Книги з живопису

Andy Warhol - A critical observer of American society

Andy Warhol is recognized today as the most important exponent of the Pop Art movement. He overturned the traditional understanding of art and placed in its stead a concept that retracts the individuality of the artist.

Warhol was a critical observer of American society, exposing his compatriots' consumerism in his paintings ('Campbell-' and 'Brillo' series), as well as their fascination for sensational journalism. In 1963 Warhol founded his 'Factory' in New York, literally a manufactory of ideas and work, which influenced film in the 1960s, published the influential magazine Interview in the late 1970s, and also produced Warhol's own artwork: Warhol conceived the idea, and a 'worker' in his factory carried it out.

The work remained (consciously) unsigned - a fact which nevertheless did nothing to diminish Warhol's reputation. He once complained that rich New Yorkers would willingly hang his "Electric Chain" in their living rooms - as long as its colours co-ordinated with the wallpaper and draperies.

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

Pop star. Soap boxes and celebrities

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) is hailed as the most important proponent of the Pop Art movement. A critical and creative observer of American society, he explored key themes of consumerism, materialism, media, and celebrity.

Drawing on contemporary advertisements, comic strips, consumer products, and Hollywood s most famous faces, Warhol proposed a radical reevaluation of what constituted artistic subject matter. Through Warhol, a Campbell s soup can and Coca Cola bottle became as worthy of artistic status as any traditional still life. At the same time, Warhol reconfigured the role of the artist. Famously stating I want to be a machine, he systematically reduced the presence of his own authorship, working with mass-production methods and images, as well as dozens of assistants in a studio he dubbed The Factory.

This book introduces Warhol s multifaceted, prolific oeuvre, which revolutionized distinctions between high and low art and integrated ideas of living, producing, and consuming that remain central questions of modern experience.

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

Best known for his fêtes galantes such as the famous Pèlerinage à l'île de Cythère, Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) was a major proponent in the revival of the Baroque style and the formation of the Rococo movement. Watteau was inspired by the theater and in particular the commedia dell’arte, hence elaborately costumed actors, dancers, and musicians were recurrent subjects; he was also fond of bucolic scenes and portraiture. Infused with romance, drama, and joie de vivre, Watteau’s paintings depict a idyllic world of pleasure and entertainment.

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

Did the Greek gods play tennis? What is the ambassador from the land of Alchemy telling us? What secrets are being told on the shores of the Island of Venus? What is a monk doing on the Ship of Fools?

What Great Paintings Say has the answers to these and many other burning questions asked about the most important and famous paintings of all time. In two volumes, a selection of history`s greatest masterpieces is presented chronologically, including works by Botticelli, Breughel, Chagall, Courbet, Degas, Delacroix, Dürer, Goya, Monet, Raphael, Rembrandt, Renoir, Rubens, Tiepolo, Titian, and many others. Each chapter focuses on one painting, with enlarged details and in-depth texts describing their significance.

Taking apart each painting and then reassembling it again like a huge jigsaw puzzle, the authors reveal the history of art as a lively panorama of forgotten worlds.

This important addition to our understanding of art history’s masterworks puts some of the world's most famous paintings under a magnifying glass to uncover their most small and subtle elements and all they reveal about a bygone time, place, and culture.

Guiding our eye to the minutiae of subject and symbolism, authors Rose-Marie and Rainer Hagen allow even the most familiar of pictures to come alive anew through their intricacies and intrigues. Is the bride pregnant? Why does the man wear a beret? How does the shadow of war hang over a scene of dancing? Along the way, we travel from Ancient Egypt through to modern Europe, from the Renaissance to the Roaring Twenties. We meet Greek heroes and poor German poets and roam from cathedrals to cabaret bars, from the Garden of Eden to a Garden Bench in rural France.

As we pick apart each painting and then reassemble it like a giant jigsaw puzzle, these celebrated canvases captivate not only in their sheer wealth of details but also in the witness they bear to the fashions and trends, people and politics, loves and lifestyles of their time.

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!

Byzantine empresses, French revolutionaries, and Spanish generals: history’s most impressive figures stare boldly out of the canvases in this collection of formidable paintings. Each individual represented in these images radiates with strength and splendour; be they an aristocratic widow in mourning, a murdered politician, or a jovial group of Ukrainian rebels.

Authors Rose-Marie and Rainer Hagen tease out the stories and secrets of 13 masterpieces by artists including Goya, Titian, Velázquez, and Ilya Repin. Regal, holy, and wise, the men and women in these works will inspire you with their conquests and resilience.TASCHEN reproduces these masterworks in stunning quality, working in collaboration with esteemed art collections all over the world, including in Brussels, St. Petersburg, New York, and Naples. Combining astute analysis with magnified painting details, this book is a unique historical investigation in tribute to the movers and shakers of the past.

About the series:

- Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Genre series features:
- approximately 100 colour illustrations with explanatory captions
- a detailed illustrated introduction plus a timeline of the most important political, cultural, and social events that took place during that period
- a selection of the most important works of the epoch, each presented on a 2-page spread with a full-page image and accompanying interpretation, as well as a portrait and brief biography of the artist

Surreptitious messages, concealed myths, and historical truths lie hidden in the great works of the Italian Renaissance, behind heavy gold leaf and religious symbology.

Although often obscured by the archaic language of historical painting, careful analysis and expert interpretation bring these images to life. Discover masterpieces of the most beloved creative epoch in this fascinating art historical inquiry. Images of war, romance, birth, and knowledge, works of the Italian Renaissance have much to say when given a voice. Rose-Marie and Rainer Hagen do just that-pulling apart each of the 12 featured paintings with all the talent of true detectives to offer an illuminating portal to the past.

From Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam to Ucello's The Battle of San Romano, from Antonello da Messina's St. Jerome in His Study to Pinturicchio's Penelope with the Suitors, the artworks under investigation are a diverse representation of the period's innovation and brilliance, sourced directly from some of the most impressive collections in the world, including the Uffizi, Prado, and National Gallery London.

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 leader of the abstract expressionists

"If you pick up some paint with your brush and make somebody's nose with it, this is rather ridiculous... It's really absurd to make an image, like a human image, with paint, today." — Willem de Kooning

Dutch-born American painter Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) was a leader of the abstract expressionist movement. Inspired by Arshile Gorky to abandon the realist style that had dominated his work in the 1930s, he began experimenting with abstraction in the 1940s and quickly gained critical success. His monumental Woman series of the 1950s — characterized by wild colour and aggressive overtones— was received with both controversy and acclaim. He continued to paint until the late 1980s, leaving behind a vast and impressive body of work.

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 leasing figure in the emergence of abstract expressionist painting in New York, Willem de Kooning arrived in the United States in 1926 as a twenty two years old stowaway from Holland. During the Depression years, he was a dedicated visitor to the museums and galleries of Manhattan, and did a brief stint as a WPA painter, which was curtailed because he was not a citizen. With resolute determination, de Kooning ventured beyond the radical departures of cubism toward the visceral physicality of the abstractions that comprised his first one person exhibition, in 1948. Five years later, an exhibition of women painted in agressive, lashing gestures stunned contemporaries not only for the vehemence of the artist s attack but also for the evident reversal of direction . Yet across six decades, the alternation and intertwining of abstraction and figuration remained fundamental to de Kooning's work.

The first comprehensive overview of the most significant paintings by de Kooning, the celebrated master of post-war American modernism.

Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) is regarded as a leading exponent of Abstract Expressionism and celebrated in the U.S. as one of the most significant figures in twentieth-century painting. Yet in Europe, the artist has yet to be fully recognized as the important figure he was. That applies in particular to his work of the sixties and seventies, his years of retreat from urban life to live and work on Long Island. This part of his oeuvre bears the imprint of a fundamental experience of landscape, and it is here that he developed a style of figuration (which de Kooning never really abandoned) characterized by a new sense of color and energetic gesture.
This period of vigorous, pioneering creativity in the art of Willem de Kooning is explicitly illuminated for the first time in this book. Featuring a concentrated selection of painting in large formats, it shows how his works - although recognizable as landscapes - grew abstract under the influence of his intense experience of nature while his brushwork literally liberated itself from all bonds.

Erster prägnanter Überblick über die zentralen Gemälde der 1960er und 1970er Jahre de Koonings, des gefeierten Meisters der amerikanischen Nachkriegsmoderne.

Willem de Kooning gilt als führender Vertreter des Abstrakten Expressionismus und wird in den USA als zentrale Figur der Malerei des 20. Jahrhunderts gefeiert. In Europa hingegen ist der 1904 in Rotterdam geborene, 1997 in New York verstorbene Künstler noch immer in seiner vollen Bedeutung zu entdecken. Dies gilt insbesondere für sein Werk der 1960er und 1970er Jahre, in denen er - zurückgezogen vom Großstadtleben - auf Long Island lebt und arbeitet. Hier wird sein Werk durch die elementare Erfahrung der Landschaft geprägt, hier entwickelt sich die Figuration, die de Kooning nie wirklich verlässt, zu neuer Farbigkeit und durchpulster Gestik.
Erstmals wird diese fulminante und wegweisende Werkperiode Willem de Koonings im vorliegenden Band explizit beleuchtet. Anhand einer konzentrierten Auswahl von großformatigen Gemälden wird veranschaulicht, wie de Koonings Werke sich - obwohl Landschaftsbilder - aufgrund des intensiven Naturerlebnisses abstrahieren und die Pinselhandschrift sich geradezu entfesselt. Dabei werden auch die berühmten »Women«-Bilder des niederländisch-amerikanischen Künstlers einbezogen.

Rich and delicate, ethereal and muscular, the art of William Blake is as fascinating as the philosophies threading through his poetry and prophetic works. 

Presented here in this magnificent new collection, his vivid paintings and gently weaving illustrations are imprinted in the consciousness of Romantic art, but their impact on Gothic literature remains as strong and quixotic as the artist himself.

Considered one of the most prominent actors of the Victorian era, William Morris (1843-1896) was a poet, artist, designer, and editor, and did not hesitate to express his socialist political views, which at the time were frowned upon by the establishment.
His encounters with Rossetti and Burne-Jones, as well as his religious studies, made him a man of manifold talents. From this mixture of genres, William Morris would go on to construct a remarkable career, applying his ideas through various enterprises he established under the name of the “William Morris Companies", revolutionizing both interior decorating and architecture. He quickly understood the advantage of industrial production techniques, which he used to design his creations. Together with John Ruskin, he also became a co-founder of the “Arts and Crafts" movement. Despite his admiration for Ruskin, he did not hesitate to publish his own poems in 1858 in his publishing house, Kelmscott Press.

His fascination with the pre-Raphaelite painters lead him to push aside the canons of English art, and, under the influence of Ruskin, to launch the rediscovery of the medieval style of decoration.

While drawing tapestries, carpets, glasswork, and other fine elements of interior decor, he became a fervent defender of socialism and participated actively in the Socialist Democratic Federation, which later became known as the Socialist League.

William Morris transformed his dreams and ideals into the deeds that still inspire our admiration today.

Through a series of illustrations, this work examines the scope of Morris’s talent, which continues to have a major influence on our daily lives today.

Impressionism is feminine!

There is a widespread interest in Impressionist painting, and exhibitions on this accessible movement often draw a large and diverse audience. Unfortunately, most of these events display remarkable few works by the female contemporaries of Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, and Pissarro.

Yet there were quite a number of professional female artists in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the exceptional, attractive oil paintings, pastels, watercolors, drawings, and etchings in this volume are by four of the most significant. The works by these French and American artists — Berthe Morisot, a central figure in the Impressionist movement; Mary Cassatt, a very independent artist and a respected colleague of Degas’s; Eva Gonzalès, one of Manet’s most talented pupils; and Marie Bracquemond, whose small oeuvre is of the highest quality — reflect their various lives and experiences as women. Until now, they have never been exhibited together, and this publication contains many unfamiliar and surprising images, waiting to be discovered by both fans of and newcomers to Impressionism.

HR Giger first received acclaim in the 1960s with his airbrushed fantasy landscapes. However, he scored his breakthrough in applied art, and particularly in his high-profile movie work on Ridley Scott's Alien. In 1980, he received an Oscar for "Best Achievement for Visual Effects" for his designs of the film's title creature and its otherworldly environment.

His other celebrated film projects include Poltergeist II, Alien 3 and Species, for which he designed a deadly but beautiful half-extraterrestrial female creature and a fantastic nightmare train. Giger's album covers for Debbie Harry and Emerson, Lake and Palmer were voted as being among the top hundred in music history by music journalists, while furniture designed by Giger graces a bar in Chur, Switzerland.

This book was designed by the artist himself, and features detailed commentaries in which Giger describes his work from the early 1960s to the late 1990s; the authentic voice of the master.

Although under-recognized in his lifetime, Wyndham Lewis was one of the most important figures in 20th century British art. He was best known for being a modernist activist, an avant-garde artist, an essayist and novelist. But he was also a remarkable portrait painter whose works bristle with the combined energy and charisma of maker and subject.

This catalogue to the British National Portrait Gallery exhibition of Lewis’s portraits presents a collection of work that has never before been exhibited (or published) together.

Whilst Lewis completed a number of commissioned portraits, his best works are those he created of his artistic peers: James Joyce, Edith Sitwell, Ezra Pound, Rebecca West, T. S. Eliot and Naomi Michison to name a few. The majority of these works are presented here and all demonstrate Lewis’s resolutely non-naturalistic, visually complex style.