Twain M Goldsmiths Friend Abroad Again, and on the Decay of the Art of Lying

When was art's first kiss? Who painted the first ever smile and the first self-portrait? When did Western art first depict a Black person or approach feminism? And why were each of these firsts so important? This book answers all these fascinating questions and more • Art Firsts explores 30 groundbreaking works to piece together an original approach to looking at and appreciating art, as well as understanding where it has come from and how it relates to you. Each first is approachable and engaging, while each work is simply and satisfyingly explained. Every work is also fully illustrated, and its significance is shown through images of the subsequent artists directly inspired by them • This book offers a refreshing and fascinating narrative for those curious about why so-called 'masterpieces' are so important and how the story of art can be boiled down to flashes of fascinating brilliance

'The sight of suffering does one good, the infliction of suffering does one more good - this is a hard maxim, but none the less a fundamental maxim, old, powerful, and "human, all-too-human".' • In this daring and insightful work, Nietzsche lays bare the hypocrisies at the foundations of our ideas of morality. Considering ideas of good and evil, guilt and conscience, and law and violence along the way, On the Genealogy of Morals takes the reader on a journey through the history of value systems in three masterful essays. His insights are sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes provocative, but always demonstrate the workings of an exceptional mind. Together, this collection of essays makes up one of the most powerful works of modern philosophy that seeks to do nothing less than unravel the mysteries of human nature

On the Shoulders of Giants tells a compelling story, using original papers from Einstein, Copernicus, Galilei, Kepler and Newton. Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking explains how these works changed the course of science, ushering astronomy and physics out of the Middle Ages and into the modern world

In 'The Decay of Lying' Oscar Wilde uses his decadent ideology in an attempt to reverse and therefore reject his audiences' 'normal' conceptualizations of nature, art and morality. Wilde's views of life and art are illustrated through the use of Platonic dialogue where the character Vivian takes on the persona of Wilde. Wilde's goal is to subvert the norm by reversing its values. Wilde suggests to us that society is wrong, not him. Calling on diverse examples - from Ancient Greek sculpture to contemporary paintings - Oscar Wilde's brilliant essay creates a witty, paradoxical world in which the only Art worth loving is that built on complete untruths

'Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life' • The two works brought together here, 'The Decay of Lying' and 'The Critic as Artist', are Oscar Wilde's wittiest and most profound writings on aesthetics, in which he proposes that criticism is the highest form of creation and that lying, the telling of a beautiful untruth, is the ultimate aim of art • One of twenty new books in the bestselling Penguin Great Ideas series. This new selection showcases a diverse list of thinkers who have helped shape our world today, from anarchists to stoics, feminists to prophets, satirists to Zen Buddhists

An Artist’s Insights on Art Appreciation • Written by a practicing artist, this book decodes and maps the basic elements of visual art, leading the reader to a greater understanding and appreciation. Not an art history lesson per se, this illustrated guide is rather a tool kit to make the study of art and a visit to the museum truly rewarding. An entertaining and informative read, The Joy of Art offers the reader • A working art vocabulary to help you identify and explain what you’re looking at • Answers to many of the questions you may have about visual art in general • A summary of the basic criteria to consider when looking at art • Highlights of the primary art genres and an introduction to the artists who pursued them • Many visual examples of aesthetic considerations and practices • Interesting facts about your favorite artists and clues to why they made the choices they did • A few games to test your new skills • The Joy of Art contains 150 color photographs and many interesting insights from an artist-author who takes readers behind the curtain and into the studio to uncover what actually goes into making a work of art

'Great art has dreadful manners...' Simon Schama observes at the start of his epic exploration of the power, and whole point, of art. 'The hushed reverence of the gallery can fool you into believing masterpieces are polite things, visions that soothe, charm and beguile, but actually they are thugs. Merciless and wily, the greatest paintings grab you in a headlock, rough up your composure and then proceed in short order to re-arrange your sense of reality...' • With the same disarming force, Power of Art jolts us far from the comfort zone of the hushed art gallery, as Schama closes in on intense make-or-break turning points in the lives of eight great artists who, under extreme stress, created something unprecedented, altering the course of art for ever

From the Costa Award winning author of Voyage of the Sparrowhawk comes an epic adventure with a call to arms: we must fight to save the most treasured things on our planet • On the top of the hill, overlooking the sea, that’s where you’ll find a magical place • To Bea and Raffy, Ravenwood is home. In its own way, the house rescued them, even if it did have a fallen-down tree taking up most of the kitchen. So the idea that it could be sold. Demolished even. Well, that’s unthinkable. Then again, it’s not like the children get a choice. But the truth is, we can all make our own choices, especially if we care enough • A beautiful, soulful, exciting story about holding onto what’s precious, and guarding the extraordinary nature that surrounds us

When the young naturalist Darwin set sail on a round-the-world expedition at the end of 1831, it was only with a vague notion that the relationships between all life forms, both present and extinct, were more complex than the Christian version of the world’s creation purported them to be. During his five-year voyage of discovery on board HMS Beagle and more than two decades subsequently devoted to research, he painstakingly collected a mass of evidence from across the planet – from Paraguay and the Galapagos Islands to Staffordshire and Scotland – building a compelling case for the theory of natural selection, which would change the way we look at the world for ever • The founding text of evolutionary biology – which prompted a revolution in the fields of science and religion similar in magnitude to the discoveries of Copernicus and Newton – Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was an instant best-seller when it was published in 1859 and has become a cultural milestone that has influenced a wide range of disciplines of human knowledge

Charles Darwin's seminal formulation of the theory of Evolution, On the Origin of Species continues to be as controversial today as when it was first published. This Penguin Classics edition contains an introduction and notes by William Bynum, and features a cover designed by Damien Hirst • Written for a general readership, On the Origin of Species sold out on the day of its publication and has remained in print ever since. Instantly and persistently controversial, the concept of natural selection transformed scientific analysis about all life on Earth. Before the Origin of Species, accepted thinking held that life was the static and perfect creation of God. By a single, systematic argument Darwin called this view into question. His ideas have affected public perception of everything from religion to economics

This deluxe gift edition of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species is presented with gold-embossed cover design with gilded page-edges and beautiful endpapers • The controversial theory of natural selection proposed in this book made Darwin internationally famous and put the issue of evolution at the center of a fierce debate. Some 150 years after the book's first publication, this battle still rages • Appearing here in this beautiful foil-stamped edition, On the Origin of Species includes a fascinating preface by George Davidson and includes over 100 delicately detailed and informative contemporary illustrations, many of them relating to Darwin's discoveries on H.M.S. Beagle. The text used for this edition was the last to be published during Darwin's lifetime and is considered to be the definitive version