Modern Art Explorer Harman Alice Thames&Hudson

Great works of art cannot be fully understood in a single encounter. This is perhaps even truer for modern artworks that may not immediately make sense to, or even appeal to, the casual observer. Viewing an artwork? whether it is a painting, sculpture, installation, video, or photograph? as a whole is one method of interacting with it, but a deeper understanding can only be gained by analyzing it in detail • Modern Art in Detail: 75 Masterpieces spotlights the finer points that even connoisseurs may miss. The book includes all the minutiae that a quick glance will almost certainly fail to reveal, including subtle internal details. Susie Hodge writes intelligently and informatively about relevant external influences on the artist?everything from global political events to groundbreaking movements such as Cubism, Futurism, and Primitivism, and even scientific and mathematical theories

While acknowledging the legacy of Herbert Read’s classic 1959 study A Concise History of Modern Painting in the World of Art series, academic and artist Simon Morley places the foundation of modern art much earlier than Read, at the emergence of Romanticism and the dawn of the industrial age. Structured loosely chronologically by period, the focus is as much on individual artists as well as movements, with works discussed within a broader context - stylistic, historical, geographical, and gender and ethnic frames - themes that recur throughout the chapters. Generously illustrated, the global and diverse range of artists featured include William Blake, Edouard Manet, Hilma af Klint, Kazimir Malevich, Willem de Kooning, Amrita Sher-Gil, Faith Ringgold and Kehinde Wiley

The art and architecture of Egypt during the age of the pharaohs capture the imagination of the modern world. Vivid, graceful forms decorating monuments that emanated ambition and authority spark our wonder about this distant culture. Ever youthful and elegant men and women encounter odd, animal-headed gods and monsters amid scenes of work and leisure, in a paradise of plain, bright colours, where hieroglyphic texts hint at grand ideas • The tombs and temples of ancient Egypt reveal how art and monumental building first flowered at the heart of civilization. Among the great creative achievements of ancient Egypt we discover a set of constant forms: archetypes in art and architecture that state clearly and concisely the contemporary view of authority, divinity, beauty and meaning

Karl Lagerfeld is a modern master of couture. He is also famously outspoken: his wise, surprising statements pop up like offbeat news flashes. This collection of quotations pays homage to the legendary eminence grise of the fashion world. Lagerfeld's pronouncements - on fashion, women, art, politics, love, and life high and low - are famously oracular, seized upon by fashionistas, acolytes and sages around the world. Created with the full approval of the designer himself, this cornucopia of Lagerfeld's maxims is required reading for us all today as we negotiate the trickiest curves of modern life. Cultivated, unpredictable, provocative, sometimes shocking, Lagerfeld's "bons mots" are always impossible to ignore

A gorgeously illustrated survey of chinoiserie from the 18th century to today • Chinoiserie is a term for Western art and design inspired by a largely invented vision of China. Marco Polo’s sensational account of his visit to the exotic East in the 13th century sparked a fascination with China that reached a fever pitch in the 18th century and continues to this day. Art historian and artist Aldous Bertram has long been captivated by chinoiserie. He organizes Dragons & Pagodas by theme, including porcelain, color and pattern, flora, fauna, people, architecture and tropical exoticism. Each chapter is bursting with images of everything from grand European summer palaces and whimsical pagoda follies to charming details of screens, porcelain figurines and ornate plasterwork, from modern rooms swathed in floral wallpaper to paintings, tapestries and palm-topped columns

A new translation of Giorgio Vasari's Life of Raphael, fully illustrated, that presents Vasari's appealing narrative with new precision • Giorgio Vasari's The Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, written in 1550 and 1568, is a classic text of cultural history. This monumental assembly of artists' lives from Giotto to Michelangelo paints a vivid picture of the progression of art in the hands of individual masters • This illustrated stand-alone edition of Vasari's Life of Raphael offers a new translation of this rich and remarkable life, elegantly rendering Vasari's literary text in modern terms. A work of authoritative skill and precision, this new translation preserves Vasari's exciting narrative, alongside beautifully reproduced color illustrations

In Japanese life and culture, there has never been a clear distinction between art, craft and design. Generations of artisans have for centuries forged and refined their crafts, which have become the envy of the modern world. Regions of Japan are renowned for specific traditions, many of which are born of local materials and the natural settings in which they are produced • Visitors and craft and design enthusiasts have long known about the high quality of craftsmanship and the unique quality of these makers and the objects they create, though few are taken outside the country. Spurred by an awareness of the unseen treasures produced by these craftspeople, designer-authors Uwe Roettgen and Katharina Zettl set out across the country to find the finest examples, to document the makers and their workshops and the rural landscapes that surround them

Fulfilling a need for an accessible, affordable introduction to a subject of sustained and growing significance in contemporary culture, this volume in the World of Art series redefines contemporary Chinese art in the last forty years since the end of China's Cultural Revolution, placing it in the context of unprecedented cultural, political and urban transformation • This book offers neither an art historian's chronological review of Chinese art in post-Mao China, nor does it join the debate of previous terminologies coined by art critics; instead, it provides the most up to date understanding of contemporary Chinese art through original research and informed curatorial perspectives on the selected representative work, including painting, printmaking, sculpture, photography, installation, video, performance and participatory art

What makes Scottish art Scottish? In this now classic text, Murdo Macdonald explores the distinctive characteristics of Scottish art over the centuries - such as the heritage of Celtic design with it's emphasis on intricate pattern; the importance of the landscape, particularly the Highlands and the sea; and a close connection with France. It ranges from the earliest art to survive - Neolithic standing stones - through the art of the Picts and Gaels, and the tumultuous centuries of the Reformation, to the great flowering of Scottish art in the Enlightenment. The final chapters focus closely on art produced since 1900, with succinct and revealing analyses of the Scottish Colourists and the major figures of contemporary art in all media. Masterpieces from the Book of Kells to paintings by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Joan Eardley are illustrated in full colour, and such key works are set in a clearly explained historical context throughout

A stimulating resource that guides readers through the most significant symbols from art history, spanning many civilizations and centuries while revealing the common heritage of a global visual language • The Hidden Language of Symbols covers a wide-ranging selection of visual culture and art under one unified theme: symbols. Often not immediately apparent, our day-to-day lives abound with symbols of various kinds, from national emblems to emojis, allegories to logos, all of which have a fascinating story • Organized across four all-encompassing themes-power, faith, hope, and uncertainty-this stimulating illustrated account of forty-eight key symbols from global art history is aimed at museum-goers, armchair art sleuths, or anyone who wants to understand the history of their visual environment from an unusual and creative angle

Asia is home to more than half the world's population, and learning about the art of its many cultures helps readers understand the visual world that surrounds us. This book tells the story of the simultaneous development of artistic techniques, styles and ideas across East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia, exploring the ways these regions were often dynamically interconnected with each other, and with places beyond Asia • It covers the full breadth of Asian art history, with almost 500 artworks from China, Japan, Korea, South Asia and Southeast Asia; including areas often under-represented in other books on the subject, such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Tibet, Nepal and Mongolia • Authors Lee and Hutton are active teachers, writers and speakers who engage with art history as a progressive field that promotes cross-cultural understanding

Known for his multi-storey murals gracing buildings all over the world, Melbourne-based artist Rone uses his work to explore the friction and connection between beauty and decay, youth and ruin • Rone was a seminal figure in the explosive Melbourne street art scene of the early 2000s. With his beginnings in street art, stencil and screen printing, Rone is now best known for his haunting images of women's faces, rendered in arresting detail on silos and store fronts, museums and apartment blocks. His immersive installations have continued his investigation into divergent themes of beauty and ruin, materiality and loss, through the transformation of condemned, derelict or forgotten spaces - with each artwork painstakingly produced, only to be destroyed