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Mark Rothko belongs to the generation of American artists who completely revolutionized the essence of abstract painting. His stylistic evolution, from a figurative visual repertoire to an abstract style rooted in the active relationship of the observer to the painting, embodied the radical vision of a renaissance in painting. Rothko characterized this relationship as "a consummated experience between picture and onlooker". His colour formations indeed draw the observer into a space filled with an inner light.

Rothko always resisted attempts to interpret his paintings. He was mainly concerned with the viewer's experience, the merging of work and recipient beyond verbal comprehension. Rothko was an intellectual, a thinker, a highly educated man. He loved music and literature and was very involved in philosophy, especially in the works of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche and of ancient Greek philosophy and mythology.

Rothko was a protagonist within the movement of American painters who became known as the Abstract Expressionists. First formed in New York City during the inter-war years, this group was also called the New York School. In all the history of art, they became the first American artists to receive international recognition as a significant movement. Many among them, including Rothko, have become legendary figures.

About the Series:
Every book in TASCHEN's Basic Art Series features:

* a detailed chronological summary of the artist's life and work, covering the cultural and historical importance of the artist
* approximately 100 color illustrations with explanatory captions
* a concise biography

The first publication dedicated exclusively to Mark Rothko’s art during the critical formative period of the 1940s.

Examining the development and artistic exploration of one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century, this unprecedented volume presents the works of American artist MarkRothko from the 1940s, a time when his most essential development as a painter occurred, dramatically and in a very compact space of time. During this period, Rothko moved from expressive figurative and surrealist canvases to more abstract multiform subjects and finally to his signature abstractions - luminous rectangles of colour suspended in space.

Richly illustrated with works by Rothko and his contemporaries, and with essays by prominent Rothko scholars, this important new book deepens our understanding of Rothko’s art during this vital period, and that of the mature works that emerged from it.

About the Author:

Todd Herman is the director of the Arkansas Arts Center. David Anfam is an independent scholar in London and the author of the Rothko catalogue raisonné of works on canvas. Modern and contemporary American art scholar Bradford R. Collins is the chair of the University of South Carolina’s art department. Harry Cooper is a curator of modern and contemporary art at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Ruth Fine is a curator of special projects in modern art at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and the author of the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Rothko’s works on paper. The son of Mark Rothko, Christopher Rothko is a writer and psychologist.

Пролистать книгу  Mark Rothko: The Decisive Decade: 1940-1950

Acrylic, watercolours, oil, and pastel colours are the four classical means of artistic expression in painting. With this practice-oriented introduction readers can learn about them by trying their own hand at painting and perfecting their skills step-by-step. The book provides an overview of the artist's tools and the various types of painting. The wealth of illustrative information ranges from simple everyday objects to still life and landscapes, the human body and portrait painting. Examples of each genre demonstrate the various stages of painting a picture. This enables learners to improve their technique from the very first sketch to the most complex composition: Mastering the Art of Painting is the ideal introduction for the prospective artist!

Famous Manuscripts - The fascinating world of medieval miniature painting and illumination. From "The Book of Kells" to Boccaccio's "Decameron" and from the "Vienna Genesis" to Dante's "Divine Comedy" - see the breathtaking originals of 167 of the greatest classics of all time. This lavishly produced book introduces the reader to the fascinating world of medieval miniature painting and illumination. 167 of the most beautiful and important medieval scripts from the 4th century to 1600 are presented in chronological order and described in full. Each sample of script is headed by a highly informative synopses which serves to orient the reader at a glance. These synopses - together with the abundance of brilliant, large-format reproductions - make this book unparalleled in its field. Although the focus is on European manuscripts (French, Dutch, German, Italian, English and Spanish), examples have also been selected to illustrate the refinement and intricacy of manuscript illumination from non-European cultures (Mexican, Persian, Indian, Ottoman etc.).

A 36-page appendix contains biographies of the artists as well as an extensive bibliography, an index and, most importantly, a glossary in which the technical terms used in the book can quickly be found. This is a rare opportunity to come face-to-face with incredibly precious treasures that one would otherwise never see-treasures once belonging to emperors and kings, and now worth many millions.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's paintings and prints focused on the theater, dance halls, cafés, and even brothels of late-19th-century Paris. Brimming with emotion and atmosphere, his works were characterized by a distinctive and masterly handling of line. This volume illuminates the unique place Toulouse-Lautrec came to occupy in French art during his short lifetime of 37 years.

Jan Vermeer's mysterious and poetic paintings - with their luminous power and their simple, studied, everyday scenes - continue to fascinate us. This volume reproduces all of Vermeer's known works, including Saint Praxedis, which had only recently been validated by scholars as an important early work of the artist at the time of the book's original publication.

290 color ills

The history of Impressionism, including its forerunners, the great masters, and the representatives of Neo-Impressionism and Pointillism, is closely traced in this publication by exploring the Wallraf’s unparalleled collection.

The Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud—“Wallraf” for short—is Cologne’s oldest museum and one of Germany’s great picture galleries, boasting one of the most important accumulations of Western art—from the Middle Ages through to the early twentieth century—in Germany. In fact, the museum’s collection of Impressionist paintings is the largest in the country, not least because of the Fondation Corboud’s contributions, which in 2001 became part of the Wallraf when they were donated by the Swiss collector Gérard J. Corboud.

The Impressionist treasures among the Wallraf’s collection are presented here for the first time in a splendid, richly-illustrated volume. Monet, Renoir, Sisley, and the works of many other great masters are the focus of this book, providing a feast for the eyes on a tour of the history of art from 1874 through to 1926.

The Fauvist. Brilliant colour, simple forms, and purity of expression are the hallmarks of  Matisse's work

Henri Matisse (1869-1954) is known not only as one of the most important French painters of the 20th century but also as co-founder and leading exponent of Fauvism. His work reflects an ongoing quest for the expressive power of pure, brilliant colours and simple forms; as a result, the realistic presentation of nature often retires to a secondary position.

For Matisse, color did not serve as a tool for the expression of subjective feelings, but rather became the equivalent of light itself: it functioned as a pure medium in the creation of an autonomous pictorial space: "Out of my fruitful work with discovered tones there must emerge a vital colour harmony, a harmony that is analogous to a musical composition."

As a creative artist, Matisse was not only a painter but also experimented with other materials: he produced glass windows and theater designs and created significant sculptures in bronze, ceramic and clay. In old age, confined to a wheelchair, he created collages with coloured paper, glue, and scissors: his famed gouache cut-outs.

About the Series:

Every book in TASCHEN's Basic Art Series features:

- a detailed chronological summary of the artist's life and work, covering the cultural and historical importance of the artist
- approximately 100 colour illustrations with explanatory captions
- a concise biography

A color harmony that is analogous to a musical composition

Henri Matisse (1869-1954) is known not only as one of the most important French painters of the 20th century but also as co-founder and leading exponent of Fauvism. His work reflects an ongoing quest for the expressive power of pure, brilliant colors and simple forms; as a result, the realistic presentation of nature often retires to a secondary position.

For Matisse, color did not serve as a tool for the expression of subjective feelings, but rather became the equivalent of light itself: it functioned as a pure medium in the creation of an autonomous pictorial space: "Out of my fruitful work with discovered tones there must emerge a vital color harmony, a harmony that is analogous to a musical composition."

As a creative artist, Matisse was not only a painter, but also experimented with other materials: he produced glass windows and theatre designs and created significant sculptures in bronze, ceramic and clay. In old age, confined to a wheelchair, he created collages with coloured paper, glue, and scissors: his famed gouache cut-outs.

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:

Volkmar Essers, born in 1944, studied art history, archaeology, and German in Bonn, Munich and Berlin. In 1972 he earned his doctorate with a work on the sculptor Johann Friedrich Drake. For many years, he has been the curator for the Art Collection of North Rhine-Westphalia, where he organized exhibitions of Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock and other artists. Essers has also published numerous essays and books on art of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Le Bonheur de Vivre. The vital colors and shapes of a modernist master

The work of Henri Matisse (1869 - 1954) reflects an ongoing belief in the power of brilliant colors and simple forms. Though famed in particular for his paintings, Matisse also worked with drawing, sculpture, lithography, stained glass, and collage, developing his unique cut-out medium when old age left him unable to stand and paint.

Matisse's subjects were often conventional: nudes, portraits, and figures in landscapes, Oriental scenes, and interior views, but in his handling of bold color and fluid draftsmanship, he secured his place as a 20th-century master. It was Matisse's palette that particularly thrilled the modern imagination. With vivid blue, amethyst purple, egg-yolk yellow, and many shades beyond he liberated his work from a meticulous representation of reality and sought instead a vital harmony, often referring to music as an inspiration or analogy for his work.

From vast patterned panels to simple and tender portraits, this book introduces the full reach and creativity of Matisse's career, spanning his early work within the Fauvism movement right through to his latter-year projects such as Jazz and the Chapelle du Rosaire in Vence.

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 search for balance, purity and serenity. An indispensable survey about a lodestar of modern art

The extraordinary significance of the painter and sculptor Henri Matisse in the history of modern art, but also his influence, was no less decisive than that of his main rival, Pablo Picasso. In fact, Matisse's stylistic liberation actually goes one step further in the pursuit of his own personal goal — the perfect synthesis of line and color — by which he sought revolutionary approaches to the great tradition of French painting by drawing upon its classical aspects.

For those who wish to know more about this lodestar of modern art and follow the adventurous path of his creative career, this publication is surely the most comprehensive and informative source available. Lavishly illustrated, its authoritative commentaries trace the artist's search for balance, purity and serenity, from the chromatic brilliance of his Fauve period, through his travels, the Orient, geometric synthesis (it was he who introduced Picasso to African art by giving him his first mask), and the odalisques to the final triumph when, at the age of eighty, he invented his gouache cut-outs that culminated in his illustrations for Jazz and allowed him to achieve his goal of sculpting in paint just as a sculptor works in stone.

Matisse is widely acknowledged as an artist whose canvases are extremely difficult to reproduce in print. With this in mind, each work presented here has been painstakingly compared with the respective original, in close collaboration with the artist's grandson, Claude Duthuit. The bard of color deserves no less.

The author:

Xavier-Gilles Néret is a teacher of Philosophy in the region of Paris. Like his father Gilles Néret he is passionate about philosophy, as well as poetry and art. He has been working on the figures who unite these disciplines, notably Stéphane Mallarmé. He is also interested in less known figures such as the poet Claude Tarnaud or the artists Barnard Saby and Pascal Doury, on which he has published books and articles.

Renaissance man in extremis. Michelangelo, in pursuit of the beautiful and sublime

Nicknamed “il divino,” Renaissance genius Michelangelo combined body, spirit, and God into visionary masterpieces across sculpture, painting, and architecture. From The Pietà to the extraordinary ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, this book provides the essential introduction to the artist’s revolutionary ideas and awe-inspiring artworks.

Italian-born Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475–1564) was a tormented, prodigiously talented, and God-fearing Renaissance man. His manifold achievements in painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, and engineering combined body, spirit, and God into visionary masterpieces that changed art history forever. Famed biographer Giorgio Vasari considered him the pinnacle of Renaissance achievement. His peers called him simply “Il Divino” (“the divine one”).

This book provides the essential introduction to Michelangelo with all the awe-inspiring masterpieces and none of the queues and crowds. With vivid illustration and accessible texts, we explore the artist’s extraordinary figuration and celebrated style of terribilità (momentous grandeur), which allowed human and biblical drama to exist in compelling scale and fervor. Through the power hubs of Renaissance Italy, we take in his major commissions and phenomenal capacity for compositional schemes, whether the famous Medici library in Florence, or the extraordinary 500-square-meter ceiling (1508–1512) in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel.

From the towering David to the aching grief and faith of The Pietà and the vivid drama of the Sistine Chapel’s Last Judgment, this is a succinct, dependable reference to a true giant of art history and to some of the most famous artworks in the world.

The author:

Gilles Néret (1933–2005) was an art historian, journalist, writer, and museum correspondent. He organized several art retrospectives in Japan and founded the SEIBU Museum and the Wildenstein Gallery in Tokyo. He directed art reviews such as L'Œil and Connaissance des Arts and received the Élie Faure Prize in 1981 for his publications. His TASCHEN titles include Salvador Dalí: The Paintings, Matisse, and Erotica Universalis.

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 glorious exploration of Michelangelo's works

"The photography is sharp, the colour true and full of lustre...This will prove to be one of the art books of the year." - The Good Book Guide, London

Before reaching the tender age of thirty, Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) had already sculpted David and Pièta, two of the most famous sculptures in the entire history of art. Like fellow Florentine Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo was a shining star of the Renaissance and a genius of consummate virtuosity. His achievements as a sculptor, painter, draughtsman, and architect are unique - no artist before or after him has ever produced such a vast, multi-faceted, and wide-ranging oeuvre. Only a handful of other painters and sculptors have attained a comparable social status and enjoyed a similar artistic freedom. This is demonstrated not only by the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel but also by Michelangelo’s monumental sculptures and his unconventional architectural designs, whose forms went far beyond the accepted vocabulary of his day. Such was his talent that Michelangelo was considered a demigod by his contemporaries and was the subject of two biographies during his lifetime.

The edition explores Michelangelo's life and work in depth and detail. The different parts of the book concentrate on the life of Michelangelo via an extensive and copiously illustrated biographical essay and include gorgeous, full page reproductions and enlarged details that bring readers up close to the works.

This sumptuous tome also takes account, to a previously unseen extent, of Michelangelo's more personal traits and circumstances, such as his solitary nature, his thirst for money and commissions, his miserliness, his immense wealth, and his skill as a property investor. This survey of Michelangelo's life and oeuvre is a basic reference for every art lover.

Authors:
Christof Thoenes studied art history in Berlin and Pavia, before completing his doctorate in Berlin. Thoenes lives in Rome, where for many years he has worked for the Bibliotheca Hertziana (Max-Planck-Institute), and is honorary professor in Hamburg. He has contributed to numerous publications on Italian art, particularly on architecture and architectural theory of the 15th to 18th centuries.

Frank Zöllner wrote his doctoral theses on artistic and architectural theory (1987) and Leonardo Da Vinci (1996). He has written numerous publications on the art and artistic theory of the Renaissance and on Paul Klee. Since 1996 he has been Professor of Renaissance and Modern Art at Leipzig University. He is also the author of TASCHEN's XL monograph on Leonardo da Vinci.

Before reaching the tender age of 30, Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) had already sculpted Pietà and David, two of the most famous sculptures in the entire history of art. As a sculptor, painter, draftsman, and architect, the achievements of this Italian master are unique — no artist before or after him has ever produced such a vast, multifaceted, and wide-ranging œuvre.

This fresh TASCHEN edition traces Michelangelo’s ascent to the cultural elite of the Renaissance. Ten richly illustrated chapters cover the artist’s paintings, sculptures, and architecture, including a close analysis of the artist’s tour de force frescoes in the Sistine Chapel.

Full-page reproductions and enlarged details allow readers to appreciate the finest details in the artist’s repertoire, while the book’s biographical essay considers Michelangelo’s more personal traits and circumstances, such as his solitary nature, his thirst for money and commissions, his immense wealth, and his skill as a property investor.

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!

Michelangelo was recognised as a great artist early in his long life. Along with a small number of contemporaries he was responsible for Renaissance Florence becoming the artistic fountainhead of western culture. This comprehensive new book offers a wide range of his art, with details and panoramas, some well known, others less so, but each one illuminating the grand eloquence of one of the worlds greatest artists.