Искусство

Isaak Levitan (1860-1900) was born into a poor Jewish family in Lithuania and was able to enrol at the Moscow School of Painting in 1873. He made rapid progress, the great merchant collector Pavel Tretyakov buying one of his paintings when he was only nineteen. In 1886 Levitan sketched in the Crimea and from 1887 he spent several summers painting in the Volga region. These years saw the development of his great friendship with the future playwright Anton Chekhov and the creation of his first 'mood landscapes'. Levitan travelled extensively, if briefly, in Europe, visiting Berlin, Paris, the Riviera, Italy, Switzerland, Munich and Vienna. He was thus, unlike many of his contemporaries, well aware of artistic trends in the west, his experience of European art adding to the breadth of his vision. In both his joyful commemorations of the Russian spring and his quiet scenes of fields and forests, lakes and rivers, often seen at twilight, Levitan employed simple, well-loved motifs of the Russian countryside, an expressive brushwork and a subtle tonality. His work was greatly admired by Diaghilev, the revolutionary theatre manager Stanislavsky and the great operatic singer Chaliapin. Towards the end of his short life Levitan, exhibiting with the Wanderers (the Russian association for travelling exhibitions) and the Munich Secession, was responsible for revitalising the teaching of landscape in Moscow. This revised edition of the author's Isaak Levitan Lyrical Landscape (2004 and 2006), also focuses on Levitan's still lifes, portraits and cityscapes. The creative thinking behind some of his most outstanding works is explored and certain parallels are drawn with the landscapes of Monet, who, while Levitan painted on the shores of the Volga, lived and worked near the river Seine. AUTHOR: Averil King is an independent art historian with a particular interest in the art of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Her previously published books are Isaak Levitan Lyrical Landscape, 2004, re-issued 2006, Newlyn Flowers: the Floral Art of Dod Procter, RA, 2005 (both Philip Wilson Publishers), and Paula Modersohn-Becker, 2009 (Antique Collectors' Club).

Islam, the second largest and the youngest of the major world religions, has changed the world and left its mark on human history since the appearance of the prophet Mohammed in the seventh century.

This book follows the historical development of the Islamic dynasties and regions, showing the variety of their forms of artistic expression from the beginning until today. From decorative elements of buildings to calligraphy and the embellishment of everyday objects, ornamentation, that most characteristic Islamic art form, is displayed in an extraordinary rich range of ways.

The contributions of important scholars bring to life before our very eyes this culture, which belongs next to Greek and Roman antiquity as one of the pillars of our modern society.

The Visual Encyclopaedia series provide up to 300 beautiful photographic and artwork images, illustrating subjects of perennial cultural interest. Images are accompanied by narrative providing background, brief criticism, and details on relevant museums, brief biographies and time lines

An encounter with the artistic heritage of Islam is characterized by two factors that make it very special: the vast dimension of the areas involved, from Spain to Central Asia as far as China - without forgetting the expansion to sub-Saharan Africa - and the continuation of the phenomenon during fourteen centuries of history. Is it possible to treat such a complex and multifaceted phenomenon as a single subject? The images that follow are the answer.

Другие книги серии Visual Encyclopedia of Art:

20th Century Art. Искусство XX века

Art Nouveau. Арт Нуво

Baroque. Барокко

Renaissance. Ренессанс

This gorgeous survey of art from the Islamic world covers three continents and fourteen centuries.

From its birth in the seventh century through modern times, the Islamic religion has inspired glorious works of art. This stunning book includes more than four hundred reproductions of treasures of Islamic art that span the world: from southern Europe, along the entire Mediterranean basin to sub-Saharan Africa through the Middle East, India, and Central Asia. Arranged geographically, the objects include paintings, miniatures, ceramics, calligraphy, textiles, carpets, and metal works. Each region is given a thorough introduction that offers historical context and extensive descriptions of its artifacts. Accompanying essays offer guidance in interpreting the many themes that tie these works together, including typology, calligraphy, and religious beliefs. Despite its wide-ranging history and origins, Islamic art is unified by its devotion to faith and beauty. With its large format, exquisite reproductions and extensive research, this book is a thorough introduction to an artistic tradition

The delicate splendour and fairytale beauty of Islamic art

The art which arose from the 7th century in the Islamic empires reached from Spain and Morocco to the borders of China. It bore the stamp above all of Arabs, Persians and Turks, but outstanding contributions also came from Egypt and India. "Islamic Art" presents prominent examples: luxury ceramics, prayer mats, goldsmithery, as well as witnesses to the decorative arts and calligraphy – and above all the masterpieces of the splendidly colourful courtly book illumination of Persia and the Mughal emperors of India. The book examines the contributions of the different countries and how they influenced each other, and in this way vividly illustrates the unfolding of the delicate splendour and fairytale beauty of Islamic art from its beginnings into the modern era.

About the Series:
Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Genre Series features:

• a detailed illustrated introduction plus a timeline of the most important political, cultural and social events that took place during that period
• a selection of the most important works of the epoch, each of which is presented on a 2-page spread with a full-page image and with an interpretation of the respective work, plus a portrait and brief biography of the artist
• approximately 100 colour illustrations with explanatory captions

The author:
Annette Hagedorn studied the history of oriental art, German literature, and art history at the universities of Bonn and Mainz. She has held part-time teaching posts at the universities of Bonn, Mainz and Utrecht. In 1991 she was awarded the Alice-Boner-Memorial Prize from the Alice Boner Foundation in Zurich for her dissertation on Islamic metalwork in the 13th and 14th centuries. Since 2000 she has been co-editor, responsible for art history and archaeology, of the journal Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft.

Its geographical location, its rampant urban development and its complex socio-political fabric make Istanbul an ideal backdrop for many artists, not only Turkish and Istanbul artists, but also artists from the diaspora or artists from abroad who have come to Istanbul as artists in residence. Through the selected works and the varied backgrounds of the artists, this publication attempts to show how city-dwellers face their reality and their history, and how, depending on their cultural, social and political background, they show their resistance to it and participation in it. In recent years, the number of artistic projects has increased, inviting dialogue and historical introspection. These artists accompany the movement of contemporary history. The publication will trace these developments.

Italian Frescoes: The Age of Giotto presents twenty-two outstanding fresco cycles. Created during the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, these cycles set new standards for painting and an innovative vision of man, paving the way for the monumental achievements of the Renaissance. It was at this time that fresco painting was not only commissioned for churches and chapels, but also for such secular places as town halls and royal residences with humanist in addition to religious themes. The fresco cycles featured here include brilliant works by Giotto in Assisi, Padua, and Florence; dramatic paintings by Cimabue, thought to be Giotto’s teacher; Pietro Cavillini in Rome; and the Sienese artists Simone Martini and Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti — all of these works still visible on walls and ceilings of palaces and churches spanning Italy from the Veneto to Rome.

The authors describe and illustrate such celebrated sites as the Church of Saint Francis in Assisi, the Chapel of the Scrovegni in Padua, the Public Palace in Siena, and the papal chapel, the Sancta Sanctorum, in Rome. Each of the twenty-two chapters is concise and authoritative, offering a descriptive and interpretive essay on all aspects of fresco painting, covering the artists and their patrons in the context of their cultural and political history. Each essay concludes with a diagram of the site, followed by a series of full- and double-page color plates showing the entire cycle, many reproduced from new photographs of recently restored frescoes.

No publisher until now has attempted to gather together and document all the important fresco cycles of Italian art from the late thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries. While this volume is the predecessor to the previous books, Italian Frescoes: The Age of Giotto easily stands alone as a masterpiece of art and scholarship which will be welcomed by art historians and art lovers alike.

Italian Frescoes: The Baroque Era features twenty-five fresco cycles, each representing a notable achievement in the history of art. The fresco cycles presented include brilliant works by Domenichino, Sebastiano Ricci, Guercino, and Tiepolo — all of them still visible on walls and ceilings of palaces and churches spanning Italy from Venice to Naples.

The authors present such celebrated sites as the Barberini Palace in Rome and the Pitti Palace in Florence, as well as lesser-known gems. Each of the chapters is concise and authoritative, offering a descriptive and interpretive essay on all aspects of the fresco cycle, covering the artists and their patrons in the context of their cultural and political history. Each essay concludes with a diagram of the site, followed by a series of full- and double-page color plates showing the entire cycle, many reproduced from new photographs of recently restored frescoes.

No publisher until now has attempted to gather together and document all the important fresco cycles of Italian art from the late thirteenth to the eighteenth century. While this volume is a continuation of the previous books, Italian Frescoes: The Baroque Era certainly stands alone as an incredible treasury of art and scholarship that will be eagerly collected by art historians and art lovers alike.

Certain Italian fresco cycles, notably the Brancacci Chapel in Florence by Masaccio, Masolino, and Filippino Lippi, are well known. Others, such as Piero della Francescas work in Arezzo and Benozzo Gozzolis Chapel of the Magi in Florence, have been reproduced countless times. Yet no publisher — until now — has attempted to gather together and document in extensive photographs the essential fresco cycles of the early Italian Renaissance. The list of works covers the regions of Italy, from the Alpine mountain areas to Puglia, with an emphasis on Tuscany and Florence, the artistic center that gave life to the Renaissance.

Italian Frescoes: The Early Renaissance opens with a concise introductory text discussing various aspects of fifteenth-century fresco painting: artists, patronage, cultural and historical conditions, technical methods, and questions of local tradition. The central section of the book examines twenty-one fresco cycles, each representing a crowning achievement in this field. A descriptive and interpretive essay introduces each cycle and is followed by a series of full-page and double-page color plates-many of them new photography of recently restored frescoes-covering the entire work. This parade of colorful masterpieces, paired with Steffi Roettgens authoritative text, makes a brilliant volume that will be treasured by scholars and art lovers alike.

The artists of the renaissance were the first to use the term "Gothic", clearly intended in a derogatory way in reference to the style initialy known as opus francigenum, meaning "made in French style": the term was used as a synonymum for "barbarian" by those who considered themselves to be the upholders of the aesthetic and technical perfection of the classical era.

Italian monumental sculpture of the 19th and early 20th centuries is among the most remarkable ever made, and remains surprisingly unknown. Its emotional charge is caught in this collection of specially taken photographs, while the scholarly texts analyse the iconographic, cultural and art historical background to the works.

Jack Nicholson was over thirty, and more than a decade into his acting career, when Easy Rider finally made him a star. His reputation as a rebellious anti-hero was furthered by three notorious confrontations in films of the 1970s: Five Easy Pieces, The Last Detail, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He has played villains in The Shining and Batman, a hot-headed marine colonel in A Few Good Men, and a ruthless mob boss in The Departed. However, some of his best performances are in less showy roles where his skill is conveyed through subtlety. Jack has often turned down big money parts in order to take riskier roles such as the grim, introverted men in Ironweed, The Crossing Guard, The Pledge, and About Schmidt. Undoubtedly, Nicholson is a very fine actor, and in Chinatown he gives what may be his most memorable performance.

The Movie Icon series: People talk about Hollywood glamour, about studios that had more stars than there are in heaven, about actors who weren't actors but were icons. Other people talk about these things, TASCHEN shows you. Movie Icons is a series of photo books that feature the most famous personalities in the history of cinema. These 192-page books are visual biographies of the stars. For each title, series editor Paul Duncan has painstaking selected approximately 150 high quality enigmatic and sumptuous portraits, colorful posters and lobby cards, rare film stills, and previously unpublished candid photos showing the stars as they really are. These images are accompanied by concise introductory essays by leading film writers; each book also includes a chronology, a filmography, and a bibliography, and is peppered with apposite quotes from the movies and from life.

In December 2003 the painter Jack Vettriano, a coalminer's son, met his parents off the train from Scotland on his way to collect an OBE. Over the last few years Vettriano has had a meteoric rise to fame -- emerging from the unlikely background of the Scottish coalfields, unknown and untutored, he has become Scotland's most successful and controversial contemporary artist. Appearing on posters and cards, mugs and umbrellas, prints of his work outsell Van Gogh, Dali and Monet and his paintings have been acquired by celebrities around the world.

'The Singing Butler', Britain's most reproduced painting, fetched a record GBP744,800 at auction on April 2004.

Vettriano's images have an often mysterious narrative and are a gateway to an alluring yet sinister world. Daylight scenes of heady optimism, painted against backdrops of beaches and racetracks, are counterbalanced by more disquieting canvases of complex night-time liaisons in bars and clubs, bedrooms and ballrooms. Both sexes are clearly styled -- the men hard-edged and mysterious, the women seductive and enigmatic. Yet beneath the confident posturing, Vettriano recognizes our inherent human frailty, that there is no victor in the struggle between duplicity and desire. Men and women are ultimately trapped by the machinations of intense love and passion with little control over their destiny.

'Jack Vettriano: A Life' presents about thirty new images, as well as some recently surfaced works, plus the best of the paintings previously published in 'Lovers and Other Strangers' and 'Fallen Angels', also by Pavilion.

In December 2003 the painter Jack Vettriano, a coalminer's son, met his parents off the train from Scotland on his way to collect an OBE. Over the last few years Vettriano has had a meteoric rise to fame -- emerging from the unlikely background of the Scottish coalfields, unknown and untutored, he has become Scotland's most successful and controversial contemporary artist. Appearing on posters and cards, mugs and umbrellas, prints of his work outsell Van Gogh, Dali and Monet and his paintings have been acquired by celebrities around the world.

'The Singing Butler', Britain's most reproduced painting, fetched a record GBP744,800 at auction on April 2004.

Vettriano's images have an often mysterious narrative and are a gateway to an alluring yet sinister world. Daylight scenes of heady optimism, painted against backdrops of beaches and racetracks, are counterbalanced by more disquieting canvases of complex night-time liaisons in bars and clubs, bedrooms and ballrooms. Both sexes are clearly styled -- the men hard-edged and mysterious, the women seductive and enigmatic. Yet beneath the confident posturing, Vettriano recognizes our inherent human frailty, that there is no victor in the struggle between duplicity and desire. Men and women are ultimately trapped by the machinations of intense love and passion with little control over their destiny.

'Jack Vettriano: A Life' presents about thirty new images, as well as some recently surfaced works, plus the best of the paintings previously published in 'Lovers and Other Strangers' and 'Fallen Angels', also by Pavilion. In March 2004 Melvin Bragg's The South Bank Show broadcast a programme dedicated to Jack entitled Jack Vettriano: The People's Painter.
Now reissued in smaller user-friendly format.

Jack Vettriano was born in Scotland in 1954. He left school at fifteen, became an apprentice mechanical engineer the following year and worked for five years in the Fife coalfields. He began painting in his spare time at the age of 21. In 1989 he submitted two paintings to the Royal Scottish Academy annual exhibition: both pieces were accepted, hung and sold. This exposure led to his first solo exhibition in 1992 - since then he has had exhibitions in London, South Africa and Hong Kong. He has been featured in many radio programmes, including The Usual Suspects, Home Truths, Postscript and Midweek on Radio 4. His work was featured in BBC 2's coverage of the 1995 Edinburgh Festival, Edinburgh Nights.