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In 1303, Giotto, then considered the preeminent painter in Italy, was commissioned to paint the Arena Chapel in Padua. The resulting Chapel and its panels, detailing the history, birth, life and death of Christ, rank among the greatest artworks ever created. John Ruskin (1819-1900) redefined art criticism in the 19th century through his attention to detail, his playful and engaging prose and the conviction with which he discussed the subjects that mattered most to him. Here Ruskin examines Giotto's panels and brings them to life, describing their many hidden details, all the result of Giotto's unrivaled genius. The Arundel Society first published "Giotto and His Works in Padua" between 1853 and 1860. Long out of print, it stands as Ruskin's most compelling set of reflections on Giotto's masterpiece--an artwork that, in Ruskin's estimation, changed the very course of art history. Originally accompanied by a set of black-and-white woodcuts of the panels in the Chapel, this new edition presents each panel in vivid color photography, adding a useful visual aid to Ruskin's lyrical descriptions. The result is a book that serves not only as an introduction for students of art history, but also as a discussion of what it means to be a great artist, by one of the most influential writers ever to tackle visual art.

Summoning Pearl Harbor is a mesmerizing display of linguistic force that redefines remembering. How do words make the past appear? In what way does the historian summon bygone events? What is this kind of remembering, and for whom do we recall the dead, or the past? In this highly original meditation on the past, renowned art historian Alexander Nemerov delves into what it means to recall a significant event? Pearl Harbor?and how descriptions of images can summon it back to life. Beginning with the photo album of a former Japanese kamikaze pilot, which is reproduced in this volume, Nemerov transports the reader into a different world through his engagement with the photographs and the construction of a narrative around them. Through its lyrical prose, Summoning Pearl Harbor expands what we traditionally associate with ekphrastic writing. The kind of writing that can enliven a work of art is also the kind of writing that makes the past appear in vivid color and deep feeling. In the end, this timely piece of writing opens onto fundamental questions about how we communicate with each other, and how the past continues to live in our collective consciousness, not merely as facts but as stories that shape us. Here, Nemerov’s constant awareness of the power of language to make an experience?seen or remembered? become real reminds us that great ekphrastic writing is at the heart of every effective description.

Never before translated into English, Rainer Maria Rilke’s fascinating Letters to a Very Young Painter , written toward the end of his life between 1920 and 1926, is a surprising companion to his infamous Letters to a Young Poet , earlier correspondence from 1902 to 1908. While the latter has become a global phenomenon, with millions of copies sold in many different languages, the present volume has been largely overlooked. In these eight intimate letters written to a teenage Balthus?who would go on to become one of the leading artists of his generation?Rilke describes the challenges he faced, while opening the door for the young painter to take himself and his work seriously. Rilke’s constant warmth, his ability to sense in advance his correspondent’s difficulties and propose solutions to them, and his sensitivity as a person and an artist come across in these charming and honest letters. Writing during his aged years, this volume paints a picture of the venerable poet as he faced his mortality, through the perspective of hindsight, and continued to embrace his openness towards other creative individuals. With a new introduction by Rachel Corbett, author of You Must Change Your Life: The Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin , this book is a must-have for Rilke’s admirers, young and old, and all aspiring artists.

"The Rail is the best publication of its kind in New York?and it keeps getting better." –Paul Auster Since 2000, The Brooklyn Rail has been a platform for artists, academics, critics, poets and writers in New York and abroad. The monthly journal’s continued appeal is due in large part to its diverse contributors, many of whom bring contrasting and often unexpected opinions to conversations about art and aesthetics. No other publication devotes as much space to the artist’s voice, allowing ideas to unfold and idiosyncrasies to emerge through open discussion. Since its inception, cofounder and artistic director Phong Bui and the Rail’s contributors have interviewed over 400 artists for The Brooklyn Rail. This volume brings together for the first time a selection of sixty of the most influential and seminal interviews with artists ranging from Richard Serra and Brice Marden, to Alex Da Corte and House of Ladosha. While each interview is important in its own right, offering a perspective on the life and work of a specific artist, collectively they tell the story of a journal that has grown during one of the more diverse and surprising periods in visual art. Selected and coedited by Jarrett Earnest, a frequent Rail contributor, with Lucas Zwirner, the book includes an introduction to the project by Phong Bui as well as many of the hand-drawn portraits he has made of those he has interviewed over the years. This combination of verbal and visual profiles offers a rare and personal insight into contemporary visual culture.

There are many myths about Edgar Degas--from Degas the misanthrope to Degas the deviant to Degas the obsessive. But there is no single text that better stokes the fire than Degas and His Model, a short memoir by Alice Michel, who purportedly modeled for Degas. Never before translated into English, the text's original publication in Mercure de France in 1919, shortly after the artist's death, has been treated as an important account of the master sculptor at work. We know that Alice was writing under a pseudonym, but who the real person behind this account was remains a mystery. Yet the descriptions seem too accurate, the anecdotes too spot-on to discount; even the dialogue captures the artist's tone and mannerisms. What is found in these pages is at times a woman's flirtatious recollection of a bizarre "artistic type" and at others a moving attempt to connect with a great, often tragic man. The descriptions are limpid; the dialogue is lively and intimate, not unlike reading the very best kind of gossip, with world-historical significance.

Lebensztejn is one of France’s best - kept secrets. A world - class art historian who has lectured and taught at major universities in the United States, his work has remained almost entirely in French, his American audience limited to a sma ll but dedicated group of cognoscenti. First introducing the Manneken Pis ? the iconic little boy whose stream of urine supplies water to this famous fountain and is also the logo for a Belgian beer company ? the author takes the reader through a semi - scatological maze of cultural history. The earliest example is a fresco scene loc ated directly above Cimabue’s Crucifixion from around 1280 at the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, in which Lebensztejn’s careful eye locates an angel behind a pillar urinating through a hole in his garment. He continues to navigate expertly through cu ltural twists and turns, stopping to discuss Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1968 film Teorema , for example, and Marlene Dumas’s 1996 – 1997 homage to Rembrandt’s pissing woman. At every moment, Lebensztejn’s prose is lively, his thinking dynamic, and his subject matt er entertaining. In this short and poignant cultural history, readers will not only find the care for detail that has made Lebensztejn into one of the greatest European art historians, but also the rebelliousness that makes him one of the most interesting intellectuals of our time.

Long overlooked in Proust’s posthumously published writings, Chardin and Rembrandt , written when he was only twenty - four years old, not only reemphasizes the importance of visual art to his development, but contains the seeds of his later work. Proposed in 1895 by Proust to the newspaper Revue hebdomadaire (it was rejected), this essay i s much more than a straightforward piece of art criticism. It is a literary experiment in which an unnamed narrator gives advice to a young man suffering from melancholy, taking him on an imaginary tour through the Louvre where his readings of Chardin imbu e the everyday world with new meaning, and his ruminations on Rembrandt take his melancholic pupil beyond the realm of mere objects. Published for the first time as a stand - alone volume and newly translated, this edition, part of the David Zwirner Books ekphrasis series, aims to introduce a wider audience to one of Proust’s most important and influential works in Western literature . “For the true artist,” as Proust writes, “as for the natural scientist, every type is interesting, and even the smallest mus cle has its importance.” The same could be said of the author’s own work ? every essay has its own crucial place in the formation of his groundbreaking oeuvre. The afterword by renowned Proust scholar Alain Madeleine - Perdrillat , originally published in the French by Le Bruit du Temps, is an impassioned argument in favor of returning to the lost paths of Proust’s early thinking. It sees, in the passage from Chardin’s world of objects to Rembrandt’s contemplative paintings, a move ment toward the radical interiority for which Proust would later become widely celebrated as a novelist. Written at the beginning of his literary career, Chardin and Rembrandt gestures back to some of Proust’s earliest notes on art, while creating space fo r what was to come.

"Criticism is our censorship...." So begins one of the greatest invectives against criticism ever written by an artist. Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) wrote "Racontars de Rapin" only months before he died in 1903, but the essay remained unpublished until 1951. Through discussions of numerous artists, both his contemporaries and predecessors, Gauguin unpacks what he viewed as the mistakes and misjudgments behind much of art criticism, revealing not only how wrong critics' interpretations have been, but also what it would mean to approach art properly--to really look. This new translation by French writer and academic Donatien Grau includes an introduction that situates the essay within Gauguin's written oeuvre, as well as a selection of works to illustrate the text itself. Through Gauguin's final piece of writing we see the artist in the full throes of passion--for his work, for his art, for the art of others and against anyone who would stand in his way. As the inaugural publication in David Zwirner Books' new Ekphrasis reader series, Ramblings of a Wannabe Painter sets a perfect tone for the books to come. Poised between writing, art and criticism, Gauguin brings together many different worlds, all of which should be considered for any meaningful discussion of art. With the express hope of encouraging open exchange between the world of writing and that of the visual arts, David Zwirner Books is proud to be presenting this new edition of a lost masterpiece.