Книги по живописи

The loggia, or colonnaded porch, on the second story of the Apostolic Palace is one of the Vatican’s most remarkable art treasures; its decoration, designed by Raphael (1483-1520) and executed by his workshop in 1517-19, epitomizes the spirit of the Italian Renaissance in its synthesis of Christian and classical themes. The thirteen square vaults of Raphael’s loggia each contain four frescoes of scenes from the Bible, from the Creation to the Last Supper. Meanwhile, the plasterwork of the other architectural elements is decorated with “grotesques” - fanciful arabesques enlivened with a wide variety of human and animal figures - modeled after ancient Roman wall paintings.

This groundbreaking study of Raphael’s loggia, the first to be published in English, has four parts. The first and second concern the grotesques and the scenes from the Bible, respectively, while the third examines the lives and artistic styles of the members of Raphael’s workshop who worked with him on the loggia. The fourth part traces the loggia’s enduring influence: the grotesque ornamental style elaborated by Raphael has been imitated as far afield as the corridors of the United States Capitol, and the Bible scenes served as influential models for popular prints. Illustrated throughout with newly commissioned color photographs, this book reaffirms the central importance of Raphael’s loggia to the history of art.

246 color ills.

There seems to be an endless number of deceptively real objects depicted in still lifes: dewdrops on fragile flower petals, reflections of light on glass goblets and precious silver dishes, candied sweets in Chinese porcelain, the fine hairs on a peach, the soft feathers of a songbird, the sallow tinge to a skull. However, the details of this genre are not exhausted in the delicate rendering of varying surfaces, because each pictorial element can also symbolize religious or moral content or be a reference to the irretrievability of time gone by - tempus fugit! This volume presents, on large-format plates, a splendid selection of works by some of the principal masters of the still-life genre, such as Jan Brueghel the Elder, Georg Flegel, Sebastian Stoskopff, Jan Davidsz de Heem, Abraham Mignon, and Jean Siméon Chardin. These choice treasures of German, Netherlandish, Flemish, and French still-life painting exemplify nearly all of the different ways of playing with this genre.

Now available in a lovely new gift edition, this stunning bouquet of romantic paintings brings together two important aspects of Victorian culture - the Pre-Raphaelite movement and the language of flowers - in one exquisite volume.

Few artistic movements capture classic notions of beauty as romantically as the Pre-Raphaelites - a group of 19th-century painters and poets who aimed to revive the purer art of the late medieval period. In this beautiful volume, Debra N. Mancoff, an expert on Pre-Raphaelite art and the floral lexicon, presents breathtaking examples, which illuminate the meaning of flowers in all aspects of Victorian culture. She offers brief commentaries on individual paintings as well as biographies of the period's leading artists and their models. A captivating introduction to an artistic movement, this exquisitely produced book is also a romantic keepsake of an artistic sensibility that speaks volumes.

The rituals of Siberian shamans, the ancient funerary sculptures from the steppes seen as a crystallised presence of archaic and everlasting forms of worship, Chinese popular prints, Japanese engravings, Theosophic and Anthroposophic theories and Indian philosophy are but some of the elements that inspired the aesthetic and theoretical pursuits of the new Russian artists and writers just before the October 1917 Revolution.

Written to accompany the exhibition in Florence, this book is devoted to the complex relation between Russian art and the East – be it the Russian East or the Far East – with a special focus on the radical artists who shaped the development of modern art a century ago.

Figures such as Léon Bakst, Alexandre Benois, Pavel Filonov, Natal’ia Goncharova, Wassily Kandinsky, Mikhail Larionov and Kazimir Malevich were deeply aware of the significance of the East for their art, and contributed to launching a rich debate that left a deep and permanent mark on their artistic praxis. The catalogue and the exhibition also draw a connection between the chief representatives of the Russian avant-garde and other lesser-known but just as important artists of the period such as Nikolai Kalmakov, Sergei Konenkov and Vasilii Vatagin, some of whose works are being displayed for the first time in the West.

A celebration of the Impressionists artists, including Monet, Renoir and Pissarro, whose paintings are inextricably linked to the birth of modern art. 

Today, our passion for these artists remains, and their paintings are amongst the best-loved works in the history of art. By choosing to paint extraordinary pictures of modernity that shocked the bourgeois elite, the Impressionists challenged the academic ideals of the French Salons, rejected the past and embracing colour to portray a sense of joie de vivre. Their revolutionary use of colour, free brushstrokes and modern subject matter, painted en plain air gave rise to one of the most important and influential art movements of the nineteenth century. 

Featuring many of the most famous and important pieces by the groups’ key figures, this beautifully illustrated reference book also includes a collection of less well-known but equally important works to show the diversity of this exceptional movement.

Traces the extraordinary career of one of Scotland`s (and Britain`s) most fascinating and original artist-designers of the twentieth century. This stunning new book is illustrated with nearly 176 illustrations, designs and paintings which demonstrate Mackintosh`s technique, influences and associations.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English painters, poets and critics, founded in 1848 by John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt. Their art’s romanticism, attention to detail and jewel-like colours have ensured their eternal popularity. This beautifully illustrated reference book is packed with exampes of work by the key proponent Millais, and that of his contemporaries, alongside illuminating information. Beginning with an overview of the movement it goes on to discuss the art in the context of society, place, influences, and styles and techniques. An ideal gift for art lovers or those new to the subject.

Turner, Whistler and Monet were all fascinated by the transience of light and how that alone could affect the atmostphere of a painting. They were also highly experimental for their time, rejecting the use of realism in favour of creating the impression of place instead. This is a perfect gift book for any lover of art and co-incides with the Tate exhibition of the same name.

This collection of late 16th and early 17th century love emblems was amassed around 1620 by an unknown lover, doubtless consumed by passion and fiery loins, and given to his or her lover as a token of romance and affection. Composed of mythological, allegorical, and even erotic prints, the emblems (created by printmakers such as Abraham Bloemaert, Pieter Brueghel, Agostino Carracci, and Jacob Goltzius) illustrated scenes like The Trades of Cupid, The Seven Deadly Sins, The Seven Virtues, The Muses, The Loves of the Gods, and Five Senses. Publication, or collecting and binding, of love emblems was a novel and popular pastime in the Netherlands in the early 17th century, and the particular album reproduced here is an outstanding example. Meticulously colored and heightened with gold and silver, these prints surely won the heart of their lucky receiver. Though the album’s exact provenance is unknown (due to the removal of the original insignia by a later owner), the outstanding quality, coloring, and extensive use of gold and silver suggests that it was produced for a rich, cultivated, and probably infatuated client. Since use of color was rare and albums were often one of a kind, it is likely that this copy is completely unique; its 143 folios are all reproduced here in their original size (25.3 x 18.5 cm), complete with an introduction and accompanying descriptions by author Carsten-Peter Warncke. What would the original owner have said if he or she knew the album would end up, 400 years later, warming the hearts of so many?

“Art nègre? I don’t know it.” With this provocative tone, Picasso tried to deny his relationship with art from outside of Europe. However, through hundreds of archival documents and photographs, this volume illustrates how non-European art from Africa, Oceania, the Americas, and Asia was a recurring source of inspiration for the artist.

Side-by-side comparisons illustrate the links between Picasso’s oeuvre and diverse “primitive” arts. In both, we find the same themes ― nudity, sexuality, impulses, death, and more ― along with parallel artistic expressions of those themes ― such as disfiguration or destruction of the body.

The volume is completed with a chronology of the relevant works and photographs of the artist in his studio.

The Venetian virtuoso

A leading artist in the High Renaissance, Titian (Tiziano Vecelli, 1488-1576) was the Venetian school’s greatest painter and is one of the best-loved Italian artists of all time. Titian was highly regarded during his lifetime, and his renown has not diminished in the intervening centuries; so great was his ability to manipulate color, texture, and tone that he is still considered to be one of art history’s greatest technical masters. The freedom exhibited in his pictorial compositions was unprecedented and greatly influential on later artists, notably Manet, who closely studied Titian’s work at the Louvre. This book examines Titian’s evolution, from his early years training under Giovanni Bellini to his later mature work, giving a wide perspective on the life’s work of this legendary master 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:

Ian Kennedy studied art history at Cambridge and at the Courtauld Institute, London University. He worked for nearly three decades in New York at Christies and as a dealer and is now Ward Curator of European Paintings and Sculpture until 1900 at the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.

180 Illustrations

Not only does this book offer a studied and insightful look into the works of one of the most technically gifted of the world's painters, but it also invites the reader to discover the bustling world of the Venetian art scene in which Titian lived and worked. Its compelling narrative will please the general public while its unique cross-analysis of the 16th century Venetian painters will interest art specialists and students.
This study of Titian’s life and works relates the contemporary and historical influences of the style and colours that Titian came to master. The author reveals how Titian’s personal life, his relationships with important Venetian painters and influential European political leaders, is inextricably tied to his artistic career, as he defines style through artistic encounters and his powerful friends become his subjects. The calibre of the story and the quality of the images are rarely accompanied by such a competitively moderate price.

The Author
Writer, critic and art historian, Sir Claude Phillips was a Keeper of the Wallace Collection. He started in life as a solicitor and this occupation took him all over the world. During his numerous travels, he visited museums and art collections building up his knowledge of art. He was appointed Keeper of the Wallace Collection and while working there, he wrote on Reynolds and Titian.

Titian is acknowledged as the greatest of the sixteenth-century Venetian painters, best known for his portraits, mythological pictures and religious subjects. Yet his first great achievement as a painter, schooled in the workshop of Giovanni Bellini, was to refashion the portrayal of nature in his own distinctive style by studying the work of Albrecht Durer, whose naturalistic paintings of plants, animals and landscape - for which northern European artists were renowned - had caused a sensation in Venice in the first decade of the sixteenth century.

In this short, beautifully illustrated book, Antonio Mazzotta presents this experience, together with Titian's native landscape of Pievedi Cadore, as crucial influences in the artist's early representation of nature. The recently restored Flight into Egypt (now in the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg) - probably painted when Titian was still a teenager - is vivid proof of his interest in the depiction of animals, plants and figures in the landscape. The author's carefully chosen comparisons of paintings, prints, drawings and details of works by the young Titian, Durer and their contemporaries (including Sebastiano del Piombo and Giorgione) suggest that Titian was as innovative and as influential in his unique view of nature as he was in portraiture.

The Prince of Pigalle

In pursuit of pleasure in the Belle Époque

Today, the painter and graphic artist Henri Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) is considered as one of the most inspired portrayers of human figures. This physically handicapped scion of the old French nobility was fascinated by life around Montmartre, whose cafes, cabarets, dance halls, and bordellos presented him with the "theater of life."

More than any other artist, Toulouse-Lautrec captured the Belle Époque’s pursuit of fleeting pleasure: directly and without flattery, his paintings, lithographs, and posters offer a masterly and timeless image of the age.

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 

In our imaginings of Paris, painter and graphic artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901) has no small role to play. In his prints, posters, paintings, and drawings, the artist immortalized the city’s Belle Époque nightlife and put the northern neighbourhood of Montmartre on the global map of creative-hedonist hotspots.

The son of old French nobility, Toulouse-Lautrec seems to have been drawn early on to visions of a demimonde, centering his attention on the dance halls, cabarets, and brothels of Montmartre and adopting famed dancers and singers as his subjects, most notably Jane Avril. His works include both lively performance scenes and quiet, tender “after-hours” portraits such as The Sofa and In Bed. Stylistically, he mastered both bold graphics, as celebrated in his promotional posters of Jane Avril, and a loose yet evocative sketchwork.

Though he died aged just 36, due to complications from alcoholism and syphilis, Toulouse-Lautrec’s cultural influence was immense. This introductory book takes a walk through his world of singers, dancers, musicians, and prostitutes to reveal an artist of great humanity, striking figurative skill, and a pronounced sense for the energy and stories of a city.

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