ART

Raphael (1483–1520) is considered the most important artist of the Italian High Renaissance alongside Michelangelo and Leonardo.
In his short lifetime he created around one hundred paintings and numerous frescoes, including nine fresco cycles, on an unsurpassed variety of themes – from sensual female beauties, antique myths and portraits of wealthy Romans and church dignitaries to history cycles and biblical scenes. He produced altarpieces, as well as designing tapestries for the Sistine Chapel.

Queer Art is a commanding compendium of LGBTQIA+ art that highlights its ongoing resilience from the 19th century to the present day.

This contemporary step-by-step guidebook demonstrates fundamental art and architectural concepts like proportion, perspective, and spatial relationships as you learn to draw a wide range of important residential, commercial, historic, and cultural buildings, bridges, towers, and other structures from all over the world and from ancient to modern—all shown from a variety of perspectives and scales.

Shortly after his untimely death in 1988, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s meteoric art-world ascent was in retreat. Nearly four decades later, the artist’s paintings are amongst the world’s most recognizable and valuable. Based on over 100 interviews, Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Making of an Icon finally fills in long-missing chapters from the life and work of an artist who helped reframe contemporary art.

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) was one of the last great artists in the ukiyo-e tradition. Literally meaning “pictures of the floating world,” ukiyo-e was a particular genre of art that flourished between the 17th and 19th centuries and came to characterize the Western world’s visual idea of Japan. In many ways images of hedonism, ukiyo-e scenes often represented the bright lights and attractions of Edo (modern-day Tokyo): beautiful women, actors and wrestlers, city life, and spectacular landscapes.

Though he captured a variety of subjects, Hiroshige was most famous for landscapes, with a final masterpiece series known as “One Hundred Famous Views of Edo” (1856–1858), which depicted various scenes of the city through the seasons, from bustling shopping streets to splendid cherry orchards.

Andy Warhol "Giant" Size is the definitive document of this remarkable creative force, and a telling look at late twentieth-century pop culture. A must-have for Warhol fans and pop culture enthusiasts, this in-depth and comprehensive overview of Warhol's extraordinary career is packed with more than 2,000 illustrations culled from rarely seen archival material, documentary photography, and artwork.

An accessible, comprehensive, freshly-updated celebration of the vast range of human artistry from 28,000 BC to today

The latest, thoroughly revised edition of Phaidon's award-winning and globally-bestselling art survey, featuring works from more than 600 of the world's greatest artists
This latest revised and updated edition includes 40 works new to this book and includes many overlooked historical and cutting-edge contemporary artists, including: Berenice Abbott, Hilma af Klint, El Anatsui, Romare Bearden, Mark Bradford, Cao Fei, Cecily Brown, Judy Chicago, John Currin, Guerrilla Girls, Lee Krasner, Jacob Lawrence, Kerry James Marshall, Joan Mitchell, Zanele Muholi, Takashi Murakami, Louise Nevelson, Clara Peeters, Jenny Saville, Wolfgang Tillmans, and more.

One of the most accomplished human beings who ever lived, Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) remains a quintessential Renaissance genius. The perfect companion to the Leonardo Graphic Work edition, this book is a compact catalogue raisonné of all of the artist’s masterful paintings.

Drawn from our best-selling XXL edition, the book traces the artist’s life and work across 10 chapters, presenting all known paintings and drawing on his letters, contracts, diary entries, and writings to explore the man behind such groundbreaking artworks.

This all-in-one guide reveals the secret to creating stunning letter art, with essential tips, expert advice, and inspiring projects from Lindsey Bugbee, the creator of The Postman’s Knock, the world’s number one calligraphy website.

Discover the tools you need to achieve the best results: not only pens, nibs, inks, and paper, but also patience and creativity as you build up your confidence and skills.

Excerpts from art critic, historian, lecturer and broadcaster James Hall’s lively and comprehensive cultural history of self-portraiture, including such artists as Dürer, Gentileschi, Van Gogh and Kahlo.

Renowned art historian and pioneering feminist Linda Nochlin explores how, from the late 18th century, fragmented, mutilated and fetishized representations of the human body came to constitute a distinctively modern view of the world.

Among the women artists who have transcended art history, none had a meteoric rise quite like Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (1907–1954). Her unmistakable face, depicted in over fifty extraordinary self-portraits, has been admired by generations; along with hundreds of photographs taken by notable artists such as Manuel and Lola Álvarez Bravo, Nickolas Muray, and Martin Munkácsi, they made Frida Kahlo an icon of 20th century art.
This book allows readers to admire Frida Kahlo’s paintings like never before, including unprecedented detail shots and famous photographs.

This volume, derived from the original XXL monograph, lifts the veil on a much-loved but little-understood art form by presenting the most exceptional Japanese woodblock prints in their historical context. Ranging from the 17th-century development of decadent ukiyo-e, or “pictures of the floating world,” to the decline and later resurgence of prints in the early 20th century, the images collected in this edition make up an unmatched record not only of a unique genre in art history, but also of the shifting mores and cultural development of Japan.

From Edouard Manet’s portrait of naturalist writer Émile Zola sitting among his Japanese art finds to Van Gogh’s meticulous copies of the Hiroshige prints he devotedly collected, 19th-century pioneers of European modernism made no secret of their love of Japanese art. In all its sensuality, freedom, and effervescence, the woodblock print is single-handedly credited with the wave of japonaiserie that first enthralled France and, later, all of Europe—but often remains misunderstood as an “exotic” artifact that helped inspire Western creativity.

Here is a well-researched, concise guide to protest art, exploring what happens when artists join forces with radical political movements to foster change. The works and movements discussed emerged at times of great upheaval, war, colonialism, independence and changes of government, and reveal how art and politics have been intertwined throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries.
Each of the nine chapters addresses different ways in which art has been used to effect political transformation, taking in humour and satire, performance and propaganda, art's relationships to institutions, the media, conflict and the state, and its uses as a weapon, a galvanizing force and a way of refusing the status quo.

This illustrated guide is ideal for those interested in art, sculptures and the history of art or who would like to broaden their general understanding of art and the lives of artists.

William Morris was an outstanding character of many talents, being an architect, writer, social campaigner, artist and, with his Kelmscott Press, an important figure of the Arts and Crafts movement. Many of us probably know him best, however, from his superb furnishings and textile designs, intricately weaving together natural motifs in a highly stylized two-dimensional fashion influenced by medieval conventions.

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.

Van Gogh Masterpieces of Art features all of the best-known works of one of the most famous artists in the world, preceded by a fresh and thoughtful introduction providing lively commentary on his life, society, places and style and techniques, including the powerful animation of his strident brushwork.

Gustav Klimt, well known for his sensual, arresting depictions of women (The Kiss, Fulfillment, The Tree of Life), was a founder of the Viennese Secession movement at the turn of the 20th century, Vienna's own Art Nouveau. His extravagant work, was an obsessive manifestation of the dazzling intellectual society of his time and he painted very large canvases combining oils with gold foil. This beautiful new book brings together a wide selection of Klimt’s magnificent work.

Focusing on Art Deco graphic art and illustration, this gorgeous new book features fascinating text on the movement in general, fashion and advertising, accompanied by beautiful reproductions of work by talents such as Barbier, Erté, Cassandre and Colin. Sympathetic examples of other forms of Art Deco are also included.

Barrington Barber presents a range of stimulating projects from simple still life objects and full-blown landscape compositions to individual portraits. His teaching method ensures that necessary lessons in technique are learnt and employed effortlessly while completing drawings that any aspiring artist would be proud of.

Focusing on the 'history' in art history, each of the twelve chapters opens with a question to ponder, followed by a summary of the major historical developments of the period, touching on social structure, political organization, migration, race, religious beliefs, scientific advances and customs. An exploration of these themes in the visual arts reveals how architecture, sculpture and painting simultaneously shape, reflect, and document the culture of the time and place they were created. A secondary focus explores the constantly evolving aesthetic preferences that swing between naturalism and abstraction, with each era and style either rebelling against the previous or seeking to improve it. Antecedents and outside influences are also discussed.

Caravaggio, or more accurately Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610), was always a name to be reckoned with. Notorious bad boy of Italian painting, the artist was at once celebrated and controversial: violent in temper, precise in technique, a creative master, and a man on the run. Today, he is considered one of the greatest influences in all art history.

This edition offers a neat and comprehensive Caravaggio catalogue raisonne. Each of his paintings is reproduced from recent top-quality photography, allowing for a vivid encounter with the artist's ingenious repertoire of looks and gestures, as well as numerous detail shots of his boundary-breaking naturalism. Five accompanying chapters trace the complete arc of Caravaggio's career from his first public commissions in Rome through to his growing celebrity status and trace his tempestuous personal life, in which drama loomed as prominently as in his canvases.

The English Romantic painter Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 1775-19 December 1851) was a brilliant landscape artist, a watercolourist and printmaker. His style, powerful and fierce, melding the elements with humankind are thought by many to have prepared the way for Impressionism. In his time he was controversial, but his focus on land and seascapes widened the palette of artists and their audience, and his impressionistic brushwork prepared the way for the fragmentation of the modern era. This wonderful new book brings to life his greatest achievements, with such paintings as The Fighting 'Temeraire', Inside Tintern Abbey and Rain, Steam and Speed (The Great Western Railway).

After Egon Schiele (1890-1918) freed himself from the shadow of his mentor and role model Gustav Klimt, he had just ten years to inscribe his signature style into the annals of modernity before the Spanish flu claimed his life. Being a child prodigy quite aware of his own genius and a passionate provocateur, this didn't prove to be too big a challenge.

His haggard, overstretched figures, extreme depiction of sexuality and self-portraits, in which he staged himself with emaciated facial expressions bordering between brilliance and madness, had none of the decorative quality of Klimt's hymns of love, sexuality and yearning devotion. Instead, Schiele's work spoke of a brutal honesty, one that would upset and irreversibly change Viennese society.

Only 20 paintings and eight drawings are confidently assigned to Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450-1516) but in their fantastical visions they have secured his place as one of the most cult artists in history. 500 years on from his death, his works continue to inspire scholars, artists, designers, and musicians, death metal band names and designer dresses.

This edition offers the complete and haunting Bosch world in one compact format. Through full spreads and carefully curated details, we explore the full reach and compelling inventions of the artist's genius as well as disturbing imagination. We encounter his hybrid creatures, his nightmarish scenarios, his religious and moral framework, and his pictorial versions of contemporary proverbs and idioms. Along the way, art historian and Bosch expert Stefan Fischer reveals the most important themes and influences in these cryptic, mesmerizing masterpieces.

The legend of Jean-Michel Basquiat is as strong as ever. Synonymous with 1980s New York, the artist first appeared in the late 1970s under the tag SAMO, spraying caustic comments and fragmented poems on the walls of the city. He appeared as part of a thriving underground scene of visual arts and graffiti, hip hop, post-punk, and DIY filmmaking, which met in a booming art world. As a painter with a strong personal voice, Basquiat soon broke into the established milieu, exhibiting in galleries around the world.

Basquiat's expressive style was based on raw figures and integrated words and phrases. His work is inspired by a pantheon of luminaries from jazz, boxing, and basketball, with references to arcane history and the politics of street life-so when asked about his subject matter, Basquiat answered "royalty, heroism and the streets." In 1983 he started collaborating with the most famous of art stars, Andy Warhol, and in 1985 was on the cover of The New York Times Magazine. When Basquiat died at the age of 27, he had become one of the most successful artists of his time.

From the earliest cave paintings through to the internet and street art, this inspiring book chronicles the 100 most influential ideas that have shaped the world of art. Arranged in broadly chronological order, it provides a unique and compelling take on the history of art.

The book shows how developments in materials and technology have radically changed the way that art is produced. Each entry explores when an idea first evolved and how it has resurfaced in the work of different artists up to the present day.

It is often forgotten just how provocative Impressionist canvases seemed when they were first exhibited in 1874. The advocates of the new style rejected the established principles of art prevalent at that time in France.

This book traces Impressionism’s origins to its spread to America and Australia. Ralph Skea shows how Impressionist artists transformed everyday subject matter. Daringly using colour and rapid brushstrokes, the Impressionists worked out of doors, creating paintings that captured the transient effects of light and feeling. Impressionism’s initial shock factor gradually gave way to widespread acceptance, but only now can we appreciate how profound its influence has been on modern art.