Искусство

With exquisite works by Zhang Dagian, Ando Hiroshige, Katsushika Hokusai, Utagawa Kuniyoshi and others, this is an informative and beautifully illustrated overview of the rich diversity of Asian art. The inspiration behind Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and Impressionism is shown in these works of sharp perspective, linear emphasis and vibrant colors. Painting, prints and screens, ceramics, statues, textiles and accessories are represented. Each full-page image is accompanied by informative text on the artist and related works.

A Date with Destiny. The art of astrology, from ancient science to modern-day practice

From the beginning of human history, individuals across cultures and belief systems have looked to the sky for meaning. The movement of celestial bodies and their relation to our human lives has been the central tenant of astrology for thousands of years. The practice has both inspired reverence and worship and deepened our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

While modern-day horoscopes may be the most familiar form of astrological knowledge, their lineage reaches back to ancient Mesopotamia. As author Andrea Richards recounts in Astrology, the second volume in TASCHEN’s Library of Esoterica series, astronomy and astrology were once sister sciences: the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid at Giza was built to align with constellations, Persian scholars oversaw some of the first observatories, and even Galileo cast horoscopes for the Medicis. But with the Enlightenment and the birth of exact science, the practice moved to places where the mystery was still permitted, inspiring literature, art, and psychology, and influenced artists and thinkers such as Goethe, Byron, and Blake. Later movements like the Theosophists and the New Agers, would thrust the practice into the mainstream.

Edited by Jessica Hundley, this vibrant visual history of Western astrology is the first-ever compendium of its kind, exploring the symbolic meaning behind more than 400 images, from Egyptian temples and illuminated manuscripts to contemporary art from across the globe. Works by artists from Alphonse Mucha and Hilma af Klint to Arpita Singh and Manzel Bowman are sequenced to mirror the spin of the planets and the wheel of the zodiac. With a foreword by legendary astrologer Susan Miller and wisdom from new interviews with astrologers like Robert Hand, Jessica Lanyadoo, and Mecca Woods, Astrology celebrates the stars and their mysterious influence on our everyday lives.

The author:

Andrea Richards is a writer, journalist, and author of four books. Her work concerns a variety of esoteric subjects, from forgotten philosophical systems and hidden histories to alternative wellness practices and religions. She is a managing partner in the Los Angeles-based creative collective Narrated Objects.

The contributing author:

Internationally renowned astrologer, author, and businesswoman Susan Miller is the founding editor of the website Astrology Zone, which is visited by six million readers a month. She writes for a dozen magazines, including Elle and Vogue Japan.

The editor:

Jessica Hundley is an author, filmmaker and journalist. She has written for the likes of Vogue, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times, and has authored books on artists including Dennis Hopper, David Lynch, and Gram Parsons. Hundley often explores the counterculture in her work, with a focus on metaphysics, psychedelia, and magic.

The designer:

Thunderwing is a Los Angeles-based multi-disciplinary studio co-founded in 2007 by Nic & J. B. Taylor. Collaborating on a diverse array of projects, Thunderwing creates branding and design for film, publishing, fashion, food, music, and interior design.

Our Fair Lady. A photographic love affair

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone." - Audrey Hepburn

In his distinguished career as a Hollywood photographer, Bob Willoughby took iconic photos of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Fonda, but remains unequivocal about his favourite subject: Audrey Kathleen Ruston, later Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston, best known as Audrey Hepburn. Willoughby was called in to shoot the new starlet one morning shortly after she arrived in Hollywood in 1953. It was a humdrum commission for the portraitist often credited with having perfected the photojournalistic movie still, but when he met the Belgian-born beauty, Willoughby was enraptured. "She took my hand like...well a princess, and dazzled me with that smile that God designed to melt mortal men's hearts," he recalled.

As Hepburn's career soared following her Oscar-winning US debut in Roman Holiday, Willoughby became a trusted friend, framing her working and home life. His historic, perfectionist, tender photographs seek out the many facets of Hepburn's beauty and elegance, as she progresses from her debut to her career-high of My Fair Lady in 1963. Willoughby's studies, showing her on set, preparing for a scene, interacting with actors and directors, and returning to her private life, comprise one of photography's great platonic love affairs and an unrivalled record of one of the 20th century's touchstone beauties.

The photographer:

Bob Willoughby (1927-2009) took his first photo at the age of twelve. By 1954 his exhibitions of photographs of jazz musicians and dancers led to a contract with Globe Photos, followed by work at Harper's Bazaar. After shooting Judy Garland during the filming of A Star is Born he became the first "unit photographer"— hired specifically by movie studios to take on-set promotional "stills". The author of numerous books on photography, he lived his last years in Vence, France.

Audrey Hepburn epitomised elegance and style and her beauty, fragility and grace set her apart in Hollywood, but her story makes her even more special. From poverty and humble beginnings in WW2 to Gigi on Broadway and thence one of the most beloved of all screen actresses, Hepburn's life is illustrated by the likes of Slim Aarons and Richard Avedon, Bert Hardy, Leonard McCombe and Ralph Morse.

Audrey Hepburn was an Academy Award-winning, Emmy Award-winning, Tony Award-winning and Grammy Award-winning film and stage actress, fashion icon and humanitarian. In 1999, she was ranked as the third greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute. She also served as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and was honoured with the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work. This book charts the extraordinary life of this Hollywood legend from her early life right through her illustrious career with fabulous rare and classic photographs.

More than a mere fashion idol, Audrey Hepburn evinced a natural intelligence and almost artificial appeal that changed the face of women and the way women face the world for all generations to come. This biography is dedicated to her sense of dressing and the people who surrounded her. It captures the essence of her style and explains the Hepburn phenomenon.

From her captivating debut in Roman Holiday in 1953, Audrey Hepburn redefined notions of Hollywood elegance and sophistication.

This lavishly illustrated book celebrates Audrey's popularity as an enduring icon, providing a unique insight into her career, personality and trademark style that still fascinate and captivates today. A detailed biography is accompanied by over 160 photographs, many reproduced for the first time and taken by some of the world's top photographers. Famous quotes on and from Audrey Hepburn complement the impressive iconographic research, which includes numerous family pictures as well as information from private collections, press agencies and newspapers.

From her enchanting appearances on the big screen to her charity work for UNICEF and fascinating family life, this book is a highly individual portrait of a much-loved movie and fashion legend.

From her captivating debut in Roman Holiday in 1953, Audrey Hepburn redefined notions of Hollywood elegance and sophistication.

This lavishly illustrated book celebrates Audrey's popularity as an enduring icon, providing a unique insight into her career, personality and trademark style that still fascinate and captivates today. A detailed biography is accompanied by over 160 photographs, many reproduced for the first time and taken by some of the world's top photographers. Famous quotes on and from Audrey Hepburn complement the impressive iconographic research, which includes numerous family pictures as well as information from private collections, press agencies and newspapers.

From her enchanting appearances on the big screen to her charity work for UNICEF and fascinating family life, this book is a highly individual portrait of a much-loved movie and fashion legend.

With a foreword by Hubert de Givenchy, who dressed Audrey for her films and who became a close friend of the star.

The evolution of style from antiquity to 1888 Originally published in France between 1876 and 1888, Auguste Racinet’s Le Costume historique was the most wide-ranging and intelligent study of clothing ever published.

Covering the world history of costume, dress, and style from antiquity through the end of the 19th century, the great work — “consolidated” in 1888 into 6 volumes containing nearly 500 plates — remains, to this day, completely unique in its scope and detail. Racinet’s organization by culture and subject has been preserved in TASCHEN’s magnificent and complete reprint, as have excerpts from his delightful descriptions and often witty comments. Perusing these beautifully detailed and exquisitely coloured illustrations, you’ll discover everything from the garb of ancient Etruscans to traditional Eskimo attire to 19th-century French women’s couture. Though Racinet’s study spans the globe from ancient times through his own, his focus is on European clothing from the Middle Ages to the 1880s and this subject is treated with exceeding passion and attention to detail.

The Complete Costume History is an absolutely invaluable reference for students, designers, artists, illustrators, and historians; it is also an immensely fascinating and inspirational book for anyone with an interest in clothing and style.

An incredible new volume from PIE books featuring stunning works of graphic art from the early twentieth-century Russian Avant-garde! 

Examples of collage, photography, typography, illustration are shown throughout, accompanied by short descriptions of Russian technological developments in design and printing techniques. 

Avante-Garde Graphics in Russia showcases about 300 works including examples of movie posters, propaganda posters, book designs, fashion and textile designs, ceramic art designs etc. 

About the Author:

Hiroshi Unno was born in 1939 in Tokyo. Unno writes on art, cinema, music, urbanism, novels, flower arranging and more. Unno recent titles released by PIE International - The Art of Fantasy, Sci-fi and Steampunk, Harry Clarke, William Morris: Master of Modern Design, The World of Mucha, A Thousand and One Nights - have gained recognition worldwide.

Through clothing, we celebrate or suppress identity, indicate allegiances and communicate our positions, aspirations and desires. Little wonder, then, that so many contemporary artists are invested in exploring the role of clothing in the construction of self and society. Aware: Art Fashion Identity reflects on these artists and their work, and what it says about our physical covering and our constructed personal environments. Essayists Gabi Scardi, Lucy Orta and Joanne Entwistle consider issues of belonging, nationality, displacement and political and social confrontation in the artwork of Yinka Shonibare, Sharif Waked, Alicia Framis, Meschac Gaba, Dai Rees and Vito Acconci. Personal accounts of the role of clothing are drawn out through the work of Helen Storey, Marie-Ange Guilleminot and Claudia Losi, while the art and designs of Hussein Chalayan, Gillian Wearing and Andreas Gursky offer a platform for a discussion of the connection between fashion, clothing and performance.

Mexican film director Alejandro González Iñárritu, along with top photographers Mary Ellen Mark, Patrick Bard, Graciela Iturbide, and Miguel Rio Branco, bring together their highly perceptive visions on cultural diversity in a book that combines seductive images and firsthand remarks on the unique experience of shooting Babel. Winner of the Best Director prize at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, the film is the third in the director’s trilogy started by Amores Perros and 21 Grams.

Shot in Morocco, Tijuana, and Tokyo, and involving a multilingual cast lead by Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael García Bernal, and Koji Yakusho, as well non-professional actors from the three countries portrayed, Babel continues the director’s quest to explore the effects of loss and grief, and seeks to relate the modern implications of ancient myth on the origins of human inability to successfully communicate.

This book is a visual recollection of the parallel stories and real-life characters that revolved around the making of Babel, and the unexpected ways in which fiction and reality collide. Photographs both from the set and the surrounding disparate landscapes are paired with the director’s personal commentary on the larger-than-life film shoot. Introduced with essays by novelist and poet Eliseo Alberto and Gonzalez Iñárritu, as well as an interview with the director by Rodrigo García, the result is an engaging book that both complements Babel's powerful statement on the barrier of language, and reveals the fascinating reality of the people and places that inspired the film.

The director: Born in Mexico City in 1963, Alejandro González Iñárritu studied filmmaking and theater and composed music for Mexican features before directing and producing his debut feature film, Amores Perros (2000), which was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Foreign Language Film and received over 53 awards from all over the world, including BAFTAs, the Golden Globes, Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Edinburgh, San Sebastian, and Toronto. Iñárritu’s follow-up film, 21 Grams (2003), which he directed, co-wrote, and produced, starred Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, and Naomi Watts. Both Del Toro and Watts received Oscar nominations for their roles in the film and Penn won the Jury Prize for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival. Babel, which will be released worldwide in November 2006, garnered the Best Director Prize at the 59th Cannes Film Festival. Iñárritu lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

Francis Bacon (1909-1992) possessed the rare ability to transform unconscious compulsions into figurative, human-like forms that seem to evoke the raw emotions that bore them. Mixing realism and abstraction, Bacon delves deep beneath the surfaces of things, opening up the human body to reveal the chaos that lies within and struggling with all that is inexplicable. Erotic and grotesquely beautiful is the work of this legendary painter whose haunting, distorted figures have inspired entire generations of painters who seek to emulate his highly original style.

The author:
Luigi Ficacci studied Art History in Rome under Giulio Carlo Argan. He is curator at the Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica in Rome and lectures at different Italian universities. The focal points of his research work are the issues raised by 17th and 18th century and contemporary Italian art.

About the Series:
Every book in TASCHEN's Basic Art Series features:

* a detailed chronological summary of the artist's life and work, covering the cultural and historical importance of the artist
* approximately 100 color illustrations with explanatory captions
* a concise biography

Forms of feeling. The human body in distress

Largely self-taught as an artist, Francis Bacon (1909–1992) developed a unique ability to transform interior and unconscious impulses into figurative forms and intensely claustrophobic compositions.

Emerging into notoriety in the period following World War II, Bacon took the human body as his nominal subject, but a subject ravaged, distorted, and dismembered so as to writhe and wail with intense emotional content. With flailing limbs, hollow voids, and tumurous growths, his gripping, often grotesque, portraits are as much reflections on the trials and the traumas of the human condition as they are character studies. These haunting forms were also among the first in art history to depict overtly homosexual themes.

This book introduces Bacon's erotic, unsettling, unforgettable oeuvre, a transformative body of work often emulated, much analysed, and above all felt.

About the series:

Each book in TASCHEN’s Basic Art series features:

 - a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance
 - a concise biography
 - approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions