Книги по истории искусства

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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Abstract Beginnings. A pivotal portfolio in the history of art

Throughout his artistic career, Wassily Kandinsky transformed not only his own practice, but the course of art history itself. This essential guide traces Kandinsky’s rich repertoire to present the painter, engraver, teacher, and theorist credited with the first modern abstract painting and with one of the keenest theoretical minds of 20th-century art.

Over the course of his artistic career, Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) transformed not only his own style, but the course of art history. From early figurative and landscape painting, he went on to pioneer a spiritual, emotive, rhythmic use of color and line and is today credited with creating the first purely abstract work.

As much a teacher and theorist as he was a practicing artist, Kandinsky’s interests in music, theater, poetry, philosophy, ethnology, myth, and the occult, were all essential components to his painting and engraving. He was involved with both the influential Blaue Reiter and Bauhaus groups and left a legacy not only of dazzling visual work, but also of highly influential treatises such as Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Key tenets included the connections between painting, music and mystical experience, and the purification of art away from material realism and towards an emotional expression, condensed in particular by color.

This book presents key Kandinsky works to introduce his repertoire of vivid colors, forms, and feelings. Tracing the artist’s radical stylistic development, it shows how one painter’s progression paved the way for generations of abstract expression to come.

The author

Hajo Düchting studied art history, philosophy, and archaeology in Munich, where he gained his doctorate in 1981 with a thesis on Robert Delaunay’s Windows series. After working in museum and adult education, he moved on to teaching posts and guest professorships at the universities of Munich, Kassel, Leipzig, Saarbrücken, and Mainz. Düchting has published numerous articles on the art of the modern era, color theory, and the teaching of art, and has authored a number of TASCHEN titles, including Paul Cézanne, Wassily Kandinsky, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, and Georges Seurat.

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

The Boy King’s Journey through the Underworld. Tutankhamun’s royal voyage into paradise, as told by ancient Egyptian treasures

Since the ’90s, Sandro Vannini has created complete photographic reproductions that reveal murals and artifacts in unprecedented detail. Marking the centenary of Howard Carter’s first expedition and a series of international exhibitions, this comprehensive guide combines contemporary understanding of ancient Egyptian afterlife with Vannini’s super high-resolution photography to cast an enthralling light on the voyage the pharaoh was thought to make after death.

Buried in the 14th century BC but unearthed by Howard Carter in 1922, the objects entombed with Tutankhamun are an invaluable window into a long-extinct belief system. Seen today, they create an intricate picture of how the ancient Egyptian people viewed the perilous journey to paradise, a utopian Egypt that could only be entered following the final judgment.

When acclaimed photographer Sandro Vannini started his work in Egypt in the late ’90s, a technological revolution was about to unfold. Emerging technologies enabled him to document murals, tombs, and artifacts in unprecedented detail. Using the time-consuming and strenuous multi-shot technique, Vannini produced complete photographic reproductions that revealed colours in their original tones with vivid intensity. Through these extraordinary images, we discover the objects’ quintessential features alongside the sophisticated and cleverly hidden details.

This comprehensive guide marks the centenary of Carter’s first excavations in the Valley of the Kings. These inestimable works endure through Vannini's photographs in their full, timeless splendour. From offerings and rituals to Osiris and eternal life, Vannini’s portfolio covers all facets of ancient Egyptian culture — but it is Tutankhamun’s unique legacy that dominates these images. With texts by the photographer, captions by specialist Mohamed Megahed, and chapter introductions from scholars in the field, King Tut. The Journey through the Underworld puts much-debated mysteries to rest. The learned yet accessible forewords come from distinguished Egyptologists including Salima Ikram and David P. Silverman. Insightful narratives, resplendent images, and a contemporary standpoint make this title a fitting tribute to the Boy King’s odyssey, illuminating an epoch that spanned an unimaginable 4,000 years.

The photographer

Sandro Vannini started his career as a photographer in 1982, and today lives and works between Italy and Egypt. Active in the latter since 1997, and with special permission to access sites forbidden to the public, he has compiled an extensive visual archive of ancient Egyptian culture. Along the way, he first pioneered techniques that enable the use of leading digital photography in the extreme temperatures in the Valley of the Kings. Vannini’s photographs are among those assisting the work of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo in the restoration of artifacts. Since 2016, he has been directing and producing television programs and documentary series in collaboration with Zahi Hawass, and is also the author of several books.

About the series:

TASCHEN is 40! Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible publishing, helping bookworms around the world curate their own library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia at an unbeatable price. Today we celebrate 40 years of incredible books by staying true to our company credo. The 40 series presents new editions of some of the stars of our program — now more compact, friendly in price, and still realized with the same commitment to impeccable production.

Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) is world famous for his golden, ornamental works, his flowing colours and his sensuous portrayal of women. But where did he find the inspiration for his multi-faceted oeuvre? How well did he know Vincent van Gogh? Did he ever see a picture by Henri Matisse? Large-format comparisons reveal Klimt’s artistic sources.

Modern European art was omnipresent in Vienna in around 1900 – in the Vienna Secession, in galleries, art magazines and private collections. The Viennese artist Gustav Klimt was receptive for the pictorial language of his contemporaries like Alma-Tadema, Minne, Rodin, Toorop, Hodler, Van Gogh, Monet, Khnopff, Toulouse-Lautrec, Whistler and Matisse, and adapted elements from a variety of artistic styles. The encounter between his works and those of the artists with whom he was associated reveals significant and often surprising parallels.

Artists:
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema | Aubrey Beardsley | Ferdinand Hodler | Akseli Gallen-Kallela | Gustav Klimt | Lord Frederic Leighton |  Margaret MacDonald-Mackintosh | Edouard Manet | Henri Matisse | Claude Monet | Edvard Munch | Auguste Rodin | Giovanni Segantini | Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec | Kees van Dongen | Vincent van Gogh | Theo Van Rysselberghe | Franz von Stuck | James Abbott MacNeill Whistler et. al.

About the Author:

The Belvedere, Vienna is one of the leading museums worldwide. Its famous art collection includes works ranging from the Middle Ages to the present day. The Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam is an art museum dedicated to the works of Vincent van Gogh and his contemporaries. The museum contains the largest collection of Van Gogh's paintings and drawings in the world.

Lee Miller was not only Man Ray’s muse, but above all, a professional in her own right

Model, photographer, muse, the first female war correspondent to report the horrors of the concentration camps liberated by American troops, and a 20th-century icon. Lee Miller was all this and much more. She went through life with passion and determination and life repaid her with love and friends, but also with pain and posthumous, or at least tardy, acknowledgement.

Through approximately 140 photographs by Lee Miller and Man Ray, some objects d’art, and video documents loaned by Lee Miller Archives and Fondazione Marconi, this book intends to do justice to this woman, as beautiful as she was clever and talented, taking her out of Man Ray’s overpowering shadow. It will reveal a deep but complicated relationship more objectively (Man Ray was first her teacher, then lover, and in the end friend), and document the effect they both had on each other and how it inspired their work.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition in Venice, the volume features texts by the curator, Ami Bouhassane (Miller’s granddaughter), and Anthony Penrose (Miller’s son). Moreover, it includes portraits by Man Ray of friends and important protagonists of the period (Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, Giorgio de Chirico, Jean Cocteau, Salvador Dalí), as well as surrealist shots of Lee Miller in which she seeks to investigate and reveal her soul and torments.

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The exhibition offers a portrait of Surrealism through two of its greatest exponents, with more than 100 photographs, artworks and new relevant documentation.

In 1929, Elizabeth “Lee” Miller, a young American model often seen in Vogue magazine, arrived in Paris with the intention of becoming a photographer. Uninvited and with no prior introduction, she presented herself at the studio of Man Ray, a noted Surrealist artist and photographer specialising in portraits of contemporary society, insisting that she become his apprentice. The encounter marked the beginning of a lifelong relationship. The years 1929-1932 were a time of particularly fertile collaboration, during which the fiercely independent, highly motivated Lee was soon alternating in the roles of apprentice, photography assistant, lover and muse. After that period, Lee opened and successfully managed her own studio. As prominent figures in avant-garde society (Paris, New York and London) and close friends of such leading artists as Picasso, Jean Cocteau, Max Ernst, and Paul Eluard, Ray and Miller formed part of the early liberal surrealist milieu of the 20s and 30s.

The book, published to complement the Milan exhibition, aims to establish Miller’s remarkable talent as a photographer, setting her on a par with Man Ray, whose work has tended to overshadow hers, and to re-examine the couple’s professional and personal relationship. It also reveals the crucial ways in which Lee Miller inspired Man Ray’s work at that time as well as later, including the discovery of the photographic technique of solarisation, which quickly became Ray’s most widely recognised style. Through a wide selection of their portraits of famous people, their relationship is used as a lens through which to critically re-evaluate and re-interpret the relationship between the two within the Surrealist movement and the broader avant-garde society of Paris between the mid-20s and the late 30s.

About the Author:

Victoria Noel-Johnson is an independent British art historian and curator, specialising in early 20th-century European art.

Leonardo da Vinci and Anatomy: all the power and relevance of this great Renaissance mind.

This exhibition catalogue on Leonardo da Vinci the anatomist highlights the mystery of a thought that was both anchored in its time and, combined with a totally new practice (dissection), leading to a new understanding of the nature of life. Da Vinci was not content with a passive description of the human body; he sought to penetrate the secrets of its functioning by first studying the mechanics of humans (bones, muscles, tendons), then the logic of the senses, and finally all the bodily functions (digestion, respiration, blood circulation, reproduction), which made him to use qualitative reasoning.

Contrary to popular belief, Leonardo did not carry out his dissections in secret, but in complete agreement with the political and religious authorities, until his materialistic ideas came into conflict with the pontifical authorities, particularly with regard to embryology.

The originality of the book is to show how Leonardo’s work as an anatomist and his work as a painter are inseparable. The book thus links a work such as the Last Supper in Milan with the knowledge gathered in the medical field.

The book brings together originals or copies of Leonardo’s sheets with objects (anatomical waxes, facsimiles of dissecting instruments), books studied by the artist, interviews with specialists and animated 3D reconstructions.

About the Authors:

Dominique Le Nen is professor at the University of Nantes and orthopedic surgeon.

Pascal Brioist is professor at the University of Tours, historian specialized in Leonardo da Vinci, in la Renaissance and sciences and techniques of the modern era.

The Popstar: When art went Whaam!

American painter Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) pioneered a new epoch in American art, bursting onto a scene dominated by Abstract Expressionism in late 1950s New York and defining a new art vocabulary for a new era.

With his groundbreaking use of industrial production techniques and trivial, quotidian imagery such as cartoons, comic strips, and advertising, Lichtenstein joined contemporaries such as Andy Warhol and James Rosenquist to reflect and satirize American mass media and consumer culture. Works such as Look, Mickey! (1961), Drowning Girl (1963), and Whaam! (1963), deployed mass production techniques, particularly Ben-Day dots printing, to create a blow-up effect and pixelated dot style, with which Lichtenstein has become synonymous.

This book provides an essential overview of Lichtenstein s career, tracing his earliest Pop statements through to later brushstroke retorts to Abstract Expressionism and reinterpretations of modern masterpieces. We look at his leading position in mid-century modernism, and the ways in which his works both critique and chronicle 20th-century America.

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

Investigations by Sara Penco stem from the insightful finding of the absence of a key figure in the Sistine Chapel’s Last Judgement fresco. Prior to this illuminating research, Mary Magdalene was not unequivocally identified within Michelangelo’s masterpiece. Father Pfeiffer, with whom Penco establishes an inescapable dialectic, had already hypothesised the presence of Mary Magdalene in the fresco, but it is the scholar, for the first time in these pages, who convincingly justifies her identification. Mary Magdalene is closely connected to the salient episodes in the life of Jesus. The author rightly wonders, therefore, how it is possible that a figure so central to the biblical narrative and the Christian imagination could have been excluded from the depiction of the Parousia. This observation gives rise to an accurate reflection on the iconography of the saint and the Judgement, in relation to the sacred texts and in relation to Michelangelo’s poetics and production. Sara Penco traces Mary Magdalene in the tangle of figures on the wall behind the altar of the Sistine Chapel, contributing to characterise the fresco – one of the best known and most appreciated works in the world – with an unprecedented theological message.

- For the first time, scholar Sara Penco traces Mary Magdalene in the tangle of figures on the wall behind the altar of the Sistine Chapel
- Sara Penco’s persuasive analysis alters the message and characteristics of one of the most famous and well-known frescoes in the world, and highlights a new theological message brought by Michelangelo to millions of visitors across centuries
- The author’s ground-breaking research forever alters the reading of the fresco and of Michelangelo’s own interpretation of biblical passages
- The book is written by the restorer Sara Penco, and edited by art historian Asia Graziano, and includes a Preface by Yvonne Dohna Schlobitten, professor at the Gregorian University in Rome and a leading scholar on the theme of the role of women in the Church

Text in English and Italian.

About the Author:

Sara Penco is an art restorer, whose work includes the restoration of the frescoes by Filippino Lippi in the Chapel Carafa in Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, of some of the ceilings in the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian Parliament, restorations in the Villa Algardi, and in the interiors of Villa Pamphili, all in Rome. She is the creator of the Smarticon method, a patented technique for classification, cataloguing, and tracking valuable assets, particularly works from the art world. She has contributed to the preservation of prestigious works and written several unpublished works for the academic world, that were subsequently the subject of further studies, exhibitions, and publications. Sara has participated in numerous national and international conferences focusing on the discovery of newly uncovered works and on innovative technologies for the preservation of Cultural Heritage.

A macabre, spectacular and thought-provoking survey of human remains used in decorative, commemorative or devotional contexts across the world today, from the author of Heavenly Bodies and The Empire of Death.

Memento Mori takes the reader on a ghoulish but beautiful tour of some of the world’s more unusual sacred sites and traditions, in which human remains are displayed for the benefit of the living. From burial caves in Indonesia festooned with bones, to skulls smoking cigarettes, wearing beanie hats and sunglasses, and decorated with garlands of flowers in South America, Paul Koudounaris ventures beyond the grave to find messages of hope and salvation. His glorious colour photographs and informed commentaries reveal that in many places, the realms of the living and the dead are nowhere near so distinct as contemporary Western society would have us believe.

Contents List:

Introduction: Memento Mori
1. The Dead Will Rise: Macabre Masterpieces of the Nineteenth Century
2. The Gates of Paradise: Bones and Salvation in the Christian Tradition
3. They Walk Among Us: Mysterious Burial Caves in Asia
4. Blessed Souls: Elaborate Ossuaries in the Catholic World
5. They Shall Not Perish: Memorials in Bone to Victims of Tragedy
6. Remains to be Seen: Mummies and other Exquisite Corpses
7. Crossing the Border: The Living and the Dead in Bolivia
8. Heavenly Glory: Decorated Bones from Around the World

About the Author:

Paul Koudounaris has a doctorate in Art History from the University of California and has written widely on European ossuaries and charnel houses for both academic and popular journals. He is also the author of Heavenly Bodies and Empire of Death, both published by Thames & Hudson.

A new concise history of modern painting, offering an indispensable reference to the complexities and characteristics of this medium.

While acknowledging the legacy of Herbert Read’s classic 1959 study A Concise History of Modern Painting in the World of Art series, academic and artist Simon Morley places the foundation of modern art much earlier than Read, at the emergence of Romanticism and the dawn of the industrial age. Structured loosely chronologically by period, the focus is as much on individual artists as well as movements, with works discussed within a broader context - stylistic, historical, geographical, and gender and ethnic frames - themes that recur throughout the chapters. Generously illustrated, the global and diverse range of artists featured include William Blake, Édouard Manet, Hilma af Klint, Kazimir Malevich, Willem de Kooning, Amrita Sher-Gil, Faith Ringgold and Kehinde Wiley.

This guide also includes an Appendix in the form of questions the reader might like to ask in relation to the artists and the ideas discussed - in order to reconsider the works from a contemporary perspective.

About the Author:

Simon Morley is a visual artist and Assistant Professor in the College of Arts, Dankook University, Republic of Korea. He has lectured at such museums as Tate, The National Gallery, Hayward Gallery, Serpentine Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery and Camden Arts Centre, and has contributed to numerous publications including Third Text, World Art, the TLS, The Burlington Magazine, Art Monthly, The Art Newspaper, Contemporary Art and the Independent on Sunday.

National Portrait Gallery: The Collection is published to celebrate the reopening of the Gallery after a three-year redevelopment project.

Designed by Daniela Rocha, this engaging and inviting book takes the reader on a chronological journey through Britain’s history in portraiture, from the Tudors to Now, featuring the country’s most impactful and famous individuals, from Queen Elizabeth I to Mary Seacole, and Virginia Woolf to David Bowie. The book is richly illustrated with beautiful paintings, photographs, sculptures, drawings and digital works.

Readers will enjoy a selection of the most popular and recognisable portraits from the Collection, accompanied by short chapter introductions that introduce key historical periods, their most exciting figures, and their most important historical, political, social and cultural moments. This accessible structure allows the reader to dip into any of the beautiful portraits and their stories, and understand their place in British history.

An Introduction by Director Dr. Nicholas Cullinan will highlight why portraiture has been fundamental to people and society historically, but also to contemporary audiences, by exploring themes of culture, identity and the representation of diversity. This will also introduce readers to the nation’s newly reopened National Portrait Gallery, explaining how it came to be the nation’s home of portraits and the world’s most significant Collection of people.

About the Authors:

Rab MacGibbon is Cross-Collections Curator at the National Portrait Gallery, London. He is the author of Icons and Identities (2021), and a contributor to Love Stories: Art, Passion & Tragedy (2020), Elizabethan Treasures: Miniatures from Hilliard to Oliver (2019) and The Lost Prince: The Life & Death of Henry Stuart (2012).

Dr Nicholas Cullinan is Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London.

New Surrealism: The Uncanny in Contemporary Painting by Robert Zeller offers a sweeping exposition of both historical Surrealism and its legacy in the world of contemporary art. It demonstrates the many ways in which the most significant art movement of the last century continues to be relevant today, featuring an international selection of contemporary artists whose compositions and studio practice reveal its influence.

There are many modalities of historical Surrealism that still maintain contemporary currency: presenting the familiar as unfamiliar and uncanny, the juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated imagery, the use of absurdity to critique political or social issues, and the use of erotic imagery in an irrational, non-linear context. Not all the artists brought together in this book self-identify as Surrealist, per se, but each uses some variation of Surrealism in a personal manner.

The book begins with a study of the origins, leadership, participating artists, and major milestones of historical Surrealism. Zeller chronicles the movement starting at the end of World War I and the birth of Dada. The most important players and events emerge throughout the timeline of events — including World War II, and such notable artists as Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, Leonora Carrington, and many others — up until the death of its leader Andre Breton in 1966.

Zeller then explores how elements of New Surrealism are being put into practice in the contemporary art world. Section Two offers a survey of 29 contemporary artists who engage in New Surrealism's seemingly unlimited variations of the movement's original themes, including Rosa Loy, Glenn Brown, and Arghavan Khosravi. Section Three features 14 artists, including important contemporary artists such as Inka Essenhigh, Ginny Casey and Anna Weyant, who speak to Surrealism's influence on their studio practice, detailing in their own words how they create a composition from start to finish.

About the Author:

Robert Zeller is a visual artist and writer who received a BFA from a joint program of the Boston Museum School and Tufts University and an MFA from the New York Academy of Art. Following his bestselling The Figurative Artist's Handbook (2017), New Surrealism: The Uncanny in Contemporary Painting is his second book published by Monacelli Studio. He contributed a chapter about Surrealist photography to the exhibition catalog Photography: Real and Imagined (2024), profiling the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, and has also written for The Brooklyn Rail and other influential art periodicals and blogs. In 2009, he founded The Teaching Studios of Art, an in-person and online art school devoted to instruction in figurative art. Zeller maintains a studio practice in Brooklyn, New York, and is the recipient of two Posey Fellowships and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. He has curated group exhibitions and shown his own work at galleries in the United States and Europe.

Surrealism was one of the most influential art movements of the twentieth century. This book examines the dialogue between Surrealism and design and, for the first time, reveals the enormous influence the movement has had on design over the last hundred years. It has encouraged designers to question the reality beyond what is visible and to design objects that offer resistance, undermine routine, and disrupt the quotidian. The spectrum of examples ranges from Duchamp’s ready-mades and Dalí’s sensual object sculptures to works by designers like Carlo Mollino or Gae Aulenti and includes current designs that analyse new technologies or gender roles in subversive ways. Evidently, Surrealism has lost none of its relevance — for art as well as for design.

With works by Gae Aulenti, André Breton, Achille Castiglioni, Le Corbusier, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Dunne & Raby, Ray Eames, Max Ernst, Front Design, Iris van Herpen, Friedrich Kiesler, Shiro Kuramata, René Magritte, Lee Miller, Carlo Mollino, Isamu Noguchi, Odd Matter, Meret Oppenheim, Mimi Parent, Gaetano Pesce, Man Ray, Robert Stadler, Studio Wieki Somers, among others.

A clear, concise and detailed historical analysis of the eclectic and arcane visual and material culture of the occult

Searching for the philosophers’ stone in the pursuit of transmutation and immortality; harnessing the properties of the natural world to cast magic spells; seeking visionary experiences to connect with the spiritual world; conjuring demons to enact our desires; using the tarot and astrology to divine the future – the quest to understand the mysteries of the universe and to tap into its powers has fuelled manifold occult philosophies from the early esoteric traditions of the ancient Egyptians to the practices of modern occultists.

For hundreds of years, occult – or hidden – knowledge has been recorded in esoteric manuscripts, enshrined in illustrated grimoires, inscribed in stelae, incorporated in cryptic paintings and embodied in arcane ritual objects. Delve within these pages and pore over myriad intricate images, ornate manuscripts and intriguing ritual objects, and discover the meaning concealed within the secret ciphers, mysterious symbols and covert rituals of the occult.

Contents List:

Introduction: As Above, So Below
Foundations
1. Astrology
2. Alchemy
3. Kabbalah
Occult Philosophy
1. Natural Magic
2. Astral Magic
3. Ritual Magic
Occult Revival
1. Occultism
2. Tarot
3. New Age & Occulture

About the Author:

Peter Forshaw is a researcher interested in the history of alchemy, magic, Kabbalah, astrology, ritual activity and esotericism. He has a doctorate in Intellectual History and is Associate Professor of Western Esotericism in the Early Modern Period at the Centre for History of Hermetic Philosophy, University of Amsterdam. In addition to editing several volumes on occult and esoteric subjects, he is the author of The Mage’s Images: Heinrich Khunrath in his Oratory and Laboratory and served as editor-in-chief of Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism for 10 years. He has contributed to TV and Radio programmes including BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time series and Channel 5’s The Philosophers’ Stone – The True Story. His Instagram page of esoteric art attracts more than 58,000 followers.