Искусство

Written around 1645, Miyamoto Musashi’s Five Rings is a classic Japanese work on mastery in swordsmanship, leadership and conflict. Musashi was a swordsman, philosopher and strategist, and today his work remains of influence not only in the realm of martial arts but in the business world, too.

Musashi’s no-nonsense approach to the martial arts and combat includes eliminating technical flourishes, understanding that technique should simply be understood as defeating your opponent, and appreciating that the same qualities apply in both small-scale and large-scale conflicts. Repeatedly, he stresses the importance of learning through practice, rather than mere theoretical learning.

Five Rings Illustrated is produced using beautiful traditional Chinese bookbinding techniques.

About the Author:

Miyamoto Musashi (c.1584 – 13 June 1645) was a Japanese swordsman, philosopher, strategist, writer and rōnin. He was a master swordsman, undefeated in his 61 duels, and the founder of the Niten-Ichi-Ryū-School style of swordsmanship. He wrote two books, The Book of Five Rings and The Path of Aloneness, shortly before his death.

A comprehensive and sumptuous survey that celebrates the beauty and appeal of flowers throughout art, history, and culture

Take a journey across continents and cultures to discover the endless ways artists and image-makers have employed floral motifs throughout history. With 316 color illustrations showcasing the diversity of blooms from all over the world, Flower spans a wide range of styles and media - from art, botanical illustrations, and sculptures to floral arrangements, film stills, and textiles - and follows a visually stunning sequence with works, regardless of period, thoughtfully paired to allow interesting and revealing juxtapositions between them. Flower follows in the footsteps of Plant, Exploring the Botanical World, which Martha Stewart Living described as "breathtaking."

Featuring large-scale images and accessible texts Flower offers a comprehensive introduction to the subject and includes both much-loved works together with examples that may prove more surprising discoveries, even for specialists. Selected by an international panel of art historians, museum curators, botanists, florists, horticulturalists, and more, works by a diverse range of both lesser-known and iconic artists and image-makers are featured, including: Nobuyoshi Araki, Cecil Beaton, Georg Ehret, David Hockney, Horst P. Horst, Nick Knight, Yayoi Kusama, Leonardo da Vinci, Robert Mapplethorpe, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, Cedric Morris, William Morris, Georgia O'Keeffe, Irving Penn, David Hockney, Pierre-Joseph Redouté, Rachel Ruysch, Constance Spry, and Flora Starkey.

Advisory panel: Lugene B. Bruno, Dr James Compton, Shane Connolly, Anne-Pierre d'Albis-Ganem, Celia Fisher, Susan M. Fraser, Victoria Gaiger, Elizabeth Hammer, Daisy Helman, Catherine Hess, Pascale Heurtel, Dr Lisa Hostetler, Lyndsey Ingram, Professor Dr Hans Walter Lack, Dr Fred G. Meijer, Colleen Morris, Polly Nicholson, Lynn Parker, Anna Pavord, Gill Saunders, Lindsey Taylor, Anatole Tchikine and Betsy Wieseman

Additional texts: Giovanni Aloi, Louise Bell, Lugene Bruno, Shane Connolly, Clare Coulson, Louisa Elderton, Celia Fisher, Diane Fortenberry, Victoria Gaiger, Daisy Helman, Pascale Heurtel, Lyndsey Ingram, Hans Walter Lack, Fred G. Meijer, Alison Morris, Colleen Morris, Polly Nicholson, Michele Robecchi, Rebecca Roke, Gill Saunders, James Smith, Lindsey Taylor, David Trigg and Martin Walters

About the Author:

Anna Pavord's books include her globally bestselling The Tulip and The Naming of Names, and more recently The Seasonal Gardener, published by Phaidon. Her gardening column in the Independent newspaper in the UK ran for thirty years from the paper's launch in 1986 until the last print edition. Today she writes for the Sunday Times and is an Associate Editor of Gardens Illustrated magazine. Pavord lives in West Dorset and was awarded the Gold Veitch medal from the Royal Horticultural Society in 2001.

Shane Connolly is the founder of Shane Connolly & Company Flowers, London and Royal Warrant holder to HM The Queen and HRH the Prince of Wales.

To celebrate its fifteenth anniversary, the Red Bull Music Academy has curated conversations with masterminds and trailblazers in today’s music on their perspectives and strategies for success.

The Red Bull Music Academy is creating the future of music by bringing the vanguard of the industry together. In the book For the Record, the leaders shaping the current musical landscape offer their insights on today’s most relevant topics and how they will affect the evolution of music production.

For the Record includes conversations between luminaries such as Nile Rodgers and Martyn Ware — the forces behind some of the biggest tunes in disco and pop from the likes of Chic, Daft Punk, David Bowie, Madonna, The Human League, and Heaven 17—who compare notes on the best way to create chart-topping hits. Erykah Badu, one of neo-soul’s defining voices, shares career advice and psychedelic wisdom with up-and-coming New York rap duo The Underachievers. DJ Harvey and Ben UFO, two different generations of DJs, talk about the good old days, the present day, and the uncertain future of selecting records for a living. Jamaican visionary Lee “Scratch” Perry is paired with UK dub producer Adrian Sherwood. Those familiar with Perry’s unique worldview will not be disappointed by this surprising and funny conversation.

.About the Author:

The Red Bull Music Academy is a world-travelling series of music workshops and festivals — a platform for those who make a difference in today’s musical landscape. The Academy began back in 1998 and has been traversing the globe ever since, bringing together producers, vocalists, DJs, instrumentalists, and all-around musical mavericks to shape the future of music. It has already made stops in Berlin, Cape Town, São Paulo, Barcelona, London, Toronto, New York, and beyond. If you can imagine a place that’s equal parts science lab, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and Kraftwerk’s home studio, you’re halfway there.

No matter what stage artists are in their careers, “it’s necessary to look toward the future eager to learn and to be better every day,” writes artist and best-selling author Marcos Mateu-Mestre (Framed Ink, Framed Perspective Vol. 1 & 2) in his latest book, Framed Drawing Techniques, which is packed with opportunities to do just that. In exquisite and thoughtful detail, Mateu-Mestre lays out distinct approaches to drawing in the book’s chapters — The Ballpoint Pen, Graphite Pencil, The Digital Way, and The Gray Scale —outlining the benefits and challenges of each, and specific techniques that can be applied to one’s work in all the mediums to achieve the greatest results.

Alongside his important technical lessons, on everything from depicting reflected light on a character’s hair to how to add rain to dramatize a scene, is Mateu-Mestre’s awe-inspiring artwork, which serves to educate and motivate artists of all levels to discover what incredible storytelling is possible with a single pen or pencil (or tablet).

About the Author:

Born in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, Marcos Mateu-Mestre is a lead animation designer and graphic novel artist with three decades of experience in feature animation. Some of his film credits include Balto, The Prince of Egypt, Asterix and The Vikings, Surf's Up, and How to Train Your Dragon 2. His work in film, primarily for DreamWorks Animation, Netflix Animation and Sony Pictures Animation, has focused on the design and cinematic aspects of frame composition, lighting, and visual continuity, experience he shared in his international best-sellers, Framed Ink: Drawing and Composition for Visual Storytellers, Framed Ink Vol 2: Frame Format, Energy, and Composition for Visual Storytellers, Framed Perspective Vol.1, Framed Perspective Vol. 2, and Framed Drawing Techniques. In addition to his work in film, he has taught drawing, illustration, and visual storytelling techniques for more than a decade. Mateu-Mestre currently lives in Los Angeles and is a production designer at Netflix.

Framed Ink – The ultimate guide to visual storytelling! How to make the audience “feel” the story while they are “reading” the story. Using his experiences from working in the comic book industry, movie studios and teaching, Marcos introduces the reader to a step‑by‑step system that will create the most successful storyboards and graphics for the best visual communication. After a brief discussion on narrative art, Marcos introduces us to drawing and composing a single image, to composing steady shots to drawing to compose for continuity between all the shots. These lessons are then applied to three diverse storylines ‑ a train accident, a cowboy tale and bikers approaching a mysterious house. In addition to setting up the shots, he also explains and illustrates visual character development, emotive stances and expressions along with development of the environmental setting to fully develop the visual narrative.

About the Author:

Born in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, Marcos Mateu-Mestre is a lead animation designer and graphic novel artist with three decades of experience in feature animation. Some of his film credits include Balto, The Prince of Egypt, Asterix and The Vikings, Surf's Up, and How to Train Your Dragon 2. His work in film, primarily for DreamWorks Animation, Netflix Animation and Sony Pictures Animation, has focused on the design and cinematic aspects of frame composition, lighting, and visual continuity, experience he shared in his international best-sellers, Framed Ink: Drawing and Composition for Visual Storytellers, Framed Ink Vol 2: Frame Format, Energy, and Composition for Visual Storytellers, Framed Perspective Vol.1, Framed Perspective Vol. 2, and Framed Drawing Techniques. In addition to his work in film, he has taught drawing, illustration, and visual storytelling techniques for more than a decade. Mateu-Mestre currently lives in Los Angeles and is a production designer at Netflix.

Perspective is a discipline often set aside when it comes to general art study, though it is essential to master in order to produce any piece of art that is and feels realistic. As intimidating as perspective may seem to aspiring artists, celebrated artist and author Marcos Mateu-Mestre takes the mystery out of understanding and applying it correctly with his highly anticipated two-volume collection, Framed Perspective.

In Framed Perspective, Vol. 1: Technical Drawing for Visual Storytelling, Mateu-Mestre equips artists with the technical knowledge needed to produce successful visual storytelling–related drawings: from understanding the basics of the space around us and how we perceive it, to more sophisticated endeavors such as creating entire environments that are believable.

Sure to be one of the most popular books in your art library, thanks to Mateu-Mestre’s thorough step-by-step explanations and awe-inspiring illustrations, Framed Perspective, Vol. 1 will train you to enjoy every curve and slope you see in the world and, more importantly, translate that vision into art with a solid comprehension of depth and proportion — in short, accuracy. Your perspective will never be the same!

About the Author:

Born in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, Marcos Mateu-Mestre is a lead animation designer and graphic novel artist with three decades of experience in feature animation. Some of his film credits include Balto, The Prince of Egypt, Asterix and The Vikings, Surf's Up, and How to Train Your Dragon 2. His work in film, primarily for DreamWorks Animation, Netflix Animation and Sony Pictures Animation, has focused on the design and cinematic aspects of frame composition, lighting, and visual continuity, experience he shared in his international best-sellers, Framed Ink: Drawing and Composition for Visual Storytellers, Framed Ink Vol 2: Frame Format, Energy, and Composition for Visual Storytellers, Framed Perspective Vol.1, Framed Perspective Vol. 2, and Framed Drawing Techniques. In addition to his work in film, he has taught drawing, illustration, and visual storytelling techniques for more than a decade. Mateu-Mestre currently lives in Los Angeles and is a production designer at Netflix.

The long-awaited sequel to the award-winning classic Ronin by Frank Miller

A cursed Ronin. Psychological manipulation by a sentient AI. A security commander turned savior. And a postapocalyptic biotech war in the demon-teeming pits of a twenty-first century New York inadvertently started by the once benevolent Aquarius Corporation.

Eisner Hall of Famer Frank Miller’s Ronin is cited as the inspiration for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Samurai Jack. Now—40 years later—Miller, with the team Philip Tan and Daniel Henriques, returns to the world of Ronin, continuing his story for a new generation in Frank Miller’s Ronin Rising.

With Philip Tan and Daniel Henriques providing pencils and inks for chapters 1, 2, 3, and 5 of the book, and the masterful Frank Miller himself drawing chapters 4 and 6, Frank Miller’s Ronin Rising is a visual feast, with skillfully executed battle sequences that seem to jump off the page.

Miller and his team continue the story of Ronin deftly and intentionally, drawing the reader into his postapocalyptic world as completely as he did in the original series run, published in 1983–84 by DC Comics, which is widely considered to be one of his most influential original works.

This exclusive collector’s edition includes the following:
- A new cover by Frank Miller
- A foreword by the legendary Jim Lee
- Frank Miller’s never-before-seen layouts for issues 2 to 5
- Concept designs by Philip Tan
- All six full-page wraparound variant covers

About the Authors:

Frank Miller is regarded as one of the most influential and prominent creators in the comic book industry today, known for his intense, hard-boiled storytelling and gritty noir aesthetic across comics, novels, and film. His most notable works include 300, Ronin, the Sin City series, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, and Batman: Year One, among others. He has received numerous awards, including two Harvey Awards for Best Graphic Album of Original Work in 1998 and Best Continuing Series in 1996 and six Eisner Awards, including those for Best Writer/Artist, Best Graphic Novel Reprint, Best Cartoonist, Best Cover Artist, Best Limited Series, and Best Short Story. In 2015, Miller was inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame for his lifetime of contributions to the industry. Philip Tan is a comic book writer and artist who has worked on Spawn, Uncanny X-Men, Iron Man, Green Lantern, Batman and Robin, and others. His collaboration with Frank Miller on Ronin Returns is just one of several prestigious creative partnerships, and he has also collaborated with industry legends like Grant Morrison and Jim Lee. Outside of the comics industry, he has illustrated for Magic: The Gathering. Daniel Henriques is a Portuguese comic book artist who has contributed inks for titles published by Marvel, Image, Dark Horse, and DC Comics, collaborating with some of today’s top talents in a wide variety of titles, such as Green Arrow, Mortal Kombat X, Batman Arkham Knight: Robin, Green Lantern, Lobo, JLA: Power & Glory, Justice League: Rebirth, Hawkman, TeenTitans, Supergirl, Aquaman, and Spawn.

As a highly visual, astute, and rapid observer of the world around him, photographer Frank Ockenfels 3 takes in an abundance of images that serve as artistic stimuli for his creative mind. A process of collision, collusion, and collaboration is the genesis of his creativity, leading to the transformation of a photographic image into something else, a “re-presentation” of what he saw through the lens. It becomes a new form that communicates a new message, a new meaning; often conveying a more powerfully emotional visual statement.

The works of Ockenfels 3 in this book provide a window into his visual thinking, the internal world of imagery and emotions in his mind. Subjected to ink, collage, or paint, the images are no longer just photographs of an individual, but become a more personal statement of who the artist is, of his psyche and as such, creative artistry in its purest form. The erotic, the sublime, and the violent collages are blended with portraiture that seamlessly complement each other. The photographic creations become tactile, bringing another dimension of sensory experience. FWO3 is propelled by a drive and curiosity to discover an image that is not yet known, at the same time he creates a visual language that speaks from the most primal and dark corners of his mind. He creates waking dreams, images that represent the darkest, least-illuminated aspects of his unconscious projected on the person he has photographed. He has the courage to go way beyond the expected and the obvious to the breaking of boundaries of traditional photography. Ockenfels 3 does not play it safe, and as a result, he is very effective at evoking from the viewer aspects of their own psyche of which they may or may not be aware. One cannot help but feel a resonance with the chaotic vibrancy of his mind. He leaves the imprint of his unconscious on the photographic image. Creativity: that wonderful intersection of dream, fantasy, and art is not just an opportunity to express a concept or an emotion, but an occasion to open up an experience in both the artist and the viewer. This can result in a disquieting, yet aesthetically pleasing moment in time.

About the Author:

Frank Ockenfels 3 is an American photographer, artist, and director. He is renowned for his portraiture and incorporating non-photographic elements in his work. Ockenfels applies techniques like collage, painting, and drawing to his photographs. His career began working for magazines such as Rolling Stone, Spin, Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, and Vogue. He photographed over 200 album covers for various musicians. Additionally, he has created countless campaigns for major television and movie clients. Other advertising clients include Nike, K Swiss, Reebok, and Hennessy. Frank Ockenfels 3’s work has been in demand for over three decades.

- The overlaying of photography, writing, and drawing – the ultimate collage
- A journal reflecting daily encounters in the creative world
- A volatile mixture of energy and imagery with dark traces

Unflinching truth. Portraits which scrutinized beneath the skin

Lucian Freud (1922–2011) was interested in the telling of truth. Always operating outside the main currents of 20th-century art, the esteemed portrait painter observed his subjects with the regimen and precision of a laboratory scientist. He recorded not only the blotches, bruises, and swellings of the living body, but also, beneath the flaws and folds of flesh, the microscopic details of what lies within: the sensation, the emotion, the intelligence, the bloom, and the inevitable, unstoppable decay.

Despite rejecting parallels between him and his renowned grandfather, the correlation between Lucian Freud's sitting process for portraiture and Sigmund Freud's psychotherapy sessions is a fascinating element to this figurative oeuvre. Despite the thickness of the impasto surfaces, Freud's portraits of subjects as varied as the Queen, Kate Moss, and an obese job center supervisor, penetrate the physicality of the body with a direct and often disarming insight. The result is as much a psychological interrogation as it is an uneasy examination of the relationship between artist and model.

This book brings together some of Freud's most outstanding and unapologetic portraits, to introduce an artist widely considered one of the finest masters of the human form.

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

Lucian Freud dedicated his life to portraying the people in his world without flattery or refinement. Although his technique and style evolved tremendously over the decades, Freud never wavered in his uncompromising standards or unsentimental approach to his subjects. This introduction to Freud's life and oeuvre opens with an illuminating essay that explores how Freud's adherence to realism and focus on the human figure moved him in and out of the spotlight until the 1980s when renewed international interest in painting and figuration gave his work a new significance. Stunning reproductions of key works are presented chronologically, allowing readers to see how Freud's brushwork, composition, and use of light evolved over the decades. Whether he was painting members of the royal family or the cashier at a London nightclub, Freud imbued his portraits with psychological tension, humanity, and a profound interest in the relationship between painter and model.

About the Author:

Brad Finger is an art historian based near Chicago, Illinois. He is the author of Modern Art -The Groundbreaking Moments and 13 American Artists Children Should Know.

Frida Kahlo (1907–1954), as an artist and a woman, has a unique international appeal. Her instantly recognizable work draws extensively on her life and her extraordinarily personal reflections upon it.

On Kahlo’s death, her husband, Diego Rivera (1886–1957), ordered that her most private possessions be locked away until 15 years after his death. The bathroom in which her belongings were stored in fact remained unopened until 2004. Through this incredible archive, Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up gives readers a unique window into Kahlo’s life. It will focus on the personal, combining her prosthetics, jewelry, and clothes with self-portraits, diary entries, and letters to build an intimate portrait of the artist through her possessions, setting this in the context of her political and social beliefs.

 - Includes six inset booklets, containing photographs of Kahlo’s most intimate possessions
 - 16 page section showcasing Kahlo’s wardrobe, specially conserved and mounted
 - Spectacular details of embellishments and textiles

About the Authors:

Claire Wilcox is Senior Curator of Fashion at the V&A and Professor in Fashion Curation at the London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London. She curated the exhibitions Vivienne Westwood (V&A, 2004), The Golden Age of Couture: Paris and London 1947–1957 (V&A, 2007) and Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty (2015), and edited the accompanying catalogues.
Circe Henestrosa is an independent curator and Head of the School of Fashion at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore. She curated the exhibition Appearances Can Be Deceiving: The Dresses of Frida Kahlo (Museo Frida Kahlo, Mexico City, 2012).

A rich overview of the fascinating life and career of internationally renowned Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), this volume features the artist’s complex and diverse paintings, a series of thoughtful essays about her and her oeuvre, and a detailed illustrated chronology.

As a woman artist who confronted many taboo subjects — and herself — head-on, Kahlo produced groundbreaking work that shifted the terrain of the art world. In these pages, new high-resolution photographs present the most accurate reproductions ever of her visionary artworks, including many ravishing details. That astounding fidelity and the detailed analysis of the artist’s life and process combine to make this a must-have book for Kahlo’s legions of fans worldwide.

Readable and illuminating, Frida Kahlo is illustrated with rarely seen paintings from private collections alongside iconic favorites, including many of Kahlo’s striking self-portraits and her sensual still lifes. Archival and personal photographs, insightful descriptions of her works, and numerous excerpts from her intimate diaries and letters provide context and imbue Kahlo’s work with additional meaning. Authors Héctor Tajonar and Roxana Velásquez — the world’s foremost authorities on Frida Kahlo — deftly untangle the many threads of Kahlo’s complex persona. Kahlo was a charismatic force. Fiercely political and proud of her Mexican heritage, she maintained a dense network of romantic and platonic relationships, including two marriages to fellow artist Diego Rivera. But her childhood illness and the tragic accident she suffered as a teenager left her physically vulnerable. Understanding that duality is key to fully appreciating Kahlo’s extraordinary work. With this deeply researched, stunningly designed volume in hand, readers can do just that.

About the Author:

Roxana Velásquez is the director of the San Diego Museum of Art and previously served as director of the Palace of Fine Arts (2007–2010), the National Art Museum (2004–2007), and the San Carlos National Museum (1997–2004) in Mexico. She has garnered international recognition as an expert on Frida Kahlo and for organizing major exhibitions, including Frida Kahlo 1907–2007 as well as National Homage (which attracted a record-breaking 420,000 visitors) at the Palace of Fine Arts in 2007.

This definitive appreciation of Kahlo’s career features gorgeous full-page reproductions and insightful commentary to illuminate connections between the artist’s life and work.

Few painters have been as celebrated and adopted into popular culture as Frida Kahlo — often to the detriment of her amazing achievements as a painter. In this striking volume, one of the world’s foremost scholars on Kahlo’s art looks past the hype to focus on the artist’s technique and motifs. Reproductions of Kahlo's paintings, along with selected details, are accompanied by illuminating observations about the role of physical and mental suffering in the creative process, Kahlo’s mastery and reinvention of European traditions, and the wealth of coded and metaphorical elements hidden in so much of her work. A rich and rewarding exploration of an artist all too easily reduced to a single narrative, this nuanced study is also an exquisitely produced celebration of Kahlo’s genius.

About the Author:

Helga Prignitz-Poda is an art historian and specialist in Latin American studies and lives in Berlin. She is a specialist on Frida Kahlo and a co-editor of the catalogue raisonné of Frida Kahlo's work.

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Пролистать книгу Frida Kahlo: The Painter and Her Work

Original Covers. The golden age of Black music

Following the success of Jazz Covers, this epic volume of groove assembles over 500 legendary covers from a golden era in Black music. Psychedelia meets Black Power, sexual liberation meets social conscience, and street portraiture meets fantastical cartoon in this dazzling anthology of visualized funk and soul.

Gathering both classic and rare covers, the collection celebrates each artwork’s ability to capture not only a buyer’s interest, but an entire musical mood. Browse through and discover the brilliant, the bold, the outlandish and the sheer beautiful designs that fans rushed to get their hands on as the likes of Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, Michael Jackson, and Prince changed the world with their unique and unforgettable sounds.

Featuring interviews with key industry figures, Funk & Soul Covers also provides cultural context and design analysis for many of the chosen record covers.

The author:

Joaquim Paulo is a consultant for major labels and directs a number of radio stations in Portugal. He started collecting vinyl at 15, and flies to London, Paris, New York and São Paulo to enrich his collection of over 25,000 LPs. He lives and works in Lisbon and dedicates his free time to recovering old and rare recordings.

The editor:

Julius Wiedemann studied graphic design and marketing and was an art editor for newspapers and design magazines in Tokyo before joining TASCHEN in 2001. His titles include the Illustration Now! and Record Covers series, as well as the infographics collection and books about advertising and visual culture.

A Frenchman in Tahiti. Gauguin’s search for pristine originality and unadulterated nature

Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) was not cut out for finance. Nor did he last particularly long in the French Navy, or as a tarpaulin salesman in Copenhagen who did not speak Danish. He began painting in his spare time in 1873 and in 1876 took part in the Paris Salon. Three years later, he was exhibiting alongside Pissarro, Degas, and Monet.

A querulous, hard-drinking individual, Gauguin often called himself a savage. His close but fraught friendship with the similarly temperamental Vincent van Gogh climaxed in a violent incident in 1888, when van Gogh purportedly confronted Gauguin with a razor blade, and later cut off his own ear. Shortly afterwards, following the completion of a midcareer masterpiece Vision After the Sermon (1888), Gauguin took himself to Tahiti, with the intention of escaping “everything that is artificial and conventional…”On Tahiti, Gauguin’s unfettered joy in the island’s nature, native people, and figurative images soared, spurring a prolific output of paintings and prints. In works such as Woman with a Flower (Vahine no te Tiare, 1891) and Sacred Spring: Sweet Dreams (Nave Nave Moe, 1894), he developed a distinct, Primitivist style that positively oozed with sunshine and colour. In the tradition of exotic sensuality, his thick, buttery lashings of paint lingered in particular over the curves of Tahitian women.

Gauguin died alone, on Tahiti’s neighboring Marquesas Islands, with many of his personal papers and belongings dispersed in a local auction. It was not until a smart art dealer began curating and showing Gauguin’s work in Paris that the artist’s profound influence began making itself felt, especially to the new breed of French avant-garde artists, such as Picasso and Matisse.

This book offers the essential introduction the artist’s truly colourful life, from the Impressionist salons of 1870s Paris to his final days in the Pacific, productive and passionate to the end.

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