Victoria Charles

This collection offers a wide range of works from the Antiquity to the twentieth century. This title will deal specifically with erotic pieces. Here are the most sensual and provocative masterworks which captured the feeling of an era and those that signalled the beginning of a new one. Most of these works were not immediately recognized for their genius, and others that were at first met with great resistance. All have stood the test of time and in their own ways contribute to the dialectic on what makes a painting, sculpture or object erotic, how notions of eroticism have changed, to what degree erotic art reflects reality, and to what degree it alters it. Taken together these works illuminate the changing preoccupations and insights of our ancestors and this work enables the reader to rediscover the world heritage of erotic art.

  According to the defined canons of art technique, a portrait should be, above all, a faithful representation of its model. However, this gallery of 1000 portraits illustrates how the genre has been transformed throughout history, and has proven itself to be much more complex than a simple imitation of reality. Beyond exhibiting the skill of the artist, the portrait must surpass the task of imitation, as just and precise as it may be, to translate both the intention of the artist as well as that of its patron, without betraying either’s wishes.Therefore, these silent witnesses, carefully selected in these pages, reveal more than faces of historic figures or anonymous subjects: they reveal a psychology more than an identity, illustrate an allegory, serve as political and religious propaganda, and embody the customs of their epochs. With its impressive number of masterpieces, biographies, and commentaries on works, this book presents and analyses different portraits, consequently exposing to the reader, and to any art lover, a reflection of the evolution of society, and above all the upheavals of a genre that, over 3 centuries of painting, has shaped the history of art.

Painting, sculpture, and architecture are confronted by the author of this book, to highlight the diversity and the richness of a movement whose univocal motto, For each time its art, for each art its liberty, illustrates the innovation and originality. Painting, sculpture, and architecture are confronted by the author of this book, to highlight the diversity and the richness of a movement whose univocal motto, For each time its art, for each art its liberty, illustrates the innovation and originality. Hide