Искусство

Drawing on five centuries of artistic expression, this lushly illustrated and beautifully designed celebration of romance is the perfect keepsake for lovers young and old.

How many ways can you paint a kiss? Ask Picasso, Lichtenstein, Toulouse-Lautrec, Klimt, and Fragonard. Rediscover mythology’s great love stories through the works of Botticelli, Correggio, Titian, and Canova. Meet ordinary and extraordinary couples in paintings by Kahlo, Van Eyck, Rubens, Rembrandt, Freud, and Rossetti. These are just some of the bounty of artists collected in this glorious book, featuring brilliantly colored reproductions and love-inspired writings. Organized to show the progression of love from first meeting to marriage, this exquisite volume travels the centuries through various artistic traditions. The stories these artists tell are as varied as the works themselves: sentimental, tragic, intellectual, ironic, sensual, and comic. For lovers of art, or just lovers, this book gloriously illustrates the endless facets of love.

British artist Lucian Freud is widely considered the most important figurative painter working today. Master portraitist and specialist in nudes, Freud uses impasto to create depth and intensity while restraining his color palate to mostly muted hues. His portraits may be physically unflattering to their subjects, but they are honest, frank, and unapologetic. "I paint people," Freud has said, "not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be."

Lucian Freud Portraits surveys his portraits and figure paintings from across his long career.

Drawing together the finest portraits from public and private collections around the world, the book explores Freuds stylistic development and technical virtuosity. A series of previously unpublished interviews conducted by Michael Auping between May 2009 and January 2011 reveals the artists thoughts on the complex relationship between artist and sitter, the particular challenges of painting nudes and self-portraits, and his views on other painters he admired.

Freuds psychological portraits are often imbued with a mood of alienation. A private man, the artists close relationship with his sitters was played out behind the closed door of the studio. Frequently there is the sense of an emotionally charged drama unfolding, but his subjects remain elusive. Sitters represented in the book include family members, particularly his mother, Lucie, and artists such as Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon and David Hockney. In the early 1990s Freud produced a series of monumental paintings of the performance artist Leigh Bowery and Bowerys friend Sue Tilley, the benefits supervisor, examples of which are reproduced in this book.

'Everything is autobiographical and everything is a portrait, even if it's only a chair.'

Portraits were central to the work of Lucian Freud.

Working only from life, the artist claimed 'I could never put anything into a picture that wasn't actually there in front of me.' Lucian Freud Portraits surveys his portraits and figure paintings from across his long career. Drawing together the finest portraits from public and private collections around the world, the book explores Freud's stylistic development and technical virtuosity. A series of previously unpublished interviews conducted by Michael Auping between May 2009 and January 2011 reveal the artist's thoughts on the complex relationship between artist and sitter, the particular challenges of painting nudes and self-portraits, and his views on other painters he admired.

Freud's psychological portraits are often imbued with a mood of alienation. A private man, the artist's close relationship with his sitters was played out behind the closed door of the studio. Frequently there is the sense of an emotionally charged drama unfolding, but his subjects remain elusive. Sitters represented in the book include family members, particularly his mother, Lucie, and artists such as Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon and David Hockney. In the early 1990s Freud produced a series of monumental paintings of the performance artist Leigh Bowery and Bowery's friend Sue Tilley, the 'benefits supervisor', examples of which are reproduced in this book.

Authoritative survey of more than 130 works, accompanying the first major exhibition focussed on seven decades of Freud's portraits.

Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London (9 February-27 May 2012) and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas (2 July-28 October 2012). Includes new, illuminating interviews with Freud by Michael Auping. Contribution by John Richardson (friend of Freud and biographer of Picasso). Features an illustrated chronology of Freud's life. Essay and interviews with Lucian Freud by Michael Auping With a contribution by John Richardson This book accompanies the National Portrait Gallery's major Spring 2012 exhibition on Lucian Freud Portraits and the subsequent tour to Fort Worth, Texas in July 2012

Thanks to its exquisite pictorial material, this book familiarizes the reader with the logic and golden rules of art. It enables an understanding, on the one hand, of the keys to appreciating the works of the great masters, and on the other, of how to apply these rules to the practice of one's own creative activities.

The work begins with a number of basic explanations on how to represent and interrelate the different parts of the human body. The introduction is followed by chapters on the various possibilities for representing male and female nudes, and mythological and biblical figures, dressed and contextualized. Finally, it looks at quadruped animals and birds.

Table of Contents from: The Lure of Gold

Introduction
I. The Bronze Age and Early Advanced Civilizations
1. The Discovery of the “Sun Metal” in Prehistoric and Early Historical Times
2. Egypt: The Gold of the Pharaohs and Gods
3. Self-presentation and Divine Rites: The Gold Cultures of the Ancient Near East
4. Minoan Joie de Vivre and the Mycenaean Cult of Rulers

II. Europe in the First Millennium
5. Greece Influences an Age beyond Its Borders
6. The Mysterious Celts and Their Fascination with Gold
7. The Etruscans: Artists and Connoisseurs
8. Rome: From the Modesty of the Republic to the Splendor of the Empire

III. Great Non-European Cultures
9. Gold in the Islamic World: Between Moderation and Opulence
10. Gold for Buddha, Kings, and Emperors: Temples, Pagodas, and Insignia of Asia
11. The Discovery of the New World: The Legend of Eldorado
12. The Gleam on the Gold Coast: The Wealth of African Rulers

IV. The Western World from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century
13. Treasures of the Age of Migrations and the Early Middle Ages
14. Byzantium: The Gold-Glittering Bastion of Christianity
15. The Metaphysics of Light and the Demonstration of Power: Gold in the High and Late Middle Ages
16. The Metal of Artists, Alchemists, and Kings: The Renaissance, the Baroque, and Classicism
17. Gold in the Modern Age

Bibliography

Index

Illusions in Your Hands. Craft M.C. Escher’s visual riddles in 3D!

Mysterious and mathematical at once, the magical visual world of Dutch artist M.C. Escher (1898–1972) has captivated scientists and scholars and made its mark on popular culture, inspiring book covers, album art, films, posters, and puzzles.

This set puts Escher’s tessellated wonders right at your fingertips with 17 easy-to-assemble paper sculptures. Folding along the score lines, you can transform the artist’s richly geometric designs into three-dimensional polyhedra with forming and reforming patterns, including genius arrangements of flowers, butterflies, lizards, and seashells. The book includes a review of the geometric principles and artistic invention underlying Escher’s optical marvels as well as concise instructions.

The authors:

Wallace G. Walker spent most of his career as an independent artist residing in New York City. He was a graduate of Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and the inventor of IsoAxis®. He worked for I.M. Pei and Partners and taught at both Parsons School of Design and the New York Institute of Technology. He had numerous shows and exhibits in cities across the USA. He returned to his hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana in 1989 and continued his artistic activities until his death in 2003.

Doris Schattschneider is Professor Emerita of Mathematics at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where she taught for 34 years. Her dual interest in geometry and art led naturally to the study of M.C. Escher’s work. Active as a teacher, lecturer, editor, and writer, she has published widely on Escher’s work. Her book M.C. Escher: Visions of Symmetry gives a complete account of Escher’s symmetry work, and includes color photographs of all 150 of Escher’s symmetry drawings.

Twisted Mind. The graphic pattern genius of M.C. Escher

From impossible staircases to tesselated birds, Dutch artist M.C. Escher (1898–1972) crafted a unique graphic language of patterns, puzzles, and mathematics. Dense, complex, and structured by intricate principles, his work is at the same time decorative and playful, toying constantly with optic illusions and the limitations of sensory perception. For mathematicians and scientists, Escher is a mastermind. For hippies, he was the pioneer of psychedelic art.

Born in Leeuwarden, in the Netherlands in 1898, Escher’s early works focused on nature and landscapes, with regular exhibitions in Holland, and some international recognition. It was on a trip to the Alhambra Palace in Spain in the 1920s, however, that Escher found his niche. Sketching the patterns of the palace’s Moorish architecture, Escher became captivated by the codependency of forms within and next to each other.

Working mainly with lithographs and woodcuts, Escher went on to explore the relationships among shapes, figures, and space with a near-obsessive delight. He revelled in quirky vantage points, multiple perspectives, the transition from paper flatness to illusory volume, and intricate mathematical puzzles such as the Möbius strip, a seemingly infinite loop which twists and recoils on itself in a contortion of apparent physical impossibility.

This introductory book from TASCHEN Basic Art 2.0 taps into Escher’s brilliant mind with key works from his restless investigation of image and perception. Along the way, you’ll find fish morphing into birds, lizards crawling off the page, masterful reflections, infinite mazes, and some of the most mind-bending images of 20th-century art.

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

A style of his own

The colorful work of a truly avant-garde painter

In the course of his short life, German painter August Macke (1887–1914) combined inspirations from extremely different sources into a unique and personal style. Macke was engaged with the world, closely following the development of abstract art and at the same time feeling tied to the Blauer Reiter movement of Munich. Macke developed a “flat” yet ornamental style, but always remained true to objective representation. His cheerful scenes of parks, zoos, and promenades with shop windows are filled with bold yet harmonious colors. Their brilliance reached its zenith in 1914 when he traveled with Klee and Moilliet to Tunis and became acquainted with the light of the African sun.

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 colour illustrations with explanatory captions

About Color. August Macke’s vivid shades still resonate a century after his death

August Macke is today considered a lead figure in Weimar-era art and a pioneer of Expressionist painting. With his color-led interpretations of beauty, Macke combined facets of Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, and Fauvism into a style at once kaleidoscopic and uniquely his own. From cheerful scenes of parks to his final major work Farewell, discover the life of “Mister Color.”

August Macke (1887–1914) quickly ascended to notoriety, only to be killed at the tender age of 27 at the start of World War I. Despite his brief career, the artist left a remarkable oeuvre in his wake, his obsessions with color reflecting aspects of Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, and Expressionism.

Through his engagement with these diverse schools of art, Macke assimilated disparate influences and approaches into a style entirely his own. Grouped with the Blaue Reiter movement, but eschewing the mysticism that often pervaded the works of its artists, Macke returned time and again to color-led interpretations of beauty, whether the kaleidoscopic watercolor Bright Women in front of the Hat Shop (1913), or the shimmering hues of Lady in a Green Jacket (1913). These colors reached their zenith in 1914 when Macke traveled with Klee and Moilliet to Tunis and became acquainted with North African light.

With leading examples from his vivid painterly world, this book introduces us to Macke’s short but influential career as a pioneering Expressionist. From cheerful scenes of parks, zoos, and promenades to his final major work, ominously titled Farewell (1914), we explore a remarkable talent for visual impact and an intense pursuit of the emotional possibilities of color.

The author:

Anna Meseure, born in Hamme, Belgium, studied interior design at the NHIBS of the University of Antwerp, as well as art history, history and German philology at the University of Stuttgart. She received her doctorate in 1982 for a work on the history of the Antwerp stock exchange and 19th-century European stock-exchange architecture. From 1982 to 1990 she was an assistant at the Museum Ostwall in Dortmund, then she worked at the Deutsche Architekturmuseum in Frankfurt am Main until 2002. Meseure has published numerous works on art and architecture. Today she lives and works as a freelance art historian in Frankfurt am Main.

About the series:

Born back in 1985, the Basic Art Series has evolved into the best-selling art book collection ever published. 

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

Glasgow Style: The life and work of Glasgow School pioneer, Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Scottish architect, designer, and painter Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868 - 1928) was one of the earliest pioneers of modern architecture and design. While he never received major recognition in his hometown of Glasgow, his bold new blend of simplicity and poetic details inspired modernists across Europe.

Mackintosh s avant-garde approach embraced a variety of media as well as fresh stylistic devices. His multi-faceted oeuvre incorporated architecture, furniture, graphic design, landscapes, and flower studies. He embraced strong lines, elegant proportions, and natural motifs, combining a healthy dose of japonisme with a modernist sensibility for function. He preferred bold black typography, restrained shapes, and tall, generous windows suffusing rooms with light.

Mackintosh's projects in Glasgow include the famous Willow Tearooms, the private residences Windyhill and The Hill House, and the Mackintosh Building at the Glasgow School of Art, widely considered his masterwork. Much of his work was collaborative practice with his wife, fellow artist Margaret Macdonald. The couple made up half of the loose Glasgow collective known as The Four; the other two were Margaret's sister, Frances, and her husband, Herbert MacNair.

On the continent, this Glasgow Style was met with delight. In Italy, Germany, and, in particular, Austria, artists of the Viennese Secession and Art Nouveau drew much from its rectilinear, yet lyrical, forms. In this introductory book, we take in Mackintosh's practice across art, architecture, and design to explore his particular combination of the statuesque and sensual and its vital influence on modernist expression across Europe.

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

"Mackintosh" is a celebration of the extraordinary career of one of the most intriguing and influential artists of his time, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The book reveals a selection of some of his most important and popular works, from stained glass pieces and furniture through to architecture, at the same time giving an overview of his life and career. Secondary images draw on connections and echoes with each main entry to give depth and fuller understanding to create a beautifully rich and enjoyable tribute to the father of the 'Glasgow Style'.

For Madrid the Prado is without a doubt what the Louvre is for Paris and the Uffizi for Florence. A guidebook to this museum with a knowledgeable commentary is therefore essential for really getting to know Madrid. However this richly illustrated book not only portrays the dynamic relationship of the city and its art, it also relates a long and chequered history - from its beginnings and its charms as a residence, to the Civil War and modern times - expressed in countless churches, buildings, and squares. With this authoritative and visually striking book, simply browsing through its pages becomes a pleasant, culturally informed stroll through Madrid's streets.

The statue of libido

In terms of celebrity icons, few attained the highest levels of fame and controversy as rapidly as Mae West. Labeled a "pornographer" by censorship boards, she was also one of 1930s Hollywood’s most lucrative box-office draws (causing Variety in 1933 to label the star "as hot an issue as Hitler"). Nicknamed by critic George Jean Nathan "the Statue of Libido" and paid homage to in the title song of Cole Porter's musical Anything Goes, her voluptuous image and signature platinum blond air became recognizable worldwide and for decades beyond her prime years of fame in the 1930s. In fact, even by the 1960s when the Beatles wanted to use her image on the cover of their Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, those long-haired icons of a new generation were required to deliver a handwritten plea to the icon (which they dutifully did), since West herself always objected, as she said, to belonging to any "lonely hearts club."

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.