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One the greatest architectural artists of all time, and certainly the most famous copper engraver of the 18th century, Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) is most known for his terrifyingly original series of etchings of labyrinthine and megalomaniac prisons, Carceri d'Invenzione. In his own day, he was most celebrated for his Vedute, 137 etchings of ancient and modern Rome; so renowned were these startling and dramatic chiaroscuro images, imbued with Piranesi's romantic feeling for archaeological ruins, that they formed the mental picture of Rome for generations after. Indeed, Piranesi could be said to have shaped a whole strain of contemporary architecture, as well as the wider visualization of antiquity itself. In our time, he has had a direct influence on writers such as Borges and Kafka and on filmmakers such as Terry Gilliam and Peter Greenaway. Anyone who contemplates Piranesi's etchings will confront the existential nightmare of human existence and its infinite mysteries…

Archaeology and Imagination. Impossible staircases and startling ruins from Italy’s master engraver

The most famous 18th-century copper engraver, Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778) made his name with etchings of ancient Rome. His startling, chiaroscuro images imbued the city’s archaeological ruins with drama and romance and became favourite souvenirs for the Grand Tourists who travelled Italy in pursuit of classical culture and education.

Today, Piranesi is renowned not just for shaping the European imagination of Rome, but also for his elaborate series of fanciful prisons, Carceri, which have influenced generations of creatives since, from the Surrealists to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Edgar Allan Poe, Jorge Luis Borges, and Franz Kafka.

Loosely based on contemporary stage sets rather than the actual dingy dungeons of Piranesi’s day, these intricate images defy architectural reality to play instead with perspective, lighting, and scale. Staircases exist on two planes simultaneously; vast, vaulted ceilings seem to soar up to the heavens; interior and exterior distinctions collapse. With a low viewpoint and small, fragile figures, the prison scenes become monstrous megacities of incarceration, celebrated to this day as masterworks of existentialist drama.

About the series:

Bibliotheca Universalis — Compact cultural companions celebrating the eclectic TASCHEN universe at an unbeatable, democratic price!

Since we started our work as cultural archaeologists in 1980, TASCHEN has become synonymous with accessible, open-minded publishing. Bibliotheca Universalis brings together more than 100 of our all-time favourite titles in a neat new format so you can curate your own affordable library of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia.

Bookworm’s delight — never bore, always excite!

This definitive portrait of Camille Pissarro by one of the world’s foremost authorities on Impressionism and French painting reveals the deep connection between Pissarro’s humanitarian concerns and his creative output.

Throughout his career, the Impressionist artist Camille Pissarro produced a vast oeuvre of paintings, drawings, and prints inspired by his fascination with and commitment to politics. Many of these works reflect the tensions between his anarchist ideals and the realities of life in a capitalist society, however, most examinations of Pissarro have approached his art and politics as separate spheres. Published to accompany a major exhibition, this survey by a renowned expert on Impressionist painting offers a selection of canvases and works on paper that embody Pissarro’s pictorial humanism at the highest level. Exhaustive archival study, interviews with surviving family members, and research drawn from thousands of newly discovered letters inform this rich and authoritative book. Including individual portraits of each of the family members Pissarro so often inserted into his paintings, it also examines his relationships with fellow artists, writers, neighbors, merchants, and domestic servants. The result is a refreshing and landmark reconsideration of the artist’s magnificent body of work.

Artists are increasingly using doll-like human effigies to explore politics and gender in contemporary culture, ranging from radical statement to sophisticated critique. Play with Me showcases this appeal of animating the inanimate as well as the multifarious and fascinating ideas that dolls bring to life – from the way female forms have been objectified to the way dolls generate ethical and political debate to the way they represent the self. Unlike sculptures, dolls offer a living and open construct of the human figure. And artists are reacting to this human form in a manner thatʼs never been seen before, constituting an exciting new direction in contemporary art.

About the Author:

Grace Banks is a writer and editor on the many facets of popular culture. She is particularly interested in issues affecting women and the intersection between politics, women and culture. Among the magazines and newspapers to which she contributes are Time Out, Interview Magazine, New York Times, The Guardian, Vice News and InStyle.

Painting as a concept

A tragic icon of Abstract Expressionism, Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) took influences from Picasso and Mexican surrealism and developed his own way of seeing, interpreting, and expressing. Though his name inevitably conjures up images of the drip paintings for which he is most famous, this technique was only developed midway through his career. The progression from his earlier work to his final "action" paintings — a veritable revolution of painting as a concept — reveals the genius of this tortured artist whom many call the greatest modern American painter.

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

The author:
Leonhard Emmerling received his doctorate from the University of Heidelberg for a thesis entitled 'Kunsttheorie Jean Dubuffets'. Since 2002 he has been working as an author and contemporary art exhibition curator in Berlin, Kaiserslautern, Krefeld and Ludwigsburg, Germany. His publications include TASCHEN’s Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jackson Pollock.

A tragic icon of Abstract Expressionism, Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) took influences from Picasso and Mexican surrealism and developed his own way of seeing, interpreting, and expressing. Though his name inevitably conjures up images of the drip paintings for which he is most famous, this technique was only developed midway through his career. The progression from his earlier work to his final "action" paintings —a veritable revolution of painting as a concept—reveals the genius of this tortured artist whom many call the greatest modern American painter.

Culled from the archives of Magnum Photos, the world’s preeminent photo agency, Pop 60s celebrates the visionaries, icons, and memorable moments of the decade that transformed the fabric of American life. From Andy Warhol, Twiggy, and James Bond to Beatlemania, biker culture, and geodesic domes, the reverberations of the Swinging Sixties are felt in today’s art, music, design, and fashion.

This phenomenal collection of photographs spans the globe, including images of Tokyo nightlife, Brazilian Carnaval, and art happenings in New York City. Renowned photographers such as Dennis Stock, Eve Arnold, Danny Lyon, Thomas Hoepker, David Hurn, and many others contribute both their best-loved and their seldom-seen photographs. From naked spectators at the Isle of Wight Festival to literati at Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball, Pop 60s captures the spirit, style, and attitude of an unforgettable era.

Pop artists of the 1960s, heralded by the Great Andy Warhol, commented on everything from mainstream media to consumer society to advertising to product packaging with colorful and often comical works. Pop Art`s profound influence on contemporary art and culture remains prominent today. Nowhere else can you find so much Pop Art in such a compact, stylish book!

Featured artists include:

Tom Wesselmann, Andy Warhol, James Rosenquist, Allan Jones, Allan d'Arcangelo, Wayne Thiebaud, Peter Blake, Richard Hamilton, Claes Oldenburg, Peter Phillips, George Segal, Ed Ruscha, Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Mel Ramos, David Hockney, Jim Dine, and Red Grooms

Pop Art, an abbreviation of Popular Art, is a movement that found its origins in England in the 1950s but realised its full potential in New York in the 60s.

The name referred to the interest of a number of artists, such as Robert Rauschenberg (born 1925) and Jasper Johns (born 1930), in the imagery and techniques of consumerism and popular culture. Pop Art, led by the cult figure of Andy Warhol, was probably the most extraordinary innovation of 20th-century art. It put art into everyday terms and so helped close the gap between “high art" and “low art". The British artist Richard Hamilton defined Pop Art as: “popular, transient, expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, glamorous, and Big Business".

Richly documented and clearly structured, this book provides an overall view as well as a new and insightful perspective on Pop Art and the works of the artists who were at the forefront of this movement

"Everything is beautiful," raved Andy Warhol, in raptures at the glamour of modern life, consumer society, and the world of the media and its stars; his proclamation can be considered the maxim of the pop generation, which included artists Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Tom Wesselmann, and Richard Hamilton, among others.

The pop artists of the 1960s had a profound effect on the cloth of art history and their influence can be clearly seen in art today. Here, Tilman Osterwald explores the styles, themes, and sources of pop art around the world.

This book offers a radically new perspective on the so-called ‘Pop Art’ creative dynamic that has been around since the 1950s.

It does so by enhancing the term ‘Pop Art’ which has always been recognised as a misnomer, for it obscures far more than it clarifies. Instead, the book connects all the art in question to mass-culture which has always provided its core inspiration. Above all, the book suggests that this Mass-Culture Art has created a new Modernist tradition which is still flourishing. The book traces that tradition through the forty or more years since Pop/Mass-Culture Art first came into being in the 1950s, and locates it within its larger historical context.

Naturally the book discusses the major contributors to the Pop/Mass-Culture Art tradition right up to the present, in the process including a number of artists who have never previously been connected with so-called ‘Pop Art’ but who have always been primarily interested in mass-culture, and who are therefore partially or totally connected with Pop/Mass-Culture Art. The book reproduces in colour and discusses in great detail over 150 of the key works of the Pop/Mass-Culture Art tradition. Often this involves the close reading of images whose meaning has largely escaped understanding previously. The result is a book that qualitatively is fully on a level with Eric Shanes’s other best-selling and award-winning writings.

About the author

Eric Shanes is primarily a painter who has exhibited many times in London and elsewhere. He is one of the world’s leading authorities on Britain’s greatest visual artist, J.M.W. Turner, and the author of ten bestselling books and catalogues on the life and work of that major European figure. Additionally, Shanes has also written bestselling books and catalogues on Brancusi, Warhol, Hockney, The Golden Age of British Watercolours, and on the Impressionists in London. Parkstone International has published two books by Eric Shanes, one on J.M.W. Turner, the other on Andy Warhol. Shanes is a Vice-President of the Turner Society and its current Chairman, as well as the Founding Editor of Turner Studies, a scholarly journal published by the Tate Gallery. He has also frequently contributed articles on Turner, Brancusi and other artists to specialist and popular journals and newspapers. In 2000-2001 he curated the major exhibition entitled ‘Turner: The Great Watercolours’ that was held at the Royal Academy of Arts in London to mark the 150th anniversary of Turner’s death. Shanes lectures on traditional, modern and contemporary art all over the world

From New York to Tokyo to Tel Aviv, this geek art anthology compiles the best of the international artists who celebrate the most famous pop culture characters and references in their playful and geeky art.

About the Author:

Thomas Olivri is the founder of the popular website geek-art.net.

Think Art Deco and be transported to the Roaring '20s, a time of flappers, double-breasted, pin striped suits, speakeasies, decadence, and elegance. This era took place in the soft and romantic illumination of early electric lighting fixtures--which are showcased in this gorgeous new book. The beautiful and often fantastic Art Deco lighting in homes and public spaces alike are works of art. Over 590 luminous color photographs, show accent and figural radio lamps, boudoir lamps, table and desk lamps, overhead and wall lighting, and floor lighting produced by manufacturers such as Consolidated Glass, Lightolier, Lincoln, Moe Bridges, Williamson, Frankart, Nuart, and Chase. The book guides readers through various types of period lighting and provides a bibliography and value references in the captions for all the lighting displayed. It will be a valued addition to the libraries of interior decorators, restoration buffs, theater goers, and all who collect period lighting fixtures and enjoy beautiful works of art.

Beginning in the 14th century and working its way through the ages up to the current day, this book examines the portrait via the most beloved and important examples in history.

Featured artists include:
Simone Martini, Jan van Eyck, Albrecht Dürer, Hans Holbein the Younger, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, Parmigianino, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens, Diego Velázquez, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gainsborough, Francisco de Goya, Jaques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Gustave Courbet, Édouard Manet, Vincent van Gogh, Oskar Kokoschka, Ferdinand Hodler, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, and Chuck Close.

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

* a detailed introduction with approximately 35 photographs, plus a timeline of the most important events (political, cultural, scientific, etc.) that took place during the time period
* a selection of the most important works of the epoch; each is presented on a 2-page spread with a full-page image and, on the facing page, a description/interpretation of the work and brief biography of the artist as well as additional information such as a reference work, portrait of the artist, and/or citations