Книги по истории искусства

While the early 20th century was rich with creative energy, no one brought theatre and dance to the forefront of culture quite like Sergei Diaghilev did with his extraordinary Ballets Russes. From 1909 to 1929, the impresario attracted the involvement of artists and designers (Picasso, Matisse, Chanel), composers (Stravinsky), dancers (Nijinsky and Massine), and even a young George Balanchine. Now, this major book, originally published to accompany a retrospective exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, that travelled to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, examines the origins, development, and long-term influence of the Ballets Russes, the company that showcased artistic collaboration at its finest and revolutionized ballet for all time.

About the Author:

Jane Pritchard is curator of dance at the V&A. 

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Каталог представляет историю «Русских балетных сезонов» во всём богатстве красок и деталей. Его структура отвечает хронологической последовательности и этапам развития «Русских Балетов». Каждый этап соответствовал подготовке и премьере очередного балета и знаменовался привлечением к работе над постановками всё новых именитых художников и дизайнеров, Невероятно динамичный, «Русский балет» Дягилева нередко претерпевал полную смену направления – от классики к ориентализму, от восточного направления к русской теме и, наконец к авангардным постановкам.

Этот увлекательный процесс смены этапов и направлений отражен в каталоге с использованием богатого иллюстративного материала, представлены произведения знаменитых французских и российских художников XX в: Л. Бакста, А.Бенуа, Н.Гончаровой, М. Ларионова Ж. Брака, А. Матисса и других. Работы, предоставленные музеями и частными коллекциями различных стран, впервые объединены в одном издании.

Составителям удалось превратить каталог в увлекательное повествование. Творческий подход к подаче иллюстративного материала позволил использовать различные неординарные приёмы для более наглядной демонстрации костюмов, театральных эскизов и т. д.

Dazzling mosaic pictures made of glittering shards of light-reflecting colored glass embellish Rome’s oldest churches and tell an enduring story of beauty, faith, and artistry across a thousand years.

This book brings these little-known masterpieces to life while exploring their meaning, historical context, and spiritual power.

Through brilliant full-color photographs with lavish details, Wendy A. Stein presents twelve ensembles of mosaic preserved in nine churches. The subjects reveal their glory as their imagery is decoded, telling the story of an ideal Rome whose power was derived from both its imperial past and its Christian legacy. Together, the mosaics embody the interpretation of light as an expression of the divine. With a detailed map to easily locate the churches, this volume is a perfect travel companion.

About the Author:

Wendy A. Stein is an art historian affiliated with the Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. She is the author of How to Read Medieval Art.

Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) was the greatest artist of the Northern European Renaissance. Dürer's virtuoso woodcuts and engravings ensured his fame throughout the Continent during his own lifetime. Yet he also produced an extraordinary output in other media – including painting, watercolour and drawing – which encompasses riveting portraits and self-portraits, grand altarpieces and meticulous studies of animals and nature.

In this major new monograph, Jeffrey Chipps Smith examines the myths that have contributed to Dürer's legend, considering his life and career within the framework of a tumultuous epoch in European history. Taking account of the extensive scholarship on the artist, Smith provides fresh insights into many of his most notable works, uncovering the creative process behind them and their wealth of meanings and ideas. Central to Smith's focus is the historical and cultural ferment of pre- and post-Reformation Europe, as he traces Dürer's formative years in the Imperial free city of Nuremberg and his subsequent travels across Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. The result is a vivid picture of the professional activity of a prolific and psychologically complex figure.

With its detailed commentary and original research, this is both an authoritive and an approachable monograph – indispensable for the student or scholar, while certain to appeal to anyone interested in this brilliant artist.

About the Author:

Jeffrey Chipps Smith holds the Kay Fortson Chair in European Art at the University of Texas at Austin. His books include German Sculpture of the Later Renaissance (1994) and Sensuous Worship: The Jesuits and the Early Catholic Reformation in Germany (2003).

Hailed by The Times as 'a pearl of a book', this new narrative history of the Renaissance by one of the UK’s foremost art critics takes in the whole of Europe and its global context

What was the 'Renaissance'? In the nineteenth century this flowering of creativity and thought was celebrated as the birth of the modern world. Today many historians are sceptical about its very existence. Earthly Delights rekindles the Renaissance as a seismic change in European mentalities, in a panoramic history that encompasses Florence and Bruges, London and Nuremberg. Artists from northern as well as southern Europe, including Leonardo, Bosch, Bruegel and Titian, star in a captivating and beautifully illustrated narrative that sets their lives against a period of convulsive change across a continent that was finding itself as it ‘discovered’ the world.

Art critic and writer Jonathan Jones tells the story of Renaissance artists as pioneers, adventurers and ‘geniuses’, a Renaissance concept. Albrecht Dürer gazes with wonder on Aztec art in Brussels in 1520, Leonardo da Vinci tries to perfect a flying machine, Hieronymus Bosch finds inspiration in West African ivory carvings imported by the Portuguese to Antwerp. A then unknown Netherlandish painter, Pieter Bruegel, arrives in 1550s Rome just as Michelangelo is striving in the same city to raise the new St Peter’s Basilica towards heaven. From Atlantic voyages to Germanic woods, Italian palazzi to the royal castle of Prague, this was an age when people dared to experiment with the occult and dabble in utopias: to think and create new worlds.

About the Author:

Jonathan Jones is the art critic for the Guardian newspaper. He is the author of several books including The Lost Battles: Leonardo, Michelangelo and the Artistic Duel that Defined the Renaissance (2010), The Loves of the Artists: Art and Passion in the Renaissance (2013), Sensations: The Story of British Art from Hogarth to Banksy (2019) and Artemisia Gentileschi (2020). Jones was also a member of the jury for the 2009 Turner Prize and has appeared in the BBC series Private Life of a Masterpiece. He was Series Consultant for BBC2’s Civilisations and is a frequent contributor to BBC Radio 4’s Front Row.

Contents List:

Introduction
1. The Arnolfini Nude
2. The Naked Citizen
3. The Triumph of Love
4. Profane Angels
5. Worldly Knowledge
6. Haywain To Hell
7. The Garden of Earthly Delights
8. Render Unto Caesar
9. Melancholia
10. Pulse of Life
11. Judgements
12. Carnival and Lent
13. Curiosities

A gloriously illustrated overview of angels across art, religion, and literature

Ineffable, invisible, inscrutable – angels are enduring creatures across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and human experiences of the divine as mediated by spiritual emissaries are an aspect of almost every religious tradition. In popular culture, angels are often reduced to the most gauzy, sentimental, and saccharine of images – fat babies with wings and guardians with robes, halos, and harps. By contrast, in scripture whenever one of the heavenly choirs appears before a prophet or patriarch they first declare "Fear not!" for terror would be the most appropriate initial reaction to these otherworldly beings. Angels are often not what we'd expect, but it's precisely in that transcendent encounter that something of the strangeness of existence can be conveyed. Elysium: A Visual History of Angelology is a follow-up volume to Pandemonium: A Visual History of Demonology, and like that earlier title, this book will offer an account of the angelic hierarchies as they've been understood across centuries and cultures, of the individual personages like the archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Uriel who have marked the mythology of the West.

About the Author:

Ed Simon is staff writer for literary site The Millions and has contributed his characteristically engaging cultural criticism to almost every major American literary publication, including The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Paris Review Daily, The New Republic, and The Washington Post. With a PhD in English, Simon is an expert on the literature and religion of Renaissance Britain and early America, but he has developed a reputation among editors, critics, and readers for introducing complex subjects in an accessible manner. In fall 2021, Abrams Books released his latest book, Pandemonium: A Visual History of Demonology, which has since become the standard text on the subject for popular readers.

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.

The perfect subject for a graphic novel, Frida Kahlo's brief life was dramatic and romantic, tragic and painful. In this illustrated 'biography', Vanna Vinci captures the spirit of Kahlo's world in boldly coloured, minutely detailed illustrations. Blending facts and history with dreamlike and surreal sequences, Vinci creates an intimate portrayal of an artist who incorporated her life experiences into her art. Burning love and crushing loss, incredible joy and deep despair - these were all part of Kahlo's life and part of the paintings that are some of the most celebrated art of all time. Filled with images that populated Kahlo's work - monkeys and parrots, traditional clothing and lush gardens - Vinci imbues her text and drawings with an artist's perception and sensitivity. The result is an evocative, fittingly passionate tribute to a legendary figure.

The Saint Louis Art Museum has assembled one of North America’s largest and most comprehensive collections of German Expressionist paintings. Rediscover a defining movement of modern art through this original study of works by 25 artists who span its famously wide arc.

This is the first publication on the Saint Louis Art Museum’s internationally renowned collection of German Expressionist art, which includes major works by the movement’s leading artists and lesser-known figures rarely seen outside of Germany. Engaging entries delve into the paintings’ histories, from their production to their arrival in St. Louis. An introduction traces the collection’s origins to the flood of Expressionist art that entered the United States during World War II. What emerges is a new account of a pivotal era in modern art.

About the Author:

Melissa Venator is assistant curator of modern art at the Saint Louis Art Museum.

The story of the Gothic, from early architecture and literature to the modern horror genre, illustrated by the beautiful, the macabre and the strange

Crumbling ruins, undead fiends, dark alleys and forests teeming with horrors seen and unseen: the tendrils of the Gothic have crept out of the architecture of churches, mosques and grand houses and into suburban malls, overcrowded cities, the deserted corners of the world and beyond, taking the shape of monsters from Beowulf to Gojira, Cthulhu or the wendigo to our own terrifying, warped reflections. Across time, form and media, this book traces the weaving path of the Gothic from the shadows of history to the very heart of popular culture today.

Contents List:

Introduction
I. Architecture & Form
The Pointed Arch • Ruins • Fragment • Labyrinth • The House
II. The Lie of the Land
The Country & The City • Village • Forest • Wilderness • Edgelands
III. The Gothic Compass
North • South • East • West • Planetary & Cosmic Horror
IV. Monsters
Scale • Splices • The Tentacle • Formless • Us
Further Reading

About the Author:

Roger Luckhurst is the author of The Invention of Telepathy, 1870–1901 (2002), The Mummy’s Curse: The True History of a Dark Fantasy (2012), and Zombies: A Cultural History (2015), and has edited several classic Gothic novels by Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson and H. P. Lovecraft. He is the Geoffrey Tillotson Professor of Nineteenth Century Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London.

Sarah Symmons' fascinating account locates Goya in the context of his Spanish heritage, traces the immense influence of his work throughout Europe and considers the continued relevance of his art in the twentieth century. Drawings, oil paintings, frescos, tapestry designs and prints all convey the full range of Goya's work. Symmons draws on the most recent scholarship and on rediscovered works to create a comprehensive portrait of this complex artist that is perfectly up-to-date and highly absorbing.

About the Author:

Sarah Symmons is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Art History and Theory at the University of Essex.

Art is for Everybody. The artist as activist

One of the key figures in the New York art world of the 1980s, Keith Haring (1958-1990) created a signature style that blended street art, graffiti, Pop, and cartoon elements to unique, memorable effect. With thick black outlines, bright colours, and kinetic figures, his public (and occasionally illegal) interventions, sculptures, and works on canvas and paper have become instantly recognizable icons of 20th-century visual culture.

From his first chalk drawings in the New York City subway stations, to his renowned Radiant Baby symbol, and his commissions for Swatch Watch and Absolut Vodka, Haring s work was both emblematic of the manic work ethic of 1980s New York, yet distinctive for its social-awareness. Belying their bright, playful aesthetics, his pieces often tackled intensely controversial socio-political issues, including racism, capitalism, religious fundamentalism, and the increasing impact of AIDS on New York's gay community, the latter foreshadowing his own death from the disease in 1990.

In this vivid introduction to Haring's work, we explore the dynamic life and innovative spirit of this singular artist, who spent little more than a decade in the spotlight, but through the accessibility of his visual vocabulary and the strength of his political commitment became one of the most significant artists to emerge from New York's vibrant, downtown community.

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

Following the success of The Empire of Death, which has attracted a global cult following, Heavenly Bodies brings the 'catacomb saints' out of the darkness for the first time

In 1578 a labyrinth of underground burials was discovered in Rome that contained the remains of thousands of individuals assumed to be early Christian martyrs. The bones were disinterred and sent to many Catholic churches and religious houses in German-speaking Europe to replace holy relics that had been destroyed during the Protestant Reformation.

Reassembled by skilled artisans, encrusted with gold and jewels and richly dressed in fantastic costumes, the skeletons were displayed in elaborate public shrines as reminders of the spiritual treasures that awaited the faithful after death. For nearly three centuries these ‘Heavenly Bodies’ were venerated as miracle-workers and protectors of their communities until doubts about their authenticity surfaced in the modern era. They then became a source of embarrassment for the Church and most were destroyed or hidden away.

The book includes arresting images of more than seventy spectacular jeweled skeletons and the fascinating stories of dozens more, accompanied by rare archive material. This is the first time that some of these incredible relics – both intriguing historical artifacts and masterpieces of artistic craftsmanship in their own right – have appeared in a publication, with Koudounaris gaining unprecedented access to photograph in some of the most secretive religious establishments in Europe.

Meticulously researched and beautifully written, this is a tour de force of original cultural history with deepest resonances for a modern audience fascinated by visual representations of death.

About the Author:

Paul Koudounaris lives in Los Angeles, where he took his doctorate in the art history department of UCLA. His first book, The Empire of Death: A Cultural History of Ossuaries and Charnel Houses, was published by Thames & Hudson in 2011.

A marvelous art book that reveals the unknown face of the Renaissance and the craze for monsters

Hieronymous Bosch is known throughout the world as a painter of monstrous creatures and fantastic scenes that seem the output of dreamlike visions. His fame did not begin in the Netherlands, where the artist was born, but in 16th-century southern Europe, which was artistically dominated by themes and styles typical of Renaissance classicism, very far from those of the Flemish painter.

This book, in addition to presenting Bosch, aims to illustrate the success of his art in the high societies of Italy, Spain, and the Americas in the period between the 16th and early 17th centuries, with particular reference to the collecting trends of the time in these two countries, where the works of Bosch and his followers were in great demand (by the Spanish Habsburgs, the Grimani in Venice, etc.). These works, in turn, inspired a large number of painters, draftsmen, engravers, and other prominent artists, including his successor, the much-renowned Bruegel the Elder.

The book thus sheds new and surprising light on a particular “Renaissance” that has always remained in the shadows compared to the classicism of Raphael, Titian, and Parmigianino, but which had actually a strong artistic and cultural impact in various parts of Europe, with often grotesque or “anticlassical” expressions such as the cycle of tapestries by Bosch at the Escorial, the paintings by masters such as Titian and El Greco, the works of engravers such as Giorgio Ghisi, and sculptors and decorators such as Bernardo Buontalenti, and finally, the culture of the Wunderkammer.

About the Authors:

Bernard Aikema, author and co-editor, is a professor of modern art history at the University of Verona, and a great expert on the artistic relations between European countries in the modern era. Fernando Checa Cremades, author and co-editor, is an art historian and former director of the Prado Museum in Madrid. Essays are contributed by Joaquim Oliveira Caetano (Portugal), Juliette Ferdinand (Italy), Thomas Dalla Costa (Italy), Giulia Zanon (Italy), Claudio Salsi (Italy), Paula Findlen (United States), Ralph Dekoninck (Belgium), David Zagoury (Switzerland), Florike Egmond (The Netherlands), Daan van Heesch (Belgium), Concha Herrero (Spain), Noelia Garcia Perez (Spain), and Bertram Kaschek (Germany).

Holbein at the Tudor Court focuses on the internationally significant collection of portraits by Hans Holbein the Younger in the Royal Collection.

This richly illustrated publication has essays on the artist, his sitters and on the history of his work in the Royal Collection.

Holbein at the Tudor Court focuses on the internationally significant collection of portraits by Hans Holbein the Younger in the Royal Collection. These portraits, in drawing, miniature and painting, date almost exclusively from Holbein's period as the pre-eminent artist at the court of Henry VIII.

This richly illustrated publication has essays on the artist, his sitters and on the history of his work in the Royal Collection, and a series of entries on individual works - looking at both on the work of art and on the identity of the sitter featured, and uses, where possible voices from the period (as found in letters, poems, administrative records and diplomatic accounts) to bring alive the world of the sixteenth-century English court.

About the Author:

Kate Heard is Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings, Royal Collection Trust. Her previous publications include George IV: Art and Spectacle (2019), The First Georgians: Art & Monarchy (2014) and High Spirits: The Comic Art of Thomas Rowlandson (2013).

Now available in a compact and attractively priced edition, this lavishly illustrated, multi- faceted examination of Impressionism traces the movement’s birth, development, and global impact.

One of the art world’s most recognizable and popular styles, Impressionism is also one of the most complexes. In this sumptuous overview Norbert Wolf lends his attention to all aspects of Impressionism: its historical precursors, contemporary rivals, and the movements it inspired. Over 200 large-format reproductions of entire works and highlighted details introduce readers to the Impressionists’ aesthetics and techniques. Wolf draws insightful parallels between these paintings and other contemporary works of music, photography, and literature. Tracing the movement’s expansion from France to the rest of Europe and North America, this volume shines a spotlight on the main protagonists who were key in the development of Impressionism. It highlights not only the French pioneers — Claude Monet, Gustave Caillebotte, Édouard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, and others — but also Max Liebermann, Lovis Corinth, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, William Merritt Chase, and James McNeill Whistler, to name a few. As luxurious as it is authoritative, this wide-ranging investigation of a moment in art history reveals works and ideas that will surprise even the most seasoned aficionado.

About the Author:

Norbert Wolf is an art historian and author based in Munich. He has published several books with Prestel, including Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Impressionism, and "The Golden Age of Dutch and Flemish Painting", as well as monographs on Albrecht Dürer and Titian.

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