techniques Velazquez created in order to realize his artistic vision. Examining thirty works by Velazquez that span his entire career, the authors show how his technical achievement developed over time.
Broad Strokes by
Historically, major women artists have been excluded from the mainstream art canon. Aligned with the resurgence of feminism in pop culture,Broad Strokes offers an entertaining corrective to that omission. Art historian Bridget Quinn delves into the lives and careers of 15 brilliant female artists in text that's smart, feisty, educational, and an enjoyable read. Replete with beautiful reproductions of the artists' works and contemporary portraits of each artist by renowned illustrator Lisa Congdon, this is art history from 1600 to the present day for the modern art lover, reader, and feminist.
Consuming Stories by
In Consuming Stories, Rebecca Peabody uses the work of contemporary American artist Kara Walker to investigate a range of popular storytelling traditions with roots in the nineteenth century and ramifications in the present. Focusing on a few key pieces that range from a wall-size installation to a reworked photocopy in an artist's book and from a theater curtain to a monumental sculpture, Peabody explores a significant yet neglected aspect of Walker's production: her commitment to examining narrative depictions of race, gender, power, and desire. Consuming Stories considers Walker's sustained visual engagement with literary genres such as the romance novel, the neo-slave narrative, and the fairy tale and with internationally known stories including Roots, Beloved, and Uncle Tom's Cabin. Walker's interruption of these familiar works , along with her generative use of the familiar in unexpected and destabilizing ways, reveals the extent to which genre-based narrative conventions depend on specific representations of race, especially when aligned with power and desire. Breaking these implicit rules makes them visible--and, in turn, highlights viewers' reliance on them for narrative legibility. As this study reveals, Walker's engagement with narrative continues beyond her early silhouette work as she moves into media such as film, video, and sculpture. Peabody also shows how Walker uses her tools and strategies to unsettle cultural histories abroad when she works outside the United States. These stories, Peabody reminds us, not only change the way people remember history but also shape the entertainment industry. Ultimately, Consuming Stories shifts the critical conversation away from the visual legacy of historical racism toward the present-day role of the entertainment industry--and its consumers--in processes of racialization.
African American Visual Arts: from slavery to the present by
In African American Visual Arts Celeste-Marie Bernier introduces readers to the sheer diversity, range, and experimental nature of African American art and artists and considers their relationship to key motifs within black culture and black experience in North America. The book traces the major developments in African American visual culture from its beginnings in the ceramics and textiles of slave artisans to later contributions in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to the fine arts and abstract expressionism, sculpture, installation art, video art, and computer graphics. Bernier analyzes the work of twenty-one artists, including Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, William Edmondson, Howardena Pindell, Charles Alston, Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis, Betye Saar, Horace Pippin, and Kara Walker. She highlights key but frequently neglected and little-discussed black artists, situating their works within their specific historical and political contexts. Bernier provides a new understanding of their relationship to fundamental themes of the black experience such as black stereotyping and caricature in mainstream discourse, poverty in the inner city, and the division between the rural and the urban.
Kara Walker by
Kara Walker is among the most complex and prolific American artists of her generation. Over the past decade, she has gained international recognition for her room-sized tableaux, which depict historical narratives haunted by sexuality, violence and subjugation and are made using the paradoxically genteel eighteenth-century art of cut-paper silhouettes. Set in the antebellum American South, Walker's compositions play off of stereotypes to portray, often grotesquely, life on the plantation, where masters, mistresses and slave men, women and children enact a subverted version of the past in an attempt to reconfigure their status and representation. Over the years, the artist has used drawing, painting, colored-light projections, writing, shadow puppetry, and, most recently, film animation to narrate her tales of romance, sadism, oppression and liberation. Her scenarios thwart conventional readings of a cohesive national history and expose the collective, and ongoing, psychological injury caused by the tragic legacy of slavery. Deploying an acidic sense of humor, Walker examines the dialectics of pleasure and danger, guilt and fulfillment, desire and fear, race and class. This landmark publication, which is sure to win international design awards, accompanies Walker's first major American museum survey. It features critical essays by Philippe Vergne, Sander L. Gilman, Thomas McEvilley, Robert Storr and Kevin Young, as well as an illustrated lexicon of recurring themes and motifs in the artist's most influential installations by Yasmil Raymond, more than 200 full-color images, an extensive exhibition history and bibliography, and a 36-page insert by the artist.
Seeing the Unspeakable by
One of the youngest recipients of a MacArthur "genius" grant, Kara Walker, an African American artist, is best known for her iconic, often life-size, black-and-white silhouetted figures, arranged in unsettling scenes on gallery walls. These visually arresting narratives draw viewers into a dialogue about the dynamics of race, sexuality, and violence in both the antebellum South and contemporary culture. Walker's work has been featured in exhibits around the world and in American museums including the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, and the Whitney. At the same time, her ideologically provocative images have drawn vociferous criticism from several senior African American artists, and a number of her pieces have been pulled from exhibits amid protests against their disturbing representations. Seeing the Unspeakable provides a sustained consideration of the controversial art of Kara Walker. Examining Walker's striking silhouettes, evocative gouache drawings, and dynamic prints, Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw analyzes the inspiration for and reception of four of Walker's pieces: The End of Uncle Tom and the Grand Allegorical Tableau of Eva in Heaven, John Brown, A Means to an End, and Cut. She offers an overview of Walker's life and career, and contextualizes her art within the history of African American visual culture and in relation to the work of contemporary artists including Faith Ringgold, Carrie Mae Weems, and Michael Ray Charles. Shaw describes how Walker deliberately challenges viewers' sensibilities with radically de-sentimentalized images of slavery and racial stereotypes. This book reveals a powerful artist who is questioning, rather than accepting, the ideas and strategies of social responsibility that her parents' generation fought to establish during the civil rights era. By exploiting the racist icons of the past, Walker forces viewers to see the unspeakable aspects of America's racist past and conflicted present.
